Section 1 Short title
This Act may be cited as the “Safer Communities Act of 2017”.
Safer Communities Act of 2017
A BILL
To protect individuals by strengthening the Nation’s mental health infrastructure, improving the understanding of violence, strengthening firearm prohibitions and protections for at-risk individuals, and improving and expanding the reporting of mental health records to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
Sec. 2 Table of contents
The table of contents of this Act is as follows:
Sec. 3 Statement of purpose
The purpose of this Act is to ensure the public safety and welfare of communities by promoting evidence-based approaches that will prevent the tragic toll of gun violence on families and communities. This purpose can be accomplished by—
strengthening and improving intervention efforts by increasing investments in programs designed to appropriately identify, respond to, treat, and mitigate future behavioral health crises;
prioritizing research on reducing the threat of gun violence to self or others and identifying further risk factors for violence, including gender, culture, substance abuse, and history of violence; and
restricting gun access by individuals found to be at an elevated risk of committing future acts of violence against self or others.