Ohio sheriffs are worried, with good reason, that they will be unable to screen out the seriously mentally ill from getting a gun license, under the state's new concealed carry law. A new federal privacy law has made the sheriff's duty to do competency checks more daunting. The Buckeye State Sheriffs' Association may need to go back to the Ohio General Assembly for help.

There is not much time, since the concealed carry law (HB 12) goes into effect April 8, and sheriffs are authorized to begin accepting applications within 60 days afterwards. The law provides for giving notice of persons committed to state mental health hospitals by the courts, but sheriffs' record checks may be blind to persons committed by their families, to those in private mental hospitals or to other severely disturbed people, even if they have been under a psychiatrist's care for years.

HIPAA, the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, went into effect last April. It makes it illegal for hospitals, clinics and other health-care providers to release patient medical records. Court rulings are not subject to HIPAA privacy protections, but the courts see only a percentage of the people no one wants to have packing a loaded handgun. Sam Hibbs, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Mental Health, says about 17 percent of patients in Ohio state mental hospitals were committed without a court order. In Ohio, private mental hospitals account for an additional 3,000 beds, and it's unknown how many of those private patients were committed without a court order.

Cleveland resident Chad Baus, spokesman for Ohioans for Concealed Carry, argues any conflict between HB 12 and HIPAA is a non-issue, because "HB 12 was never intended to allow checks of private health records via anything other than court records." He adds that neither Kentucky nor Indiana runs competency checks for patients committed by family or other non-court procedures, and insists Kentucky and Indiana aren't having any problems.

But who can blame Ohio sheriffs for being anxious, not just about their ability to get timely notices of recent court-ordered commitments and past ones, but also about an entire other universe of seriously disturbed people who have never come before a court? It's true that lawmakers need to exercise great care in not stigmatizing anyone who has been treated for mental distress, because soldiers, police officers and other emergency specialists may be counted among them.

Families can help the cause by making sure mentally ill relatives who may pose some threat of gun violence are brought before the courts and that proper notices are on record. But Ohio officials ought not to rely on it. Sheriffs run criminal record checks, even though many hard-core criminals acquire guns by illegal means and are unlikely to apply for a gun license.

Sheriffs ought to be given as much notice as possible about the dangerously mentally disturbed. Ohio lawmakers should revisit HB 12 to see if they can give sheriffs the notification they need to protect the public.