WASHINGTON — Citing financial and gun rights concerns, Sen. Tom Coburn has blocked a bill aimed at ensuring mental health records are entered into the national background system used for gun purchases.

The bill was approved in the House earlier this year after slayings at Virginia Tech University in April. Seung-Hui Cho, a student at the university, killed 32 people before killing himself.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Monday that Cho "fell through the cracks of our checking systems and bought guns and ammunition” even though he had a history of mental illness.

A court order from 2005 that deemed Cho a danger to himself was never entered by the state of Virginia into the national background check system.

States would get help

The legislation would authorize spending to help states collect information about mental illness records and criminal convictions and enter it into the system.

"We already have a comprehensive background check system, but since the system relies on up-to-date computer searches to produce fast results, it is only as good as the automated information the states provide,” Schumer said on the Senate floor Monday.

Schumer and others had hoped to pass the bill Monday under a fast-track process, but Coburn has a hold on it.

In a statement, Coburn said, "When politicians create new ways to spend money they should be forced to do what every American family has to do and make choices between competing priorities. This bill authorizes more than $2 billion in new spending that is not paid for with reductions in other lower-priority areas of the budget.”

Coburn said "veterans, or any other American, should not lose their Second Amendment rights if they have been unfairly tagged as having mental health concerns. The bill does not fund a process by which such individuals can regain their rights.”