SIOUX FALLS - A gun safety group wants South Dakota to create a system to gather and submit records of people who have been found to be a danger to themselves or to others because of mental illness.

South Dakota and 27 other states do not submit such records to a national database.

In January, President Bush signed what's called the "National Instant Check System Improvement Amendments Act." States that don't submit the records could lose federal crime-fighting money.

State officials say there's no system in place to gather and submit those records, and that it would take legislative action to make that happen.

The state should begin that process now, said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence based in Washington, D.C.

"We believe there are South Dakota records that ought to be in this system," Helmke said. "We urge Gov. Rounds, the appropriate state agencies and the South Dakota Legislature to start now to improve the state's submission of records."

Those records are generated when individuals are ordered into inpatient or outpatient treatment for mental illness against their will because they were found to be a danger to themselves or others.

The issue drew national attention last April when a student at Virginia Tech killed 32. That gunman was allowed to buy semiautomatic pistols and high-capacity ammunition magazines even though a court had found him to be dangerously mentally ill.

In the aftermath of that, the law signed by Bush created financial incentives for states and localities to improve their record-keeping and share it with the federal data system.

States will split $250 million annually to pay for the effort, said Peter Hamm, spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

They also face the potential loss of federal crime-fighting dollars if they don't get a reporting system in place and start sending on the records.

Mitch Krebs, spokesman for Gov. Mike Rounds, said the governor is aware of the new law and the request for South Dakota's records, "and has people from various agencies reviewing the legislation."

To the extent that significant federal dollars could be lost, whether it involves mental-illness funding or crime-fighting money, someone will take the lead in making those records available, Attorney General Larry Long said.

"Obviously, the agencies upon who the penalties fall, it will get their attention," Long said. "Somebody in the administration will pick up the ball and run with it."