RICHMOND -- One day after receiving a critical report on the Virginia Tech shootings, Gov. Tim Kaine said Friday that he will push for action on many of its sweeping recommendations in the upcoming General Assembly session.

Kaine said the report of his handpicked investigative panel makes a powerful case for overhauls in the mental health system and also could lead to changes in privacy laws and gun controls. The governor and his staff will spend the coming weeks prioritizing the panel's recommendations, assessing their costs and developing a plan for implementing those requiring state action, he said.

"You're going to see us bring an awful lot of this to the legislature this session," Kaine said during an interview in his office.

In its report on the April 16 crisis, the eight-member panel concluded that communication failures, confusion over privacy laws and a flawed mental health system contributed to the worst campus shooting incident in U.S. history. The shootings left 33 students and faculty dead, including gunman Seung-Hui Cho, a troubled student who had a mental disorder.

Kaine said the report contained both criticism and praise and was, by necessity, unsparingly blunt.

"If you don't lay out honestly where the gaps were and where the mistakes were, then you can't fix it," he said. "And that's been my goal from the start. When I put these people on this panel, and when I talked to the [victims'] family members, I said my main goal is not to make family members happy, it's not to make Tech happy. My main goal is to fix this."

The panel issued more than 70 recommendations aimed at colleges and universities, law enforcement agencies, mental health providers and policymakers. Kaine said all of the recommendations have merit, and that mental health issues "certainly will be at the front."

"I think that this report can be the biggest opportunity for change in mental health laws in Virginia in the modern era," Kaine said.

Kaine expressed dismay that Cho never received outpatient treatment ordered by a court following a December 2005 complaint that led to Cho's temporary detention in a behavioral health facility. The failure exposed gaps in a system that advocates consider overburdened and underfunded as emphasis shifts from centralized treatment to community-based care.

"There's always other issues before it in line and there's always other issues on the front burner," Kaine said. "But I think this report will be an opportunity for mental health issues to be on the front burner."

Mira Signer, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Virginia, said "all eyes are on Virginia."

"How could there possibly be a better way of honoring the people who died and were injured than by having leadership to make the changes that need to be made?" Signer said.

Some New River Valley legislators said their region may need additional help to address ongoing trauma-related needs stemming from the campus shootings.

"We know we're going to need additional support over the next 18 to 24 months," said Del. Jim Shuler, D-Blacksburg.

Lawmakers in both parties expect widespread support for mental health reforms when the legislature convenes in January. But the panel's recommendations on firearms laws could create friction in a legislature that is largely resistant to new gun controls.

Kaine issued an executive order in April requiring information about involuntary mental health commitments to be reported to a federal database used to check the backgrounds of gun buyers. The panel also recommended eliminating an exemption known as the "gun show loophole" that allows some unlicensed dealers to sell guns without conducting background checks.

House Majority Leader Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, said the recommendation is irrelevant to the Tech shootings because Cho purchased his handguns from licensed retailers.

"I have a hard time connecting the two," Griffith said.

Kaine argued that lawmakers should close all avenues to gun purchases by people who can't clear background checks.

"Should somebody who's mentally ill and dangerous be able to get a gun or not?" Kaine said. "And if the answer is they shouldn't be, then let's have rules to protect the public and disable those people from having weapons."

Kaine said the panel's report should not cast a cloud over a university still recovering from the shootings. The governor has supported Tech President Charles Steger since the shootings and will be on campus today for the much-anticipated opening of the football season.

Kaine and Steger will participate in a pre-game ceremony honoring first responders from April 16, then watch the contest between Tech and East Carolina. The governor said he and his 15-year-old son, Woody, an avid Hokies fan, will tour the campus and visit a recently dedicated memorial to the shooting victims.

Kaine said he probably would have attended the game under any circumstances, "but I had no doubt I would go to opening day this year."

"I don't know what it says that I'm there, but I wouldn't have been anywhere else," he said.