Improving our background check system can save lives

The horrific reality of domestic violence affects families in every community, every day. In Pennsylvania alone, there were 102 domestic violence related deaths last year, and more than half of those deaths involved a gun. We know that intimate partner violence and access to firearms can be a deadly, tragic mix: statistics show that abused women are five times more likely to be killed if an abuser has access to a firearm.

If we are serious about keeping families safe, we need to do more to make sure that law enforcement officers have access to the information they need to identify dangerous individuals during the background check process.

Over two decades ago, Congress took steps to tackle the serious problem of domestic violence homicide by coming together and prohibiting convicted domestic abusers from accessing firearms. Congress later followed up on this effort by authorizing important grant programs that provide states with federal funding to upload records into the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS. Despite improvements to the background check system, it still contains many serious gaps, especially when it comes to domestic violence records.

Right now, the extent to which domestic violence records appear during a NICS background check varies dramatically from state to state. Many states do not have protocols to distinguish misdemeanor domestic violence convictions from other misdemeanor convictions in their records, meaning a domestic violence conviction may fail to be properly reported to NICS. Many states do not give enough information to NICS about domestic violence protection orders, which are important indications that individuals feel threatened or have already been harmed and are taking steps to protect themselves.

Without information about misdemeanor charges and protective orders, NICS cannot identify whether a conviction or restraining order disqualifies the person from possessing a gun. That means the domestic abusers can still pass a NICS background check. In fact, according to the Government Accountability Office, these missing pieces of information have allowed domestic abusers to pass background checks and obtain guns over 6,700 times between 2006 and 2015. That is 6,700 instances where we could have prevented a dangerous person from threatening, harming, or killing an innocent person if our records system had been more comprehensive. That is 6,700 times when the laws on the books failed to protect our families, and it is 6,700 times too many.

That’s why we are proud to introduce the Domestic Violence Records Reporting Improvement Act, bipartisan legislation that would incentivize states to report the proper domestic violence records to NICS and make grants more available to help them with this process. By strengthening current law, we can make sure that states upload every domestic violence record into NICS and improve safety of domestic violence victims and communities.

The goal of this bill is to encourage states to improve the submission of domestic violence records in NICS. By requiring states to report domestic violence records as a condition for qualifying for National Criminal History Improvement Program (NCHIP) grants, which help states submit criminal history records, states will prioritize submitting complete domestic violence records in a timely manner. Second, the bill would make NICS Act Record Improvement Program (NARIP) grants available to all states that wish to use those grants to improve the accessibility of domestic violence records into the background check system. We can better protect our families and make our communities safer, but doing so requires action, and this is a critical step forward.

Rep. Ryan Costello represents Pennsylvania’s 6th Congressional District. Mary Kay Bernosky is CEO of Safe Berks (formerly Berks Women in Crisis).