Disqualified buyers acquire over 4,000 guns
Getting weapons back puts ATF agents’ lives at risk
Just weeks after the U.S. attorney general ordered a sweeping review of vetting procedures linked to the nation’s background check system for firearms, a USA TODAY review finds the FBI requested more than 4,000 retrievals of guns from prohibited buyers last year — the most in 10 years.
There’s a three-day waiting period for gun purchases, but if a background check isn’t finished within 72 hours, the sale may proceed. If federal agents later find the purchase should have been blocked, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is asked to seize the weapons. Agents are put in harm’s way any time they must take action on such a failure.
WASHINGTON – Federal authorities sought to take back guns from thousands of people the background check system should have blocked from buying weapons because they had criminal records, mental health issues or other problems that would disqualify them.
A USA TODAY review found that the FBI issued more than 4,000 requests last year for agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to retrieve guns from prohibited buyers.
It’s the largest number of such retrieval requests in 10 years, according to bureau records — an especially striking statistic after revelations that a breakdown in the background check system allowed a troubled Air Force veteran to buy a rifle used to kill more than two dozen people at a Texas church last month.
The FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) vets millions of gun purchase transactions every year. The thousands of gun sei-
“These are people who shouldn’t have weapons in the first place, and it just takes one to do something that could have tragic consequences.” David Chipman Former ATF official
zure requests highlight persistent problems in a system in which analysts must complete background checks within three days of the proposed purchase. If the background check is not complete within the 72hour time limit, federal law allows the sale to go forward. ATF agents are asked to take back the guns if the FBI later finds these sales should have been denied.
The ATF agents tasked with retrieving the banned weapons from unauthorized gun owners across the country are exposed to potentially dangerous confrontations.
“These are people who shouldn’t have weapons in the first place, and it just takes one to do something that could have tragic consequences,” said David Chipman, a former ATF official who helped oversee the firearm retrieval program. “You don’t want ATF to stand for ‘after the fact.’ ”
It was not clear how many gun seizure requests agents successfully executed last year or how many weapons were recovered. Since multiple firearms can be purchased in a transaction, the number of guns that should have been banned could be higher.
Chipman, a senior policy adviser for the Giffords Law Center, which advocates for more gun restrictions, called the retrieval process “uniquely dangerous.”
Stephen Morris, a former assistant FBI director, said FBI examiners who review gun purchasers’ backgrounds recognize the risks.
“They are very aware of the inherent risk to law enforcement officers when they (seek) a firearm retrieval,” said Morris, who recently oversaw the bureau’s background check operation based in West Virginia. “They feel tremendous pressure to make a determination” within the three-day period.
Review of gun vetting system
The sudden spike in gun retrieval directives is attributed in part to the record 27.5 million background checks fielded by NICS examiners last year.
Last month, Attorney General Jeff Sessions launched a sweeping review of the vetting system after a reporting breakdown allowed Devin Kelley to purchase a rifle that he used in the church shootings Nov. 5 in Texas.
Air Force officials acknowledged that the service failed to transmit a record of Kelley’s court-martial on domestic assault charges to the FBI, which would have made him ineligible for the purchase of the rifle in 2016. Tuesday, the Air Force said a preliminary review concluded that the reporting error was part of a broader problem within the service, indicating that “similar reporting lapses occurred at other locations.”
The Kelley case highlights longstanding problems with government databases that are rife with incomplete or inadequate record submissions. Morris said the NICS depends on those databases that largely rely on voluntary record submissions from law enforcement agencies, the military and mental health authorities to guard against unauthorized firearm purchases.
Mixed success rate
The government’s record when it comes to retrieving improperly purchased guns has been mixed.
The ATF declined to provide information on the 4,170 gun purchases the FBI referred for seizure last year. They reflect a substantial increase from 2,892 requests the previous year. The FBI said the ATF is not required to report back on the status of the retrieval efforts.
In 2004, the Justice Department’s inspector general found that the ATF’s retrieval efforts were plagued by staffing shortages, technological inefficiencies and a general lack of urgency that resulted in recovery delays of up to a year.
“ATF agents did not consider most of the prohibited persons who had obtained guns to be dangerous and therefore did not consider it a priority to retrieve the firearm promptly,” the report concluded.
An inspector general’s report last year found marked improvement. Of 125 transactions examined from 2008 to 2014, investigators found that the ATF recovered 116 — or 93% — of the firearms. Of the nine outstanding cases, five buyers could not be located. Two had resold the firearms. One case was turned over to local authorities, and another was not pursued because the agency “did not have the resources to retrieve the firearm,” the report found.