USA TODAY International Edition
Sessions orders review of firearms tracking system
Overburdened group logs millions of gun purchases
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has ordered the federal government to review a system used to track gun ownership and restrict firearms sales. The move comes less than three weeks after Devin Kelley, a court-martialed Air Force veteran, used a rifle he bought in 2016 to kill 25 people inside a Sutherland Springs, Texas, church.
The victims included a pregnant woman whose unborn child also died.
In a memo issued Wednesday, Sessions ordered the FBI and federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to review the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).
Among other requests, Sessions directed the FBI and ATF to resolve issues with the U.S. military’s reporting of convictions and other information, and to identify other federal government entities that are not “fully and accurately reporting information to NICS.”
The Air Force’s failure to transmit the criminal record of Kelley to the FBI highlights a longstanding problem with NICS.
Mandated by Congress as part of the Brady Handgun Prevention Act, it has for more than 20 years served as the centerpiece of the government’s effort to block criminals from obtaining firearms. Yet it has largely struggled to keep pace with the volume of firearm transactions and still properly maintain the databases of criminal and mental health records necessary to determine whether buyers are eligible to purchase guns.
Last year, the FBI official overseeing NICS was forced to transfer personnel from construction projects and units that oversee the gathering of crime statistics to keep up with the surge of requests for background checks. The office processed a record 27.5 million background checks in 2016.
At the ATF’s National Tracing Center, shipping containers and cardboard boxes brimming with purchase records have languished in hallways and in the center’s parking lot in recent years, awaiting transfer to an electronic system.
Stephen Morris, a former assistant FBI director, told USA TODAY after the shooting that the NICS system has long been plagued by incomplete or outdated information.
In many cases, a background check may show a record of arrest, but there is no additional information to indicate whether the case was dismissed or resulted in a felony conviction.
The mere record of arrest is not enough to prohibit a gun sale, so FBI analysts must race to fill such information gaps within the three-day time period allotted for each check. The search sometimes requires inquiries to police departments, courthouses and prisons across the country to match final dispositions to incomplete records.
In Kelley’s case, the Air Force not only failed to provide the record of his conviction — it also missed other potential opportunities to alert the FBI to Kelley’s legal troubles. Among them: his initial arrest on domestic abuse charges and his 2012 escape from a New Mexico behavioral health facility
Federal authorities have for years openly complained that incomplete databases and staff shortages make it difficult to keep pace with the constant stream of background checks required of most new gun purchasers and to efficiently trace firearms used in crimes.
In a statement, Sessions said NICS “is critical for us to be able to keep guns out of the hands of those that are prohibited from owning them.” He said the Texas shooting “revealed that relevant information may not be getting reported to the NICS – this is alarming and it is unacceptable.”