The bipartisan gun control bill that was introduced in the Senate this weekend is largely based on a muscular but bug-ridden bureaucratic workhorse known to any American who has bought a gun. fire recently: the federal background check system.
Two of the most important reform measures being discussed in response to the Buffalo and Uvalde massacres — the inclusion of child records in background checks and new restrictions on purchases by a wider range of domestic abusers — depend on the efficient operation of the check system. which is led by the FBI and is already facing a huge increase in demand for weapons.
“Almost everything they’re doing depends on this system. It’s the foundation,” said Mark Collins, a senior official at Brady, the gun control group that played a central role in setting up the system in 1993. “The foundation is in trouble.”
The National Instant Background Check System (three gigantic, interconnected databases containing state and federal records collectively referred to as “NICS”) – is an administrative marvel, even its critics acknowledge. In 2021, the system processed 40 million gun transactions, 88 percent of them in just a few minutes, and blocked hundreds of daily purchases attempted by people with a criminal record, mental health problems, and addiction. drugs or other factors that prevented them from buying a weapon. under state or federal law.
However, despite all its strengths, the system was designed almost three decades ago to operate at a fraction of its current capacity. It works with serious built-in limitations introduced by the gun lobby, which pushed it to accelerate gun sales, inserting a provision that allows gun dealers to give their weapons to buyers if the investigation is not completed within three business days.
And while all 50 states participate in the system, it is still technically voluntary, so the federal government has no authority to order states to provide any records, or to dictate a timetable for data delivery. This, many law enforcement officials believe, has contributed to the system’s persistent loopholes that have been associated with several high-profile mass killings and many other lesser-known crimes.
Records of a buyer’s domestic violence, juvenile justice, and mental health history are among the most difficult to trace, compile, or even define, according to people who have studied or worked with the verification system. of background.
The compromise legislation being considered would open, for the first time, access to juvenile delinquency and mental health records for 18- to 21-year-old shoppers. But it could take years to establish protocols for states to transfer their data, reflecting the chronic challenges of collecting reliable mental health records.
“I think there are potential gaps in the system that become more important when all these new elements are added,” said William G. Brooks III, chief of police for Norwood, Massachusetts.
“I think there are a lot of gaps in NICS? No,” said Brooks, a member of the board of the International Association of Police Chiefs, which has worked to improve the system. “It’s just as good as the data goes in.”
The Senate package being negotiated, with Texas Sen. John Cornyn representing Republicans and Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy the Democrats, includes increased funding for the system and incentives for states to implement procedures to identify troubled buyers. mental health, along with funding to address them. problems.
But it does not give the FBI significant new authority to force local governments to release the data needed to conduct thorough checks quickly.
The federal background check system “is broken in many ways,” said Benjamin Dowd-Arrow, a public health researcher at Florida State University who studies armed violence.
“There’s not always an interconnection to make sure people are properly reviewed,” he said. “So we end up with a fractured system where some people slip under the radar.”
Even the smallest mistake can lead, directly or indirectly, to tragedy. In 2014, a 15-year-old boy entered high school in Marysville, Washington, killing four students before committing suicide. The weapon he used was bought by his father, who obtained it after a background check did not mark a protection order filed against him for assaulting his ex-partner, after local authorities did not introduce a convicted of domestic abuse, which should have stopped the sale instantly.
In another case, in 2017, a gunman broke into a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, killing 26 people with a semi-automatic weapon. He had bought it after his background check did not include a conviction for domestic violence prior to his departure from the Air Force, which had failed to introduce the conviction into the system.
The Senate hastily passed a bill to encourage better record keeping among federal agencies.
A separate but critical issue, gun advocates say, is closing gaps that allow private sellers to sell weapons without any background checks. This idea, opposed by Republicans, was never seriously discussed in the current talks, in the interest of reaching a bipartisan agreement that could get 60 votes.
“There are so many other ways that guns are sold outside of this system, such as gun shows, over the Internet or through private sales,” said Rebecca Fischer, executive director of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence.
“It’s like going to the airport and being told that some people have to go through security and some don’t,” added Lindsay Nichols of the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
Over the years, gun control advocates have worked to address shortcomings in the background check system, but have encountered persistent opposition from Republican lawmakers and the gun lobby, who have argued that existing state and federal background checks already restrict the rights of the Second Amendment.
On a technical level, with the exception of sporadic errors, NICS works pretty well every day. Gun shop owners, the first line of defense to identify questionable buyers, say the system often prevents them from selling a gun to the wrong person.
Krys Dibella, co-owner of Tobacco Valley Gun in East Windsor, Connecticut, said about a year and a half ago, a man with a gun permit entered his store to buy a gun.
Mr. Dibella said he called the Connecticut State Police, one of the few states that administers its own stricter background check system, which is integrated with NICS.
“The police said, ‘Please wait,’ and about 10 minutes later three police cruisers showed up,” he recalled. “The police handcuffed him to the store and went with him.”
Police would only tell him the man had a pending warrant.
The FBI in 2008 tried to quantify record gaps in NICS, but abandoned the effort a few years later after encountering logistical and funding problems.
The most recent non-profit study, conducted by the National Consortium for Justice Information and Statistics in 2013, estimated that up to a quarter of all felony convictions were “not available” to NICS.
The time constraints imposed on research make the system even more vulnerable to error. The biggest problem with NICS, in the eyes of its critics, is the so-called “Charleston crack,” which allows shoppers to pick up their weapons after three business days, even if they haven’t been completely overhauled, a scenario that is can produce. when a potential problem is identified that requires follow-up investigation.
The 72-hour rule, inserted at the behest of Republican lawmakers in the Brady Bill negotiations three decades ago, played a direct role in one of the deadliest racial attacks in U.S. history. A white supremacist who killed nine people at a predominantly black church in Charleston, SC, in 2015 was allowed to pick up his gun after three business days had passed but a complete overhaul had not been completed.
It was later found that the gunman should have been banned from buying a firearm because he had previously admitted to police that he was in possession of a controlled substance. But confusion over local law enforcement records prevented authorities from detecting the problem within the set timeframe.
It is not known how many crimes have been committed by buyers who were allowed to retrieve weapons after three days with still incomplete background checks, but between 5,000 and 6,500 weapons a year are confiscated from people who were later determined to be they were disabled, according to the FBI’s NICS 2021 operations report.
These people are considered to be so dangerous that the armed agents of the Office of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the agency in charge of recovering the weapons, are told to drop everything they do to recover weapons, according to current and former agents.
The compromise being considered now would address this issue closely by delaying the purchases of 18- to 21-year-olds until a review of juvenile records can be completed.
Cassandra Crifasi, deputy director of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Arms Violence Solutions Center, said she was disappointed that the Senate was not considering extending the 72-hour period for all potential buyers. , which many states have launched. place.
“This is low fruit,” he said. “It’s not about firing on people. It’s about giving more time to law enforcement to make sure people who shouldn’t have guns don’t get them. “
According to officials, NICS works best when it comes to black and white metrics, such as a criminal conviction history. But all tracking systems become considerably less reliable when reports are based on data, such as mental health records or domestic violence complaints, which are subject to more subjective interpretations by healthcare …