Surprise: FBI Database Missing Millions Of Records For Gun Purchases

11 Nov, 2017 by William Teach

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According to the Democrat gun grabbers, we’re supposed to pass a whole raft of new “gun control” laws in order to stop gun violence which the Government will administer, yet, they can’t deal with the ones currently on the books

FBI database for gun buyers missing millions of records

The FBI’s background-check system is missing millions of records of criminal convictions, mental illness diagnoses and other flags that would keep guns out of potentially dangerous hands, a gap that contributed to the shooting deaths of 26 people in a Texas church this week.

Experts who study the data say government agencies responsible for maintaining such records have long failed to forward them into federal databases used for gun background checks — systemic breakdowns that have lingered for decades as officials decided they were too costly and time-consuming to fix. (snip)

The FBI said it doesn’t know the scope of the problem, but the National Rifle Association says about 7 million records are absent from the system, based on a 2013 report by the nonprofit National Consortium for Justice Information and Statistics. That report determined that “at least 25% of felony convictions . . . are not available” to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System maintained by the FBI.

Of course, some Big Government supporters claim the NRA figure is inflated, because of course they do.

The government funded a four-year effort beginning in 2008 to try to estimate how many records existed of people who should be barred under federal law from buying a gun but aren’t flagged in the FBI system. That effort was abandoned in 2012 because of the cost.

That’s weird: suddenly, government is concerned about cost when it’s a study that would show that government is incompetent.

The National Rifle Association has complained that the federal database is inadequate. The powerful gun rights lobbying group opposes calls for more restrictions on gun buying, arguing that the government should focus instead on making its current background-check system fully functional.

“The shortcomings of the system have been identified, there just seems to be a lack of will to address them,’’ said Louis Dekmar, president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

If this system is not being used correctly, why would new gun grabbing laws work?

A large number of people convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence — who also are prohibited from buying guns — are absent from the FBI database as well, particularly in states that don’t require fingerprints for such convictions, according to people involved in the work.

The article is unclear as to whether this applies to the Air Force, the military in general, or all. As to the first two, let’s remember that it has been shown that both have been seriously negligent in reporting the information to the firearms database.

Moreover, many convicted domestic abusers who buy guns do so not through a gun store, as Kelley did, but online or from gun shows, advocates say. In the case of such private sales, sellers are not obligated to run buyers’ names through the federal database.

Here we go again. The vast majority of online and gun show purchases are made from sellers who a required to do a background check, and do so.

“We know when these records are in the system that it’s effective,” said Monica McLaughlin, director of public policy for the National Network to End Domestic Violence. “It bars batterers from obtaining weapons. It’s a really effective tool that exists in federal law that we have created, but compliance is inconsistent at best and incredibly lackluster.”

When the records make it to the system. But, none of this matters: gun grabbers want to grab guns.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.