NICS is not going to go away if we refuse to fix it.
NICS is not going away if we bash NRA for supporting fixin it.
Fix Nix is not Upchuck Schumer's baby.
Fix NICS announced Thu16 Nov 2017 introduced in the Senate by
John Cornyn (R-TX),
Chris Murphy (D-CT),
Tim Scott (R-SC) and
Richard Blumenthal (D-CT),
soon added co-sponsors:
Orrin Hatch (R-UT),
Dianne Feinstein (D-CA),
Dean Heller (R-NV), and
Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH).
Four Democrats, four Republicans, only later did 18 other Dem and Rep senators and 1 independent sign on, including Charlie Schumer. Maybe Schumer signed on to poison it. It is John Cornyn (R-TX)'s baby regardless of who signed on.
Goal: "to compel federal and state officials to report criminal history records to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS)"
citing the case of Devin Patrick Kelly adjudicated by the military justice system as a felony threat to others (convicted of beating his wife, fracturing his son's skull) whose conviction on felony-level domestic violence was not reported to NICS.
It would be nice to believe that the goal of
Fix Nix is getting only truly deserving miscreants listed in NICS. Getting adjudicated-as-violent people listed is a good first step. I support NRA in that goal. (I have found that a lot of the "bash NRA" rhetoric from rival groups is hyperbolic. The "bash NRA" rhetoric from anti-gun sources same-old-same-old too. It makes me make sure to always renew my NRA membership.)
My objection is
Fix Nix has a stated goal to add people to the prohibited person list but does not have a goal of removing false positives from the system. I want false positives removed from the system. *pouting*
I know about people whose check system false positives included:
_ hotel clerk listed as suspect in hotel robbery in the 1960s (but cleared) suddenly showing up as a false positive decades later when old state records were added to the federal background records (all employees were listed as suspect until cleared by investigation--but the clearance was not in the permanent record just the list of suspects); ATF threatened to pull his FFL until he was able to get a deposition from the state bureau investigator who remembered his case and the fact he was cleared as a suspect;
_ man detained at traffic stop as a federal jugitive (released because FBI said it was mistaken identity, right name, wrong guy); record of detaining as federal fugitive in the files, record of release as case of mistaken identity was not; he had a copy of the court disposition of his case to attach to the appeal everytime he was denied gun purchase by BG check;
_ man in Georgia denied a gun purchase because the SSN had been miskeyed in a Washington State report of a felon sex offender that was added to NICS.
The NICS database of prohibited persons should be true positives on adjudicated threats-to-others as spelled out in the statutes. There should be a dedication to removing false negatives -- and I don't mean ATF issuing PINs (personal identification numbers) to people who can prove their innocence, as they now do.
NICS should be a needle stack of true positives, not a hay stack of guilty true positives and innocent false positives. NICS is such a mess of junk data that persons denied gun purchase by NICS are hardly ever prosecuted for lying on the 4473 by signing off on question 11 that they are not prohibited persons.
Apparently no one wants to forget that the Obama Administration had all disabled veterans who had a fiduciary handling their financial affairs labelled dangerous mental cases for NICS prohibited person status, and tried to get all social security recipients who had a fiduciary handling their financial affairs labelled dangerous mental cases too. When ACLU, NRA and Donald Trump advocated requiring that social security recipients with fiduciaries had to to be adjudicated as dangerous mental cases before being added to the NICS prohibited person list, the usual suspects accused the NRA and Republicans of wanting the mentally ill to buy guns. (I guess rabidly anti-gun Democrats either don't know any social security recipients with fiduciaries or the ones known to them are all dangerous mental cases.)
But the attempt by the previous admin to get unadjudicated persons on NICS is not grounds to keep adjudicated persons off NICS.
I think
Fix Nix is about returning to the original prohibited person category: adjudicated as a danger to self or others by due process. I will hold its supporters to their word, because
Fix Nix is a good start to justify pushing forward toward
Fix Nix 2: removing false positives.
I think the effectiveness of NICS and the background check system can be measured by looking at the periodic DoJ Bureau of Justice Statistics surveys of Firearms Use by Offenders that have been run every six or seven years.
Code:
Sources of Firearms Reported by State Prison Inmates
whose last offensive involved carrying or using a firearm:
Source 1991 1997 2004
Retail Sources, subject to NICS 20.8% 14.0% 11.3%
Non-Retail Sources, no NICS 79.2% 86.0% 88.7%
1994 Brady Act mandated local BG checks on gun sales by retail dealers.
1999 was the first full year of the NICS checks on gun sales by retail dealers.
So overall, the criminal acquisition of firearms from retail dealers has been reduced from almost 21% to less that 12% of criminal gun sources, correlated to background checks on buyers from retail sources.
Bureau of Justice Statistics "Retail Purchase or trade" (presumed subject to BG checks) for 2004 included: Retail store 7.3%, Pawnshop 2.6%, Flea market 0.6% and Gun show 0.8%.
Non-retail sources (what I call Grey or Black Market) are listed by BJS for 2004 as: Family or friend of inmate (Purchased or traded 12.2%, Rented or borrowed 14.1%, Other transactions 11.1%), Street/illegal source (Theft or burglary 7.5%, Drug dealer/off street 25.2%, Fence/black market 7.4%).
For those not matching these categories established by the original armed and considered dangerous inmate surveys of the 1980s, there is an "Other" category that has grown from 4.6% (1991) to 11.2% (2004) of prison inmate sources for guns.
Wright and Rossi, "Armed and Considered Dangerous", were told by U.S. prison inmates that they expected they could obtain a gun from an illegal source within a week of release from prison. The British Home Office Report #298 on the market in illegal firearms in England and Wales interviewed 80 firearms using offenders in British prison, who said they expected they could obtain a gun if they wanted it from an illegal source within a week of release from prison, from a blank gun converted to shoot live ammo (cheapest) up to a submachinegun if they could afford it.
Since speculation is apparently being allowed (
this is Legal?) a perfect NICS system would have no prison inmates reporting acquisition from Retail Sources, with wide-open grey or black market acquisition by prohibited persons. It is possible the anti-gunners could then call NICS a failure and push openly for total prohibition of retail sales as the final solution, putting everyone who wants a gun on the grey or black market. I also want to note that, since the Viriginia State Police booth at gunshows can run an NICS check on private sales for $5, the $30 to $55 fee for a Bloomberg Universal Background Check (state law in a few jurisdictions) is more like a sin tax intended to discourage private sales -- reality check: high fees discourage BG checks. If we could get Michael Bloomberg/Everytown to get Universal Background Checks mandatory for the Drug and Street Dealers supplying 25% of guns used by felons, we might take a real bite out for crime. I am afraid that reducing retail sources of firearms for prison inmates who used or carried a gun from 21% to 12% was a great effort with small measurable result.
