Ohioans For Concealed Carry Discussion Forums

The question that remains is why the criminal was not arrested and prosecuted when he attempted to illegally purchase a firearm? The FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check (NICS) system worked in this case, but after the appropriate denial was made, what happened next?

The National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade association for the firearms and ammunition industry, has long called for enforcing our laws. Those who try to buy firearms, knowing they are a prohibited person, are breaking the law.

And yet, they are rarely prosecuted for illegally lying on a federal form and claiming they are not prohibited.

Well, as the Washington Examiner reported over the weekend, when Congressional Dems were drafting the federal bill they’re currently pushing to incent state to enact their own red flag laws, they balked at applying the statute to known criminals.

Colorado Republican Ken Buck offered up an amendment designed to disarm known criminals.

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee amended the measure during a Wednesday mark-up to authorize the federal government to issue extreme risk protection orders in some instances, but they rejected an amendment that would have red-flagged anyone who law enforcement lists as a gang member.

Buck said,

My amendment is quite simple. It would allow the issuance of a red flag order against anyone whose name appears in a gang database if there was probable cause to include that individual in the database.

But Democrats couldn’t quite stomach the thought of grabbing guns from people known to commit a significant percentage of America’s violent crimes and most of the criminal instances of “gun violence.”

Democrats objected with reasons that sounded very familiar to Republicans.

GOP lawmakers have staunchly opposed “No Fly, No Buy” proposals Democrats have tried to pass in the House in recent years because the lists flag the wrong people.

Like the no-fly lists, which have erroneously flagged many innocent individuals as terrorists (including the late Sen. Ted Kennedy), the gang databases are often inaccurate, Democrats said.

Mr. Glock wrote:NICS (ie Form 4473) should not be a backdoor gun registration (but it is, as they list serial numbers, and all it takes is a quick change of law to digitize it. Well, the ATF is already and has een digitizing out of business FFL 4473s for at least a decade).

Background Checks (even as the Antis say it-Universal) should not be about gun registration. I’m either legal to buy a gun or
I’m not. If I am, then who cares how many or what kind.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation® (NSSF®) today is praising a milestone achievement of a 241 percent increase of state submissions of adjudicated mental health records to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System database since the firearms industry launched the FixNICS® campaign in 2013. Just 1.7 million such records existed in the FBI’s database when NSSF began the campaign in 2013 to fix the background check system. Today, there are more than 5.6 million records.

“This remarkable achievement demonstrates the firearms industry’s commitment to real solutions for safer communities,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President of Government Relations and Public Affairs and General Counsel. “The firearms industry conceived of the point-of-purchase instant background check system that exists today. We have spent years working successfully to fix the system so that it works as intended. We have improved the quality and accuracy of background checks by changing the law in 16 states and at the federal level. It is critical that our background checks are updated, accurate and reliable. Firearms retailers rely upon this system to be accurate to ensure firearms do not fall into the wrong hands. This milestone is what bipartisan common ground looks like. It is a development that we can all agree is good for the safety of our communities.”

As the firearms and ammunition industry, we make and sell a legal, heavily regulated products to background-checked citizens. We are not experts on mental health.

What we do care about, however, is keeping our communities safe by ensuring that those who are prohibited by law from possessing guns do not obtain them. This includes dangerous individuals who have been adjudicated mentally ill by a court, for example, and are prohibited from owning a firearm.
Real Solutions

Because we care about keeping guns out of the wrong hands, in 2013 we launched a project called FixNICS, to help bring all prohibiting records from the state level to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). Our industry members know that a background check is only as good as the records in the database. (EDIT to add: HELLO REGISTRY)

However, it is difficult to see references to an increasing stigma against those living with a mental illness, particularly in the wake of rare, but highly-publicized mass shooting tragedies. No one within the industry wants to deter any individual from seeking help or resources when facing a crisis or a mental health issue.

Stigma doesn’t help them, and it doesn’t help make our communities safer.

(See what I did there, I stated everything in a positive manner. There's no negativity in what I said...oops...was that negative? These are all affirmative statements. Was that healing? Was that cleansing for everyone? )