Ten Years After Brady Checks

GUNS&AMMO April 2004
Page 32

Ten Years After
John Hay Rabb

What will be the historical verdict on the effectiveness of
the Brady background-check requirement?

A reasonable measure of the Brady law?s effectiveness would
be the extent to which the background-check system prevents
unsuitable individuals from purchasing handguns while at
the same time allowing law-abiding persons to purchase
handguns without undue delay or bureaucratic red tape.

Recent Justice Department figures are illuminating in an
evaluation of the Brady law. Since 1994 some 45.7 million
handgun-purchaser background checks have been conducted. Of
this number, 976,000 (2.1 percent) have been rejected
because the applicant was ineligible to purchase a handgun.
In 2002, 7.8 million background checks were conducted, and
1.7 percent were rejected.

The most obvious conclusion drawn from these figures is
what we?ve known all along: Virtually everyone who
purchases a gun from a licensed gun dealer is a law-abiding
citizen. Criminals simply do not buy guns from legitimate
sources.

The Bureau Of Justice Statistics published a 2001 report
based on interviews conducted with some 18,000 prison
inmates. Those who had committed gun crimes were asked
where they had obtained their weapons. Some 8.3 percent
said from licensed dealers, 0.7 percent said gun shows, 39.6
percent said family members or friends, and 40.8 percent had
obtained their guns illegally on the street.

The Brady law established nine categories of individuals
who could not purchase handguns. These include convicted
felons, fugitives from justice, drug addicts, mentally
unsuitable individuals, convicted spouse abusers and
individuals subject to restraining orders. The system
designed to weed out these individuals is the National
Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). NICS is
operated by the FBI, which is supposed to maintain a
database of persons who meet one or more of the above
criteria. When an individual seeks to purchase a handgun,
his name and other identifying information are run through
the database. If there are no negative ?hits:? then the
purchase is allowed.

Unfortunately, there are serious gremlins in the database.
A large number of states have not given the FBI the relevant
data. Nothing in, nothing out. The Department of Justice
says 20 states have not automated their felony-conviction
records. The FBI thinks that, as a result, as many as 39
million felony convictions are missing from NICS. The
General Accounting Office (GAO) estimates that only 3
percent of nonfelonious drug convictions are computerized.
Forty states do not automate or even provide relevant mental
health records to the FBI, and 33 states do not even
maintain such records. As a result, 2 to 6 million mentally
disqualified persons are missing from the NICS database.

The story is the same for domestic violence and restraining
order (TRO) records. Fourteen states do not automate or
provide domestic violence conviction data to the FBI. Eight
states do not automate or otherwise provide TRO information.
Twenty states do not maintain domestic violence or TRO
information at all.

No rational person believes potentially dangerous
individuals should be allowed to purchase handguns. That?s
why the National Rifle Association and a coalition of
gun-control groups supported legislation to close NICS
information gaps. The legislation was sponsored by an odd
group of bedfellows: Senators Larry Craig, Orrin Hatch, Ted
Kennedy, John McCain, Charles Schumer and Representatives
John Dingell and Carolyn McCarthy. Although the legislation
has passed Congress, it will be quite some time before the
gaps are closed.

It would be unfair to blame the states for not providing the
required information. There is no extra money lying around,
and Congress is notorious for imposing ?unfunded
mandates,??federal requirements for states to undertake some
action without any federal funding. The NICS legislation
passed by Congress would provide some $375 million for
states to establish databases of relevant information for
NICS inclusion. This includes information on felony
convictions, fugitives, drug convictions, mental
unsuitability, domestic abuse and TROs.

These repairs to NICS will not be completed overnight, and
they will not be cheap. The problems with NICS have been
well known since the system was created. There?s no way of
telling how many handguns got into the wrong hands because
of the dysfunctional NICS database. The goal now is to put
the best possible fix in place as soon as possible.