The National Instant Check System, or NICS, is the database that most states use to reference gun buyers to make sure they're not prohibited. Some states have their own systems, but NICS is the predominant one; it's not perfect. It's only as good as the data input, and since it's input by humans, there are errors.
And it seems that no one seems to give a damn if there are mistakes in the system or not. Well, they do, but only if they go one way.
See, if it turns out that someone like the Sutherland Springs killer is prohibited but can buy a gun, everyone wants to fix that. The issue is that if there's a mistake that bars someone from buying a gun despite not being prohibited, well, that's just too bad.
John Lott highlighted this in a recent column at RealClearPolitics.
The background check system for gun purchases is a mess. Republicans have criticized Democratic presidents for failing to prosecute people denied gun purchases through background checks. Democrats have leveled the same criticism at Republican presidents. But both sides miss the real problem. The system generates mistaken denials – “false positives” – by confusing felons with non-felons, so the denials aren’t real cases. And those errors disproportionately affect black and Hispanic males.
This week, the House will vote on Congressman Thomas Massie’s NICS Data Reporting Act. The House Judiciary Committee passed the bill unanimously. The legislation would require the Department of Justice to collect data on errors in the background check system.
In the latest year available, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System denied 116,587 gun purchases in 2023, but returned only 14 indictments and just five convictions. These numbers are nothing new. In 2022, there were 131,865 denials, 18 indicted, and three convictions.
For example, in 2013, Sen. Jeff Sessions, before becoming attorney general, accused the Obama administration of failing to enforce existing gun laws against prohibited purchasers. After joining the first Trump administration as attorney general, Sessions pledged to “swiftly and aggressively prosecute” prohibited individuals who attempted to buy firearms illegally. While in office, he declared: “The National Instant Criminal Background Check System is critical for us to be able to keep guns out of the hands of those that are prohibited from owning them.” He even branded the effort as “Lie-and-Try” prosecutions.
...Sessions failed because these were not legitimate cases. Prosecutors can charge a felon who is legally barred from buying a gun, but they cannot realistically prosecute someone simply because he shares a phonetically similar name and a similar birth date with a felon.
The people most impacted by the false positives are poor minorities, since people tend to have names similar to others in their racial groups. Because a high proportion of black and Hispanic males are prohibited from owning guns, law-abiding minority males face the highest rate of background-check mistakes.
Now, I know that Thomas Massie is on a lot of people's crap list of late, and I'm not as enamored with him as I once was because of some of his recent comments, but this is the epitome of common-sense legislation. We need to know how many denials there are, and how many were prosecuted, and of those who weren't, why?
If the answer is as Lott says it will be, that these are false positives, then we need to fix the damn system and do it right away.
Our entire justice system is premised on the idea that a dozen guilty men should go free rather than for one innocent man to be punished. That's why it's an adversarial criminal justice system where the benefits are all on the defense's side, at least in theory. We don't punish the innocent if we can help it.
Though, of course, things happen.
Still, these are people who are being punished not because the prosecution screwed them over, or because their lawyers were crap, but because their name is too similar to some other guy, or they were the victim of identity theft, or some other thing. They shouldn't be denied for a gun purchase at all, but they are, and no one in power seems to give a damn.
Massie's bill here is the first step in addressing it, because then we'll have the data to tell us exactly what's happening, and from the DOJ itself. Then, we can move from there.
I'm sorry, but even the anti-gunners who claim they aren't trying to stop law-abiding citizens from getting guns should be completely on board with this, since it's about data, but even at the next step, it's about making sure those who are wrongly flagged can get fixed, while those who do "lie and try" can be prosecuted for their criminal behavior.
This should be a win for everyone.
Of course, we all know how it will actually go down, but that'll just be another win for us, so I'm cool with it.
