From abcnews.com: “The FBI says its background-check system failed, mistakenly allowing the man who allegedly opened fire inside a South Carolina church last month to purchase the gun he used in the rampage. ‘We are all sick that this has happened,’ FBI Director James Comey told a small group of reporters in Washington today. ‘We wish we could turn back time.'” Roof should have been disqualified for admitting to drug possession. We’re sure it’s very comforting to the relatives and friends of the nine Charleston churchgoers to hear that the FBI director is just sick about the NICS system’s failure. But in the annals of government efficiency, a screw-up like this is otherwise known as a Friday . . .
This is government. This is what they do. The bigger and more pervasive it becomes, the bigger and more egregious the failures. And government isn’t getting any smaller.
Ask the parents of Kate Steinle about how well government — at all levels — worked to keep her daughter safe. Ask the 21 million people whose personal data (including social security numbers) has been compromised by blindingly incompetent government systems management. And those are just examples from the last couple of weeks.
Nine people buried in South Carolina. One innocent woman dead in San Francisco. Millions of identities compromised nationwide. Will anyone in the FBI’s NICS section lose their job? Will someone working for the sanctuary city of San Francisco be out on the street? Are those trick questions? It took demands from Congress to finally dislodge Katherine Archuleta today for criminal incompetence and mismanagement. Don’t bet on any faceless drones – let alone someone in a position of responsibility – getting the short haircut here.
And yet the answer to America’s “gun violence” problem is “universal background checks.” More of the same…just bigger and more expensive. If only they had more people. If only they had more money. Same as it ever was.
More gov’t, less freedom. It’s the battle cry of the bloody flag waivers.
That and “blame the Evil Gun Lobby/NRA for the loophole” — the antis and their sycophants in the comments sections are copying and pasting that one all over creation today.
As usual, the disarmament industry completely discounts (a) the Second Amendment and (b) the value of firearms used by law-abiding people to save lives. To wit: Where is the outrage on behalf of the woman who was murdered while waiting months for New Jersey’s bureaucrats to “approve” her exercise of her right to armed self-defense? That’s also a failure of the background check system, yet the antis and the media are largely and predictably silent.
Someone in the NICS department should have disqualified him but they didn’t due to negligence? Is that what he means by the NICS checked failed?
Wondering that myself. To me, a failure of the system means that the data disqualifying him was there, but NICS gave the the green-light anyway. If the data was not there, then the NICS did not fail and performed as it should have. Either whoever was supposed to put disqualifier in the system didn’t do it (failure of the individual) or there was no information to put in in the first place.
However, it does not surprise me that a government bureaucrat would say, “not my fault, we just don’t have enough funding to do the job you gave me. If I just had more (insert resource,power here) this would not happen.” It serves the dual purposes of deflecting blame for their own incompetence (if that was the case) and making the case for expanding their power.
It would make sense to blame the NICS for the failure, use the failure as a reason to make the NICS it’s own department, placed under executive branch, and no pesky congressional acts. Scary.
The NICS check failed because someone failed to enter his conviction for felony drug possession into the system. Which would have been at the state or local level. Not defending NICS or the feds, but this is the result of a state level screw up. Which is what happens when you have multiple layers of government that are all lazy and incompetent.
Actually, you have raised an important question–he was not CONVICTED, only ACCUSED. (I’m not sure if it was a felony either., but I am too lazy to check it out.) Am I wrong in my understanding that an accusation is not a disqualifier, only a conviction? If so, doesn’t this mean that the system did NOT fail?
Wrong on two counts. One, he was never convicted. He hadn’t gone to trial yet I don’t think since it just happened earlier this year. But two, the NICS background check team did screw up. They looked at the records of the wrong police department in searching Roof’s background.
The FBI searched the Sheriff’s Department in Lexington, SC, for indicators about Roof, instead of the Columbia Police Records. In so doing, they missed the “Columbia police report [that] included information that Roof admitted to drug possession.” Had they seen the Columbia report, it “would have triggered an immediate denial by the FBI NICS review process.”
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/07/10/fbi-dylann-roofs-successful-background-check-was-a-mistake/
Nothing failed.
NICS cannot deny based on what a cop writes on an arrest report. Any cop will tell you these things are full of errors, lies etc, especially when the source is the person arrested.
So is he denied due to question 11b or is it 11e.
If it is 11e then the assumption would have to be made that possession equals use/addiction?
If it is 11b then the admission then equals an indictment?
NICS is independent of the 4473. You know that, right?
The most important piece of information that is lacking from this story was whether he admitted to a feolny charge of drug possession or a misdemeanor charge.
So that means they are keeping the records for more than 24 hours?
Yes, they have been keeping records for more than 24 hrs. I called about a week ago and was able to retrieve a background check 3 days prior by giving them my FFL, and the first and last name of the person it was run on. The 24 hr./close of business rule no longer applies apparently.
“It took demands from congress to get Katherine Archuleta to slouch over to president Obama while humming a slave hymn and pretend she was reluctantly tendering her resignation because “war on women.”
FIFY
NICS: garbage in, garbage out
And even if NICS had correctly flagged Roof as a “prohibited person”, nothing would have happened, other than he would not have been able to purchase that handgun at that FFL. If he were like every other determined criminal, he would have simply found a non-FFL means of acquiring his handgun (straw purchase, black market, theft).
And, equally importantly, Roof would have had about a 98% chance of not being arrested, prosecuted, or convicted for attempting to purchase a firearm as a “prohibited person”.
So, even if NICS had worked, the end result would have been the same.
Well said. US Attorney’s NEVER prosecute people for lying on 4473’s, the US Attorney for the District of MN and former ATF director (for a short time) was grilled by Ted Cruz about this and it was abundantly clear that they simply don’t care about perjury on a 4473. I don’t know how I feel about this but for a party to scream more gun control and more background checks, blablabla you’d think they would care about this.
Well, that’s not entirely true. They prosecuted (and won) a retired LEO for using his Glock discount and buying a gun for his father. Since he used his father’s money rather than just selling his father the gun after the sale or gifting it to him, it was a straw purchase.
There is a small issue here with the 4473 form plus NICS that we ought to pay some attention to.
Occasionally, somebody with a “record” fills out a 4473 form claiming no “priors” but gets STOPed by NICS. In some such cases there is no error in matching the buyer to the NICS record. Rather, the buyer simply didn’t understand that the legal incident he had rendered him a prohibited person.
The way the 4473 + NICS process works puts these guys in a lot of jeopardy. FIRST, the buyer must make a statement under oath which subjects him to prosecution if he lies; SECOND, the buyer discovers that his statement-under-oath is, apparently, false.
For these guys, the AG’s policy of not bothering allows these guys to get on with their lives notwithstanding that they have just lied-under-oath. We PotG don’t really want vigorous enforcement in these cases. Nor should we want these cases gun on the grace of the AUSA who could just as well decide to crucify the peaceable buyer for a fairly innocent mistake.
I think that the 4473 + NICS process should be altered by reversing the sequence. The buyer should be able to fill out the form but sign it only AFTER the NICS response of PROCEED is received. In the cases I sight, NICS “knows something” that the buyer doesn’t really understand. The buyer deserves the benefit of the doubt.
Now, consider a very different situation to test my proposal. Suppose a fugitive from justice has just had a warrant issued for his arrest. Before the warrant is entered into NICS he rushes into an FFL and buys a gun. He lies on his 4473 form (i.e., he refutes that he is a fugitive). He clears NICS, Now, he signs his form.
When the cops finally catch up to him and discover his gun they will trace him to his 4473 form. They will find that he signed a fraudulent statement and can prosecute him for that.
Only if we could apply this gross human error that occurred across several states, departments and offices “universally” then, and only then, can we be safe from “gun violence.”
The anti’s and UBC proponents know they’re full of shit. They just plan of having all the human error sway in their favor with mass denials and an endless bureaucratic nightmare to earn your passing grade.
More bureaucracy = more opportunities for an administrative de-facto bans.
No, it’s all a big straw man. OMG! NICS failed, must have super duper NICS! When that fails “well, nothing works, guess we gotta ban guns”.
I’ll give the guy props for admitting that the train wreck happened in his department. This rarely happens in government, so it’s a start.
But it diverts the conversation from the real reasons background checks are worthless: Criminals generally don’t acquire their guns through lawful channels.
If he had been denied this particular gun from this particular dealer on this particular day, what would Roof have done? We’ll never know for sure, but we do no that evil people who want weapons generally find a way to get them.
He is only doing so they can turn “delayed” into “denied”.
Well, here comes the push for new regulations. The last ones didn’t work, so why not just added new ones?
Seriously, it’s about time we fun owners stood up and said “no.” Isn’t that the whole reason we have a second amendment? So we can force the government to choose to listen to our voices or our gunfire?
Well, here comes the push for new regulations. The last ones didn’t work, so why not just added new ones? We desperately need more badly needed universal background checks. Fix it all.
“Well, here comes the push for new regulations. The last ones didn’t work, so why not just added new ones? We desperately need more badly needed universal background checks. Fix it all.”
It’s at least as much a failure as:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-09/hackers-stole-government-data-on-25-7-million-people-u-s-says
Which is to say. . . IT’S ON PURPOSE.
You won’t be able to buy a gun in the future because some A-Hole neighbor needing a job (your gov’t) allowed some D-head Chi-com to change your hair/eye color, your weight, your address. . .
F’ ALL -U @the helm
“Which is to say. . . IT’S ON PURPOSE.” Like “Hinkley” ‘on Purpose’ which seems just a little too convenient for the House of (D) they even get to take your flag, stir some sh_t.
Nobody said what his political leanings were yet. Wanna bet it’s just another EVIL POS PSA FROM THE EVIL HOUSE OF (D).
I’m sorry our awesome government can’t make background checks prevent these awful crimes.
But they did remove the Rebel flag today, forever ending racism and hate crimes. Yay.
Confederate flags make people go out of control and think evil thoughts. Rainbows and butterflies await.
Impossible!!! Background checks are infallible magical winged protectors of our society according to the progressive dogma. It is so obviously the fault of the NRA and the Confederate Flag!!
The NYT said that the shooter was able to buy the gun because of a loophole in the NICS check. Yet they failed to specify what the loophole is / was, other that sheer incompetence, of course. They want to blame somebody, but they can’t bring themselves to blame the idiots in the government responsible for this. Statists gonna state. I guess it’s the NRA’s fault.
I’m confused, if he marked YES on line 11c of Form 4473, then why did the FFL proceed with the sell? A FFL can refuse the sale of any firearm if they feel the buyer should not own a firearm. He was not convicted or charged with a felony, the drug charge was a misnomer from what I have read in the news.
What am I missing here?
This smells more like here is why we need to increase the rules vice we’re sorry we screwed up admission.
My understaning as well–or do they want to extend the prohibition to those innocent until proven guilty?
“–or do they want to extend the prohibition to those innocent until proven guilty?”
The current administration would find that to be a very nice feature.
Look what they’re doing to PTSD veterans.
It was reported early on that his father purchased the pistol for Dylan as a 21st birthday present. Is this true?
Like so many early “BREAKING” reports, that one was wrong. The parents gave him money for his birthday which he then used to buy the handgun.
No.
This is in reply to a different comment you made to me but there is no reply button on it.
I know NICS is independent of the 4473 but what is asked there are the things that disqualify you in NICS. From the news story.
I do believe he should have been (in reality) disqualified due to drug use which he was doing but an arrest for possession does not “prove” use but what is said there makes it seem that it does for NICS purposes. Things like this can expand the number of those who will be denied beyond what the actual law says makes one deniable. Perhaps that is the reason for the FBI admission.
To the best I understand this (which is admittedly not well), there are really 2 issues in play:
– Felony arrest; and,
– Drug use
Suppose there were two spitting-on-the-sidewalk crimes: one a felony, the other a misdemeanor with a prison exposure of <1 year. If you have an arrest pending adjudication for:
– Felony arrest for spitting on the sidewalk – that is a PROCEED;
– Misdemeanor arrest for spitting on the sidewalk – that is a STOP.
This was an arrest, pending adjudication, for a FELONY. It didn't matter if it were a charge of murder 1 or spitting on the sidewalk; it was a FELONY which should have produced a STOP. Eventually, when the charges were adjudicated, the record of the felony arrest should have been disposed of. Thereupon, he would have cleared NICS.
Now, let's turn to convictions. Suppose he had a CONVICTION for joint-possession and a fine of $5. Were it for spitting-on-the-sidewalk for (to be perfectly absurd) a misdemeanor murder 1, it would not block him from buying a gun. The problem here is that joint-possession ($5 fine) would be for drugs. That it were for drugs would make it a prohibited-person event. (Same for misdemeanor domestic violence.)
The grave issue here (apart from the error in processing the scumbag's inquiry) is that ANY drug (DV) conviction whatsoever is a 2A disabling offense. Someone with a serious disease and a pot proscription can legally – under State law – use pot. But, if he has ever had a misdemeanor conviction anywhere at all on drugs, he is made to be a prohibited person.
The drug-use disability will be a difficult one to sort-out. The COMBINATION of certain mental-illnesses PLUS habitual drug-use APPEARS to have a pronounced impact on propensity to violence. Habitual drug use absent mental illness doesn't necessarily have a statistically significant impact on violence. Most mental illnesses absent habitual drug-use doesn't necessarily have a statistically significant impact on violence.
How do we persuade the public that many (perhaps most) drug users – even habitual users of certain drugs) can keep and bear arms safely? It's a tough sell, but it's an important one to work on.
Please now CTstooge……you know damn well a Crip will shoot a Blood in The Democratic nirvana of Chicagostan, at a midnight dope dealer’s basketball game. When the smoke clears and no one speaks, Shannon will go on TV from suburbia and cry over another school shooting, reminding us to keep pistols away from Target and Chipotle’s because the children. Dirk will salivate from afar as he watches the midwest soccer mom of his dreams attempt to piss all over our 2ndA rights using Bloomberg’s Bucks.
My utopian worldview is shattered. Except for the part about Dirk.
Well-written, Dan Z. I’ve said it before. I’ll say it again: The best thing we can do in this country is abolish public sector collective bargaining.
“The best thing we can do in this country is abolish public sector collective bargaining.”
Clerical, administrative, etc, yes, no more collective bargaining bananas.
LE, fire, etc, I can see them having it.
The DMV clerks?
Hell No.
What happened to the news story that the shooter was given a .45 caliber handgun for his birthday? I remember immediately after that this was reported a quick search for an article on it gave many results including: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/18/us-usa-shooting-south-carolina-uncle-idUSKBN0OY1W120150618
Fishy business going on here.
The little psycho was given money for his birthday, which he used to buy the Glock. From an FFL. He passed the NICS check.
Have you ever read a story in the MFM about something you know about?
Was it accurate? …let me guess….NO……not even close.
Journalism majors are generally idiots…simple as that.
Obama once again displayed his lack of leadership by knee-jerking and calling out the likes of the NRA and all pro-firearm people. It completely discredits all the anti-2A attacks.
I’ve had those fingerprint background checks for medical jobs and they are instant. Since the shooter was I presume charged with prior charges in SC, how nothing came up in SC check base is confusing. I wonder if there was a cross-reference problem with names. I say this as even if you lie on a check form, your name should still reveal your legal history, same as a traffic stop. Could the wrong person’s background confused?
In the end there is no issue with firearms or with firearm law.
I read somewhere that congress has increased the budget for the NICS system several times, but the agency redirects most of the money, maybe 10% actually ends up available to the system, which oddly enough is controlled by the people screaming for more background checks. Who wants more gun violence?
So… More money?
This is the excuse they need to do away with the three day delay limit.
These fuckers sure aren’t gonna do something good and break their perfect streak of screwing us
Maybe, if they wrap the bodies of the victims in that flag they just took down (because reasons), when the south rises again, maybe the victims will, too? Hating someone doesn’t get rid of hate. It’s all democrats seem to understand; hate X to somehow prove that you care about Y…
Why is it that nobody learns the lesson about Gun Rights except in that split second of a moment where they wish they had one…?
ZOMBIES! AT CHURCH!!
All of us old fat white guys are not racist, we don’t hate y ou for being black… We wish you’d come join us in having a brain and using it… Your owners are what’s screwing you over, not us… Get off the vote plantation and find a better life!
How can anyone support this? It’s ridiculous beyond words…
Who did he admit drug possession to?
Also drug possession does not disqualify you unless you are arrested and convicted of it. A USER is prohibited, but if he only admitted possession while never being charged there is no law that says he can’t own a gun as far as I am aware.
Not to mention if it was weed he’d been ok legal in a few states and such “crimes” are not red flags that someone is about to go psycho. It’s just the left trying to make it look like we need longer wait times because the 2 months they had was not enough to figure out their mistake and go fetch the gun.
Lying on a 4473 is still a federal felony, although it is rarely ever prosecuted as I stated in my below post. Its usually referred to the US Attorney for the district and then they usually brush it off and hand it down to a County level prosecutor who throws it in a pile of “stuff that’s not important” and nothing happens.
The federal government is a prime example of abject failure. “It” has abandoned the Constitution. It has started illegal wars of choice based on lies, speculation and empire building. It has spied on its citizens, kidnapped (by “rendition”) and tortured countless victims and turned much of the Muslim world against us by incompetent meddling (competent meddling: OK?). It has abandoned our veterans and stood idly by while hundreds of them tragically commit suicide. It never holds politicians accountable, even ignoring modern war crimes. It has spent trillions of dollars accomplishing nothing in many cases, but worse still, has made life more miserable for us citizens, and the rest of the world ain’t too pleased with the outcome either. We refuse to embrace and invest in a fossil fuel-free infrastructure and yet our military consumes 80% of the world’s fossil fuels to maintain a force that was designed for fighting the cold war. Overall, we could be living in a relative utopia if only a fraction of those wasted dollars had been diverted to programs that really have a positive impact on daily life.
All while politicians wage war against each other (much of it apparently out of spite) and the poor are on the edge of revolt (Google “Why Haven’t the Poor Risen Up?”). We stood by while one party allowed a junior member to cause a government shutdown that cost taxpayers $30B. Our country’s government has gone past the breaking point of where our founding fathers would have declared it is past due that we regained control by means of another American Revolution. We can do this peacefully and it has started by mobilizing massive citizen pushback against the status quo. We need to focus and consolidate ourselves into a force that is cemented by common interests and not separated by idealistic distractions.
If you read this far, you have my unmitigated respect. I wrote twice as much as I’m posting out of enthusiasm, but realized that our it would test the limits of our attention span.
Comey is the same lying sack who just told us that his vaunted FBI stopped multiple– MULTIPLE! — terrorist attacks on the 4th of July and probably saved billions of American lives! Billions!
Are you buying any of that?
Me neither.
The FBI couldn’t stop a toilet.
I dunno, I think they’d do an admirable job of stopping one up. After all, a toilet can only handle so much….
You have “rights” groups like the NRA, gun lobby and other pro-murder orgs to blame for the tragedy.
How come other civilized countries like australia don’t have these problems.
Your not really “free” if your country is awash with guns.
Australia a civilized country? Sorry, you lost all credibility there.
Don’t be so ignorant. I spent the last hour searching Google and I can’t find definitive proof this piece of garbage was ever convicted of a felony. The news reports are all sensationalizing the story by omitting that fact. How about the freedom to be innocent until proven guilty? That’s not a right?
You’re definitely not ‘free’ if your “betters” decide you can’t be trusted.
So this is the same FBI referred to yesterday about the 9mm being the be-all and end-all handgun caliber? Whatever…
““The FBI says its background-check system failed, mistakenly allowing the man . . . to purchase the gun . . . ”
We PotG should AVOID echoing this statement. It is NOT really relevant to our complaints about UBC or even FFL-BC at point-of-sale.
Suppose this scum-bag were pulled-over on a routine traffic stop. “Where y’all go’n son? To church. Are you carrying? Yes.” Whereupon, the cop could-have/should-have run the scum-bag’s name and birth-date through NCIC which would have returned NOTHING! The same omission in the FBI’s database that did not flag the scumbag as a drug-user would not have flagged the scum-bag on the NCIC check for outstanding warrants.
We all know that the FBI’s databases – both for LEO inquiries and FFL inquiries – has errors and omissions producing false-positive and false-negative responses. The FBI should be continuously improving; and, we PotG ought to be constructively criticizing and encouraging improvements in errors-and-omissions.
We PotG ought to be supporting LEO inquiries to spot felons-in-posession. That is the place to use BC databases to keep guns out of the hands of “the wrong people”.
At the same time, we ought to emphasize how BCs on those same databases at point-of-sale are essentially cosmetic. Not until America is ready for mass imprisonment of single mothers will we choke-off straw-buying or trafficking.
FFL-BCs are a minor nuisance compared to UBC. UBC promises to send taxpaying men to prison for skipping the UBC when they give their wives or daughters guns.
The answer to gun violence is not background checks.
The answer to gun violence is to get rid of all the guns.
So clear.
Not even funny when you parrot the anti-subhumans. Someone on their team will co-opt this out of the context of of “insider’s mocking humor” and turn it against us. Even if it is a little and even if not many others buy it. Death by a thousand cuts is still dangerous. It may seem silly from here, but how would you feel if the MDA FB page linked to you comment claiming progress?
Yes, I’m saying we can’t afford to have a subtle sense of humor. Be blatantly obvious – and come up with better humor (please). Like MarkPA said above, “We PotG should AVOID echoing this statement”.
Hmm, he was obviously set on doing this. If he had been denied, what would have been his next step? It is unlikely he would have been arrested at that point. Would he have bought some fertilizer and diesel fuel? It doesn’t take a genius to go out with a huge bang. How about white tipped matches and pipes? Less of a bang, but a lot of shrapnel How about an axe, and then staged himself in the bathroom taking out one parishioner at a time? Lots of gore, but people are just as dead. Ambush a police officer, and then take his gun? Would he have ran these church folks over with a car as they left the church? Dead is dead whether with a car or a gun. The point is this: It wasn’t the gun, it was the man that did this.
More money, eh? What was the quote by Milton Friedman? “If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand”
If you are not convinced of a felony you get your gun at time of purchase period. Any other result is a violation of civil rights. The utopians will grant you your rights only under the perfect conditions that they say are the standard for you to meet.
A government employee will not be fired for failing to do their job when they don’t process a felonies paper work.
If a private company was responsible for NICS and this kind of thing happened you can be sure that the government would have severely punished them, but since a government agency screwed up, well then, let’s just give them more money…
Well, i am one of the people whose identity was stolen thanks to the feds incompetence. I hope the chinese or russians show up at that dumb b!tches h
What’s interesting about this to me is that, presumably, Mr. Butthole knew [as most do] that such a charge/conviction would disqualify him from buying a gun, because it would cause him to fail the mandatory background check. But he tried anyway. Does that say that he figured it would be worth a try to at least make an attempt at buying it legally rather than automatically buying one on the street? Or does it mean that he just assumed he would pass because the system is broken? Or did he really not know that, had the information been entered correctly, he would’ve been flagged and denied? The fact that he tried at all with such a charge on his record is puzzling.
Anyway. What an asshole.
Most of us understand pretty well how NICS works; and, we make the mistake of projecting this knowledge on everyone else. Perhaps this projection is not well-founded.
I had occasion to call up an old acquaintance to ask him how I could get an idea injected into the gun debate on Capital hill. My acquaintance had spent the last 4 decades on the Hill as a Congressional staffer and as a lobbyist and lawyer. Moreover, he was originally from OK. I had presumed he understood – as well or better than I – how NICS works.
Not so; I soon sensed that “background check” was simply a generic term he could recognize but had no idea how the system works. That it is National and Instant and Criminal were not the least bit apparent to him. A rude awakening.
If such a guy is so uninformed about how NICS works then why should we be surprised that convicted and arrested criminals attempt to buy guns at FFLs? They may well be aware that there is “something” going on in a gun store when the salesman makes a phone-call; but have no clue how rigorous that “something” is. Why not take a chance and see what happens? What are they going to do? Call the cops?
You disgusting ammosexuals miss an important point. He is a murderer and should never have been allowed to possess a weapon.
With your fuzzy logic it’s not hard to see why guns are going the way of the dinosaur.
He wasn’t a murderer until he committed murder. Mr. Minority Report. I feel like we deserve a higher class of troll than you.
Yes, this is clearly the case. LOL
Ammosexuals again?
We are as you made us, remember?
Some FedGov drone didn’t do her job? Well, I just don’t believe that……
The system didn’t fail. THE FBI FAILED.
The 3 day time limit on “hold” responses to a NICS check is a critical protection of our rights.
When I was an FFL and doing retail sales, I would ABSOLUTELY deliver the gun if there wasn’t a response within the allotted time.
The system is working just how it is supposed to. The FBI will now implement systems and procedures to make the turn around in 3 days.
If there wasn’t this “loop hole”, god only knows how long they would take to turn these “hold” responses around.
For what it was worth, I spent about 20 minutes talking to a FBI guy working on the NICS program. I asked him if there was an unwritten rule to not actually deliver the gun or you are looking for trouble. At one point I asked “If the wait period is over and I haven’t heard back, . .” at which point he interrupted me by saying “transfer the gun”.
In the summer of 2013, there was a 3 or 4 month wait for a NICS check in Maryland. Many dealers were afraid to deliver guns. It was terrible.
Don
Regardless on how I feel about background checks I see the current system not working because information just does not flow from Municipal to County to State to Federal like it should. I’m not sure how many states explicitly rely on their State Bureau of Investigation to conduct a background check but many just use the FBI’s and god only knows what might not end up in the federal system from a state or a county. Many of the prohibited person categories are only filled on a voluntary basis (unless its the VA who reports any vet with a migraine as a prohibited person). I thought in South Carolina SLED ran their own background check in addition to the FBI? SLED seamed pretty squared away from what I read and what people told me.
NOTHING FAILED. I can’t find definitive statements anywhere on the internet that he was actually CONVICTED of a felony.
I agree.
As things with NICS stand now, a couple of percent of customers are held-up for a couple of days waiting for their clearance. As respects these few, it constitutes an infringement. As respects the People as a whole – in their ability to fulfill their militia duty – it’s not a problem.
Were the “WAIT” rate larger – say 20% – then the impact on the People would be an infringement that shouldn’t be tolerated. E.g., what if 20% of the citizens of New Orleans or Ferguson couldn’t arm-up to prepare for civil disorder. That clearly WOULD infringe on the ability of a significant segment of the People to perform their militia duty.
We PotG ought not get our boxers-in-a-bunch over this 2% WAIT rate. We DO need to hold fast to a short – e.g., 3-day – wait period lest (as you rightly point-out) the wait becomes 3 weeks/months/years.
We PotG ought to provide respectful, constructive criticism of NICS procedures so as to improve it in every way possible: more complete; shorter WAIT times; and the like.
Our severe criticism ought to be focused on the horrible adverse impacts of extending FFL-BC to UBC on non-dealer transfers.
We also need to emphasize that BCs at the point-of-sale are essentially feel-good. A dealer and his salesman are allowed by NICS to “feel good” that they did NOT participate in selling a gun to a “bad guy”.
We may tolerate “No shirt, no shoes, no service” for any OTHER retail establishment. Would we tolerate “No shirt, no shoes, no service” from a gun dealer? Think about that for a moment.
Now, suppose we saw a sign in our LGS that read: “No service to customers wearing hoodies”? Or, “No guns for Negros”. How would we PotG (really) feel about a gun dealer refusing service to a customer because of what he is waring or the color of his skin? We can justify (in the public debate) the FFL-BC because it allows dealers and their salesmen to perform their mercantile duty to the public on a non-discriminatory basis and still have the piece-of-mind that they aren’t selling to criminals.
Absent the NICS system, we would be leaving these dealers and salesmen in the awkward position of sleeping with their consciouses or doing the best they could to refuse service to those they personally perceive to be the “goats” among their customer base.
This whole thing with the Charleston Shooter (No Names!) is completely ridiculous. He was accused of a crime as MINOR AS SPITTING ON THE SIDEWALK. He was in possession of something like Naltrexone — which is an “opioid antagonist”. Translation: NOT a drug you can get high on — but a drug that has a wide range of uses for addiction, recovery and off-label use for MS and cancer. For some RIDICULOUS reason — this totally benign medication is a controlled substance !!! DISGRACE !!! I had been given LDN as a trial cancer drug — and it did not help me — but the stuff is benign and harmless. SORRY NO PREVIOUS “CRIME” HERE.
And IF ONLY my dog had wings, he’d be a bird… It amazes me that so called ‘thinking’ human beings continually fall for such lunacy.
“Beam me up scotty. There’s no intelligent life here.” -the late James Trafficant. To congress. Daily, for years…
And it didnt help. They just persecuted him until they jailed him in a star chamber hearing, with all ‘evidence’ kept secret… I guess there IS no intelligent life left…
This is a good reason to make the system better, not to dismantle it.
Absolutely correct.
The FBI’s NCIC will be in effect for use by LEOs regardless of the fate of NICS for FFLs. There is NO QUESTION that we will have criminal, etc., databases in America in perpetuity. What’s the alternative? Sending letters to ten-of-thousands of courthouses throughout the US whenever the disposition of a suspect turns on his priors?
The FBI’s database WILL be there. It must be continuously improved. It will get better because it is in the GOVERNMENT’s interest that it get better.
WE have SKIN-in-the-GAME regarding FALSE-POSITIVES. We need some bargaining power at the table to make improvements here; the Government couldn’t care less about false-positives. If we are supportive of the FBI’s database improvement efforts we should get some input where we have an ax to grind.
All the foregoing stands on its own merits notwithstanding the complaints we have about prior-restraint, delays and other complaints about FFL-BCs and worse-still UBC.
No, the reason to dismantle the system is because it has virtually no effect on gun-purchasing attempts or efficacy by “prohibited persons,” at considerable inconvenience (if not outright infringement) to the law-abiding.
Can someone please tell me when he was convicted of a felonious drug charge? From what I am reading, they are claiming his March arrest was the one that should have barred him from getting the handgun. But the March charge was for unprescribed suboxone, a Schedule 3 narcotic; that is a misdemeanor in SC, not a felony. So, how would a misdemeanor drug charge have barred him? I don’t understand why the FBI would say this unless they were sure that it was true since it makes them look bad, along with the whole NICS system. This is why I am confused about this whole story.
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