NRA, Background Checks
NRA, Background Checks
Following up on a prior post with NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre's remarks at CPAC that any gun control regulations are a "socialist wave" that "our American freedoms could be lost", it's worth looking at NRA's and the gun lobby's stance on background checks and some legal and legislative challenges.
Gun Control Act of 1968 (Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act)
This Legislation regulated interstate and foreign commerce in firearms, including importation, "prohibited persons", and licensing provisions. The Gun Control Act is passed and imposes stricter licensing and regulation on the firearms industry, establishes new categories of firearms offenses, and prohibits the sale of firearms and ammunition to felons and certain other prohibited persons. It also imposes the first Federal jurisdiction over "destructive devices," including bombs, mines, grenades and other similar devices.
- the NRA supported this legislation
By the time of the Brady Bill, the NRA's had begun to fight almos all gun control legislation.
Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, 1994
The Brady Bill amended the Gun Control Act of 1968 establishing waiting period of 5 days before a licensed importer, manufacturer, or dealer may sell, deliver, or transfer a handgun to an unlicensed individual.This established the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) put in place certain interim provisions, which required a firearms dealer who proposes to transfer a handgun must receive from the transferee a statement (the Brady Form), containing the name, address and date[clarification needed] of the proposed transfer along with a sworn statement that the transferee is not among any of the classes of prohibited purchasers, verify the identity of the transferee by examining an identification document, and provide the "chief law enforcement officer" (CLEO) of the transferee's residence with notice of the contents (and a copy) of the Brady Form.
- The NRA challenged its constitutionality, backing Printz vs U.S. (1997). The Supreme Court found that the Brady Act's attempted "commandeering" of the sheriffs to perform background checks violated the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution because the federal government imposed a requirement on state and local enforcement without providing appropriations for the task.
Background Checks and Private Sales
- According to FBI data, more than 253 million background checks were conducted from Nov. 30, 1998, when the NICS launched, through the end of 2016. A separate report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics shows that more than 3 million, or 1.5 percent, of gun applications were denied between the Brady law’s effective date in 1994 and the end of 2015.
- A 2017 study estimated that 42% of US gun owners acquired their most recent firearm without a background check. According to the US Department of Justice, because federal law fails to require background checks by every person who sells or transfers a gun—known as universal background checks—“individuals prohibited by law from possessing guns can easily obtain them from private sellers and do so without any federal records of the transactions.” “The private-party gun market,” one study observed, “has long been recognized as a leading source of guns used in crimes.” Although this loophole is sometimes referred to as the “gun show” loophole, because of the particular problems associated with unlicensed sellers at gun shows, it applies to all private firearm sales, regardless of where they occur.
- A 2017 study estimated that 42% of US gun owners acquired their most recent firearm without a background check. Yet, since the federal background check requirement was adopted in 1994, over 3 million people legally prohibited from possessing a gun—mainly convicted felons, domestic abusers, and the dangerously mentally ill—have been denied a firearm transfer or permit. In 2014 alone, 147,000 prohibited people were blocked from acquiring guns by NICS, the federal background check system.
Results from states and federally licensed dealers reporting to NICS
- Most background checks on the NICS are conducted by the states, not federal agencies.
Only twenty-one states report that 80 percent or more of all felony arrests within the criminal history database have final dispositions recorded. For what it’s worth, Congress reports that 21 million felonies that have not been reported to the NICS amounting to 25% of all felons.
- During a 16-year period that ended in December 2014, more than 1 million prohibited people - including more than 100,000 convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence and nearly 50,000 with domestic-violence-related restraining orders - were denied guns after background checks submitted by federally licensed dealers according to a report by the Justice Department's inspector general.
- Criminals overwhelming buy guns from private party sellers. Ninety-six percent of criminals convicted of gun offenses obtained their guns through private sellers in a recent survey. The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) have stated that, because individuals who fail a background check can easily access firearms from unlicensed sellers, “Guns are far too easily acquired by prohibited possessors, and too often end up being used in gun crime and gun violence.”
Private Sales and the NRA
- The National Rifle Association, meanwhile, has called the loophole “a critical safety valve in federal law” that “ensures that Americans’ rights to acquire firearms are not arbitrarily denied because of bureaucratic delays, inefficiencies, or mistakes in identity.”
- States with background checks have 63% fewer mass shootings by individuals who are prohibited from possessing guns and 64% fewer mass shootings involving domestic violence. States with comprehensive background check laws also experience 48% less gun trafficking, 38% fewer deaths of women shot by intimate partners, and 17% fewer firearms involved in aggravated assaults, per capita. States with universal background check requirements also have 53% fewer firearm suicides and 31% fewer overall suicides per capita than states without these laws.
- Criminals travel to obtain guns without background checks. Nevada has a gun show sponsored by multiple gun organizations with an estimated 65,000 attendees annually a few miles from the Las Vegas massacre. Firearms-related deaths and injuries increased 70 percent in parts of California in the weeks after gun shows in neighboring Nevada, which has fewer regulations on such events, a University of California.
- Chicago, attempting to prohibit guns acquired in neighboring states with less restrictive gun laws and registration of guns backed by police chiefs was taken to court by the NRA whose separate lawsuit was combined with another - McDonald v the City of Chicago - and mostly overturned. Firearm deaths in Chicago have worsened since that decision driven by gang-related crime.
NRA's official position and recent statements
- The NRA and the gun lobby opposes background checks, regulations by cities and states to restrict access to guns, closing the private seller loophole, and advocates ending the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) which they consider a "gun registry". Wayne LaPierre recently said about any further gun control limitations: "What they want are more restrictions on the law-abiding — think about that. Their solution is to make you, all of you, less free. They want to sweep right under the carpet the failure of school security, the failure of the family, the failure of America's school systems and even the unbelievable failure of the FBI."
- Another gun rights speaker at CPAC, Dana Loesch said: "We will not be gaslighted into thinking that we are responsible for a tragedy that we had nothing to do with. It is not our job to follow up on red flags. It is not our job to make sure that states are reporting to the background system." As noted, the NRA fought for control for the states control over background check reporting. Loesch also said: "Where are the stories about how only 38 states submit less than 80 percent of criminal convictions to the background check system? It’s only as good as what is submitted to it." implying legislation will not solve the background check system's failures. The NRA's official stance from its website: “NRA opposes expanding firearm background check systems.”
- LaPierre accused Democrats of making gun control an issue in order to "eradicate all individual freedoms."
Ninety percent of Americans support background checks for all gun sales - "universal background checks".
