A system is only as good as the data put into it
SBI: Local law enforcement behind gaps in gun background check system
Seventy-eight people have been blocked from buying guns in recent months because old criminal convictions in North Carolina were finally uploaded into the federal background check system, officials said Tuesday.
In announcing a gun safety directive Monday, Gov. Roy Cooper noted that the State Bureau of Investigations had found 284,289 convictions that were never reported to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS.
“When someone goes to buy a gun and there’s a background check, that check is only as good as the information that’s in it,” Cooper said.
SBI Special Agent in Charge Wyatt Pettengill said Tuesday that the convictions, some of which date to the 1980s, involved about 145,000 people – greater than the population of Wilmington.
Pettengill said the problem starts at the local level, where arrests aren’t always reported to the SBI, which is responsible for uploading information to NICS.
It is sometimes easier for an officer to cite a person and let them go rather than booking them, so, that information doesn’t make it into the NICS. And, of course, this doesn’t mean that everyone not reported would be barred. In the above case, though, these people would have been. The SBI has caught up and put everything into the database. But, how many were legally able to purchase a firearm? A second WRAL article notes that both sides are rather upset
The revelation that the convictions of about 145,000 people in North Carolina weren’t included for years in a federal database used to determine whether someone can buy a gun irritates people on both sides of the gun debate. (snip)
Although the backlog of unreported convictions has been cleared, Pettengill said it’s impossible to know how many people were able to buy a gun over the years who shouldn’t have been because of a criminal record.
How often does this happen around the nation?
“I’ve been talking about this for a couple of years now and the last time I brought this up on television as a real problem I was screamed at and shouted down,” former NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch tweeted late Tuesday, including a link to WRAL’s story. “We going to take it seriously yet?”
Jessica Burroughs of MomsRising, a group that advocates against gun violence, praised Cooper and the SBI for getting the convictions into the NICS database and said other states should follow suit.
“Unfortunately, across the country, there has been an under-investment in the NICS system, with state and local law enforcement agencies failing to keep the information they submit up to date,” Burroughs said. “This leads to loopholes where people who should not be allowed to purchase guns are able to access them.”
It’s not under-funding, and these aren’t loopholes. They are gaps,chinks, and failures in the system. Remember, the Air Force and other military branches failed to report lots of convictions to the NICS. There are millions of records missing from the system, “a gap that contributed to the shooting deaths of 26 people in a Texas church (in 2017) this week.” In both those cases, a failure to report allowed them to purchase a firearm legally.
Gun rights have no problem with a background system. We WANT people who should have guns due to criminal convictions to be denied. We also know that some will get those guns illegally. Who wants to bet that the Philadelphia gunman obtained his illegally?
Dear @SenGillibrand: do you think that the gunman in Philadelphia who has shot six police officers attempting to serve a narcotics warrant would have obeyed "legislative action to stop gun violence"? What gun control laws do you believe he would have obeyed? https://t.co/N5SB41cHNQ
— Dana Pico (@Dana_TFSJ) August 15, 2019
Liberals are going hardcore at the Supreme Court and other courts to Do Something, to get emotional. They’re threatening to restructure it and pack it if they win the White House. The NY Times argues that the Court is “out of step”, and needs to get emotional, especially since they agreed to hear a case against the City of New York over their draconian gun restrictions on law abiding citizens. The Law is supposed to be blind and unemotional, the better to stop kneejerk, emotional rulings. Hilariously, it includes this line from an interest group over a briefing to the Court
“This court should decline the invitation to claim for itself the authority to set nationwide firearm policy and instead leave these sensitive decisions to the political process.â€
Interesting. Leftists constantly want the Court to set nationwide policies when it helps them, like with gay marriage, gender confused rights, allowing open borders, etc. And even gun control, when it helps them. As long as it is a win, they’re good with the Court.
We just need to accept that police, children, churchgoers, shoppers getting slaughtered is the price we pay for our freedom to have the arms we desire.
This, apparently, is the new line the Lefties will be pushing.
All that really needs to be done is make it a lot easier to commit the nuts and execute the rest.
So your answer as a true believing communist is either we “accept” illegal activity or steal the rights of honest Americans? Boy, you lefties get more and more dangerous every day.
There is NO OTHER WAY to address these crazy people, criminals and terrorists than remove the God-given Constitutional rights of every law abiding American.
You leftist nuts amuse me. Your first reaction to EVERYTHING is emotion, not reason. And from there it just goes down hill.
Like we’re gonna trust our rights to a group of idiots who don’t know there are two sexes.
Trump 2020 Get the emotional wrecks out of politics.
Kye,
Do all you white nationalists have reading disabilities?
What I recommended is that we accept that schoolchildren, shoppers, Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, theater goers, diners will occasionally be slaughtered by lunatics with firearms. Is that so hard to understand? I’m on your side! Scores of dead schoolchildren now and then is a small price to pay for our freedoms! Don’t you agree?
“God-given” Constitutional rights? That’s a laugh. Do you know for a fact that “god” considers semi-automatic weapons with 30 or 100 round magazines a right? But you may be right, “god” tolerates the slaughter of schoolchildren, shoppers, Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, theater goers and diners.
As with collusion and impeachment, the bunny suit is the last to get the memo; calling anybody who disagrees with you a white nationalist is a losing proposition.
And his “recommendation” is the utter drivel most of his comments are.
BTW In its day, the Pennsylvania Long Rifle was considered as dangerous as any magazine, but our little Commie has shown his true colors, so we just dismiss him as another Red wanting to disarm the public because unarmed peasants are easier to load into boxcars.