On Wednesday, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered a full review of the background check database used for validating gun purchases in the country.
The National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), which was instituted in 1998, has so far stopped 1.5 million people from purchasing firearms. Of those, 180,000 were categorized as “fugitives from justice.”
But in February this year, the FBI removed the names of “tens of thousands” of people wanted by law enforcement officials from the NICS database. That means, between February and now, it’s unclear how many people that weren’t eligible to buy guns could have purchased them.
Why did the FBI do this? In February, the FBI changed the definition of “fugitive from justice” to only include those who had crossed state lines.
So, if a “fugitive from justice” stays in the same state, they are no longer considered “fugitives from justice” as far as the FBI is concerned. Essentially, that’s the same as saying it’s okay for state-bound suspects to purchase firearms.
The problem is, this is a federal database, and removing names of wanted people just because of a definition change would undermine the very purpose of doing a background check – to see if they have a criminal record.
Do you want real-life evidence of that? Well, you have it.
The Sutherland Springs church shooting this month was perpetrated by Devin Patrick Kelley. The Air Force failed to follow protocol and inform the FBI about Kelley’s earlier arrest for domestic violence. Somewhere in that confusion, his name was not entered into the NICS, which allowed him to obtain firearms before the shooting. 25 other people are now dead because of that error.
Before the FBI directive, there were over 500,000 names in the database under the “fugitives from justice” category; today, there are 788.
This Wednesday, Sessions sent a memo to the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives instructing them to take measures to rectify and improve the NICS.
The Giffords Law Center, set up by Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, has also called on the FBI and ATF to “correct this self-inflicted loophole” and to attempt a recovery of all guns that were bought after the purging of the database.
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