A group of Republican and Democratic lawmakers have proposed new legislation aimed at improving the accuracy of background check data used by gun store owners to prevent the sale of firearms to people who shouldn’t own them.
The bill is sponsored by Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., one of the Senate’s staunchest advocates for increased gun control.
The legislation does not increase or alter background check requirements. Instead, it provides incentives and penalties aimed at ensuring federal and state agencies comply with current laws requiring them to report criminal history records to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). Gun stores use the NICS when conducting legally required background checks on people who purchase guns and ammunition.
In the most recent mass shooting that took place this month in Texas, the shooter was able to purchase a gun because the Air Force did not report a criminal conviction for domestic assault to the NICS.
“For years agencies and states haven’t complied with the law, failing to upload these critical records without consequence,” Cornyn said Thursday. “Just one record that’s not properly reported can lead to tragedy, as the country saw last week in Sutherland Springs, Texas. This bill aims to help fix what’s become a nationwide, systemic problem so we can better prevent criminals and domestic abusers from obtaining firearms.”
Lawmakers say underreporting of criminal histories to the NICS is rampant among both federal agencies and states.
The bill would require federal agencies and states to put in place NICS implementation plans “focused on uploading all information to the background check system showing that a person is prohibited from purchasing or possessing firearms under current law — including measures to verify the accuracy of records.”
The legislation would require the public reporting of federal agencies and states that don’t send relevant records to the background check system, and it would block bonus pay for the political appointees running those agencies. On the other side, it would reward compliant states with federal grant preferences and other incentives.
The bill has so far earned wide bipartisan support in the Senate. Republican backers include Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Dean Heller, R-Nev.
If it passes, the legislation would be the first bill in many years to address the control of gun purchases.
Democrats in recent week have proposed much stricter gun control measures.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has introduced legislation that would ban the sale of many semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips as well as devices that increase firing speed. Feinstein’s bill has little chance of passing the House or Senate, however.
Feinstein has signed on to the Cornyn-Murphy bill, which Murphy called “an important milestone that shows real compromise can be made on the issue of guns.”
