Tens of thousands of people wanted by law enforcement officials have been removed this year from the FBI criminal background check database that prohibits fugitives from justice from buying guns. The names were taken out after the FBI in February changed its legal interpretation of “fugitive from justice” to say it pertains only to wanted people who have crossed state lines. What that means is that those fugitives who were previously prohibited under federal law from purchasing firearms can now buy them, unless barred for other reasons.
Since the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) was created in 1998, the background check system has prevented 1.5 million people from buying guns, including 180,000 denials to people who were fugitives from justice, according to government statistics. It is unclear how many people may have bought guns since February who previously would have been prohibited from doing so.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions sent a memo Wednesday to the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives instructing them to take several steps to improve NICS. The system, he said, is “critical for us to be able to keep guns out of the hands of those … prohibited from owning them.”
Supposedly, for more than 15 years, the FBI and ATF disagreed about who exactly was a fugitive from justice. The FBI, which runs the criminal background check database, had a broad definition and said that anyone with an outstanding arrest warrant was prohibited from buying a gun. But ATF argued that, under the law, a person is considered a fugitive from justice only if they have an outstanding warrant and have also traveled to another state.
Full article, HERE.
Now this is really interesting, considering the current ‘issues’ with background checks, and how they have been handled (or not) in the past. It’s not just the mental adjudications that aren’t getting in there, a number of blue states don’t provide any inputs on mental or domestic convictions, from what I’ve been told by people in the know.
In other news, Walter Williams has a column up at Townhall.com on diversity, and it’s worth the read…
The bottom-line question for black parents and black people in general is:
Which is better, a black student’s being admitted to an elite college and winding up in the bottom of his class or flunking out or being admitted to a less prestigious college and performing just as well as his white peers and graduating? I would opt for the latter.
Full article, HERE.
Personally, I believe Mr. Williams hits a home run with this one, pointing out the pretzels colleges/college presidents twist themselves into…
as to walter williams column, thomas sowall had a similar view in a column he wrote a few years ago, essentially would you rather be a small fish in a big pond or a big fish in a small pond.
Thanks. I knew someone had said it.
So much for needing more gun laws.
The truth of the matter is that there are is a LARGE body of people with arrest warrants that never leave home, but nobody in law enforcement looks for them. Eventually, those cases are dismissed because there is a due diligence requirement for warrants to be served (due process).
I think that ATF is correct. “Fugitive from Justice” in the federal sense of the word requires that somebody cross state lines in order to give them jurisdiction.
There’s probably a *much* larger group of “fugitives from justice” who have no clue of their status.
“Failure to appear” for a court summons makes you a fugitive in most places, though the courts don’t put much effort into finding those people. They just put the names on a list so they’re flagged if the police ever run a check on someone.
A friend spent the weekend in jail a while back after being pulled over for a minor traffic violation. He was hauled away in handcuffs and his car towed. Monday he got to see a “judge” who was a TV screen and a camera, while standing in a long line of other prisoners.
His crime? A former neighbor had sworn out a complaint almost ten years before. There being no court process for delivering notice – in this jurisdiction, that’s the job of the complaintant – he never knew there was a summons, didn’t show up, and was automatically listed as FTA.
This sounded so highly unlikely I had to check for myself. Yep, it really works that way, at least in that county. Does it work that way where you are? Are you sure you don’t have an FTA sitting somewhere in a jurisdiction that *does* work that way? It’s a Federal crime to put incorrect information on a 4473.
All- Thanks for the comments. LL/TRX, thanks for the education. I didn’t know that.
It is always something, isn’t it?
Hey Old NFO;
Also I am being a bit paranoid…They also can want some nutcases to get firearms like that nutcase that shot up a church because the AirForce dropped the ball. Get a few more shootings and they can use public outrage to eliminate the 2nd amendment.
At first I was up in arms about the FBI and then I read LL/TRX. So, maybe this one’s excusable. Still, we’re right to be paranoid/wary, as for college…
What’s the point of a kid going to school and amassing 100k+ debt for the privilege of smoking pot etc and pretending to study history, or something. All in order to get a degree that pretty much qualifies them for nothing much at all.
I’d say vocational training makes way more sense for many of these teens — maybe my own. Then, after a few years when they’re hopefully not complete idiots, they can go to school.
LL suggested that and I agreed!
Of course there’s always the Legion, but would LaShawn even get in? Doubtful, I think you have to be able to read.
Walter Williams is spot on with his observations.
Will the government go after the guns from these people that were formerly prohibited from buying them?
5 bucks says I still get a delay if I go in to buy a gun…