The National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, is the system you have to go through when you buy a firearm.to make sure you're not prohibited from doing so. It's been around for quite a while, and it's had its ups and downs. Sutherland Springs showed some ineligible people were still buying guns. The insane backlog during the pandemic showed it lacked resources. People being denied who have done nothing wrong shows other issues.
But now, the landscape may be changing on guns following President Trump's executive order on gun laws. That raises a question: What should happen to NICS?
My friend Dan Wos took a swing at that recently. Here are his thoughts.
According to the Government Accountability Office, in 2017, the NICS background check system denied 112,090 people the right to purchase a firearm. Of those 112,090 denials, only 12,710 were investigated. We have to ask ourselves: If over 112,000 people were denied but only 12,710 Investigations took place, wouldn’t that be clear evidence that the system is failing and falsely denying good people their right to keep and bear?
It gets worse. That same year, and from that group of 112,090 denials, there were only 12 prosecutions for the crime of attempting to purchase a firearm. Now the anti-gun crowd says, “See, we stopped 12 mass shootings!” Well, there are problems with that argument.
First of all, do we have no regard for the 112,078 people who were caught up in the poorly run background check system? What happens to those people? Well, the anti-gun crowd couldn’t care less about the people who are falsely denied their 2nd Amendment rights. As well as being falsely labeled a criminal and refused the ability to purchase a gun, good folks who are denied must also jump through hoops, make appeals, and wait. Then, they have to wait some more because we know how efficient government agencies operate. By some estimates, approximately 80% of the NICS denials are never even appealed, often because the person denied is unable to navigate the appeals process or is unable to afford a lawyer to help them. In the meantime, good people are rendered unarmed and helpless by an unconstitutional process that should never have existed in the first place.
...After watching the NICS system deny thousands of good people over the years, you’re supposed to believe that now, magically, the firearm background check system is functioning as it should. Well, we’re not buying it for a minute. We know the system is falsely denying good people their right to own firearms, and the system needs to be abolished.
Our Founding Fathers didn’t say, “…the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed… as long as you go through a background check system designed by people who don’t want you to have a gun.”
Honestly, Dan isn't wrong.
While the NICS was a compromise system designed to prevent the waiting period pending a background check that Brady Bill supporters originally wanted, there is still something profoundly wrong with having to jump through the hoops on a background check just to exercise a constitutionally protected right. Especially when it's clear that the anti-gun side is still going to keep pushing for that waiting period anyway.
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Criminals aren't currently going to gun stores to get guns, and sure, that may be because of the background check system, but it's also not like they're having that hard of a time getting guns in the first place.
The thing is, if we're going to have a mandated background check--and I honestly don't see there being enough political will anywhere in Washington to put an end to that--the options to NICS aren't particularly enticing, either.
Instead, what will be the easier sell is to reform NICS to some degree where we stop seeing so many false denials.
I'd rather see the whole process chunked and for politicians to finally recognize that guns aren't the cause of crime, but simply a tool that the criminal isn't going to give up. I'm just skeptical that I'll see it happen in my lifetime.
