National Instant Criminal Background Check System

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Lightbreather (talk | contribs) at 16:00, 27 June 2014 (→References). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 16:00, 27 June 2014 by Lightbreather (talk | contribs) (→References)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

The National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) is a point-of-sale system for determining eligibility to purchase a firearm in the United States of America. Federal Firearms License (FFL) holders are generally required by law to use the NICS to determine if it is legal to sell a firearm to a prospective purchaser. Mandated by the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (Brady Law) of 1993 and launched by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on November 30, 1998, NICS determines if the buyer is prohibited from buying a firearm under the Gun Control Act of 1968. It is linked to the National Crime Information Center and the Interstate Identification Index among other databases maintained by the FBI.

The National Instant Criminal Background Check System is applicable to sales from federally licensed dealers. Sales of firearms by private sellers are allowed to proceed without a background check unless required by state law. These regulations remain in place at gun shows, where no special leniency is granted to licensed sellers, and no additional requirements are placed upon private sellers.

NICS is accessed by an FFL, on the firearm buyer's behalf, by phone or computer. When contacted by phone, the communication is either with an FBI/NICS Examiner, who directly receives the information submitted by the FFL, or by proxy through a Call Center representative, who forwards the information electronically to the NICS. Whether an Examiner or a Call Center representative is contacted depends on the state in which the sale is conducted. When using a computer, an FFL representative can submit the buyer's information using the E-Check system which is a web interface to the NICS. An FFL can be an individual or an organization such as a retail store. An organization registered as an FFL minimizes the overhead involved in managing identification for multiple individuals who are employed by the organization.

By law, an FFL must receive a response from the NICS within 3 days or the firearm sale can proceed, although the FFL seller is not required to do so. If, after 3 days, the sale is completed and later it is determined the buyer should not have received the firearm, then the firearm must be retrieved.

Background

Running background checks was discussed as early as the 1930s. The Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA) mandated that individual and corporate firearms dealers have a Federal Firearms License (FFL). It also created a system for keeping prohibited persons from buying guns that relied upon buyers answering a series of "yes/no" questions such as, "Are you a fugitive from justice?". However, sellers, including FFL dealers, were not required to verify the answers.

Coordinated efforts to create a national background check system did not materialize until after the March 1981 assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan. White House press secretary, James Brady, was seriously wounded in the attack, and afterward his wife, Sarah Brady, spearheaded the push to pass the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (Brady Act) of 1993. When signed into law in November of that year, the Brady Act included a GCA amendment that created the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).

The Brady Act mandated that FFL dealers run background checks on their buyers. At first, the law applied only to handgun sales, and there was a waiting period (maximum of five days) to accommodate dealers in states that did not already have background check systems in place. Those dealers were to use state law enforcement to run checks until 1998, when the NICS would become operational and come into effect. In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled against the five-day waiting period, but by 1998 the NICS was up and running, administered by the FBI, and applied to all firearms purchases from FFL dealers, including long guns.

How it works

States may implement their own NICS programs. Such states become the point of contact (POC) between their FFL dealers and the NICS. A few partial-POC states run FFL handgun checks, while the FBI runs long gun checks. FFLs in other, non-POC states access the NICS directly through the FBI. When a background check is initiated three databases are accessed: the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), the Interstate Identification Index (III), and the NICS Index.

According to the FBI, checks are usually determined within minutes of initiation. If there is no match in any of the checked databases, the dealer is cleared to proceed with the transfer. Otherwise, the FBI's NCIS Section must contact the appropriate judicial and/or law enforcement agencies for more information. Per the Brady Act, the FBI has three business days to make its decision to approve or deny the transfer. If the FFL has not received the decision within that time it may legally proceed anyway.

Authorized local, state, tribal, and federal agencies can update NCIS Index data via the NCIC front end, or by electronic batch files. In addition, the NICS Section receives calls, often in emergency situations, from mental health care providers, police departments, and family members requesting placement of individuals into the NICS Index. Documentation justifying entry into the NICS Index must be available to originating agencies.

Prohibited persons

Under sections 922(g) and (n) of the GCA certain persons are prohibited from:

Shipping or transporting any firearm or ammunition in interstate or foreign commerce;
Receiving any firearm or ammunition that has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce.

A prohibited person is one who:

Has been convicted in any court of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year;
Is under indictment for a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year;
Is a fugitive from justice;
Is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance;
Has been adjudicated as a mental defective or committed to a mental institution;
Is illegally or unlawfully in the United States;
Has been discharged from the Armed Forces under dishonorable conditions;
Having been a citizen of the United States, has renounced U.S. citizenship;
Is subject to a court order that restrains the person from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner or child of such intimate partner;
Has been convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.

Firearm denial appeals

A buyer who believes that a NICS denial is erroneous may appeal the decision by either challenging the accuracy of the record used in the evaluation of the denial or claiming that the record used as basis for the denial is invalid or does not pertain to the buyer. The provisions for appeals are outlined in the NICS Regulations at Title 28, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 25.10, and Subsection 103 (f) and (g) and Section 104 of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993.

References

^ "FBI: Index Brochure". fbi.gov. U.S. Department of Justice. December 2013. Retrieved June 18, 2014.
^ Carroll, Walter F. (2002). "National Instant Criminal Background Check System". In Carter, Gregg Lee (ed.). Guns in American Society: An Encyclopedia of History, Politics, Culture and the Law (1st ed.). Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. pp. 431–432. ISBN 9781576072684. OCLC 50643991. Retrieved June 20, 2014.
^ Vernick, Jon S.; Webster, Daniel W.; Vittes, Katherine A. (2011). "Law and Policy Approaches to Keeping Guns from High-Risk People". In Culhane, John G. (ed.). Reconsidering Law and Policy Debates: A Public Health Perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-19505-8. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |chapterurl= (help)
"FBI: NICS Celebrates 10 Years of Operation". fbi.gov. U.S. Department of Justice. November 30, 2008. Retrieved June 20, 2014.
^ "FBI: NCIS Overview". fbi.gov. U.S. Department of Justice. December 2013. Retrieved June 22, 2014.
"U.S. Code, Title 18, Part I, Chapter 44, § 922 - Unlawful acts (g)". law.cornell.edu. Legal Information Institute. August 13, 2013. Retrieved June 22, 2014.
"U.S. Code, Title 18, Part I, Chapter 44, § 922 - Unlawful acts (n)". law.cornell.edu. Legal Information Institute. August 13, 2013. Retrieved June 22, 2014.
Davidson, Charlie. "FBI Background Check Denial Appeal Process". Retrieved 25 April 2012.

External links

FBI: Gun Checks/NICS program home

Categories:

Misplaced Pages