After years of federal indifference toward people who lie on their form 4473’s as well as those who are mistakenly passed by the FBI’s NICS system, USA Today reports that “Federal authorities sought to take back guns from thousands of people the background check system should have blocked from buying weapons because they had criminal records, mental health issues or other problems that would disqualify them.”
A USA TODAY review found that the FBI issued more than 4,000 requests last year for agents from the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives to retrieve guns from prohibited buyers.
Got that? ATF agents will be knocking on the doors of a few thousand prohibited persons and asking them to hand over their firearms. What could possibly go wrong? Any volunteers for that duty?
The FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) vets millions of gun purchase transactions every year. But the thousands of gun seizure requests highlight persistent problems in a system where analysts must complete background checks within three days of the proposed purchase. If the background check is not complete within the 72-hour time limit, federal law allows the sale to go forward. ATF agents are asked to take back the guns if the FBI later finds these sales should have been denied.
It’s almost as if the entire Brady Bill background check system is really just useless security theater meant to add cost and inconvenience to the purchase of firearms.
And yes, this will be dangerous work. These prohibited persons are, after all, convicted felons, those who have been involuntarily committed or are the subject of orders of protection.
“These are people who shouldn’t have weapons in the first place, and it just takes one to do something that could have tragic consequences,” said David Chipman, a former ATF official who helped oversee the firearm retrieval program. “You don’t want ATF to stand for ‘after the fact.'” …
Chipman, now a senior policy adviser for the Giffords Law Center which advocates for more gun restrictions, called the retrieval process “uniquely dangerous.”
An accurate assessment from one of Gabby Giffords minions? Even a stopped clock…. So how successful has the confiscation program been so far?
The ATF declined to provide information on the 4,170 gun purchases the FBI referred for seizure last year. They reflect a substantial increase from 2,892 requests the previous year.
The FBI said the ATF is not required to report back on the status of the retrieval efforts.
Your tax dollars at work. Shut up and don’t ask us any questions.
The NICS system has gotten a lot more pubic attention since the Sutherland Springs church massacre in which Devin Kelley — a prohibited person if ever there was one — was able to legally purchase three firearms because the Air Force failed to report his criminal record to NICS.
Meanwhile legislation is making its way through Congress which would apply a thick veneer of lipstick to the porcine background check system.
For now, much of the attention on gun policy by lawmakers has focused on boosting compliance with current reporting requirements to the FBI.
Last month, a bipartisan group of senators led by Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas introduced legislation that would penalize federal agencies that fail to properly report relevant criminal and mental health records and provides incentives to states to improve their overall reporting to the NICS repository. The bill also directs more federal funding to the accurate reporting of domestic violence records.
“For years agencies and states haven’t complied with the law, failing to upload these critical records without consequence,” Cornyn said. “Just one record that’s not properly reported can lead to tragedy.”
The government’s evergreen answer to virtually any problem: more funding! The Devin Kelleys and Dylan Roofs of the world would have been stopped if only we’d have fully funded the FBI’s background check system. And if you believe that one, I have shares in a new Harvey Weinstein-produced feature length production starring Kevin Spacey that I’d like to talk to you about.
So, countless government employees stunk at their jobs and authorized federal firearm licensees to sell firearms to thousands of “prohibited persons”.
And yet we are supposed to trust that countless government employees will carry out their jobs in stellar fashion (to approve firearm sales for “non-prohibited persons”) and never interfere with our ability to purchase firearms?
In the immortal words of television series Home Improvement character Al Borland, “I don’t think so, Tim.”
Incompetence, malaise, apathy, malice, and inadequate resourcing are just some of the reasons why government employees could screw us with respect to background checks. We need to eliminate the background check system.
What if those weapons were sold privately to law abiding citizens (would have passed a background check).
I’m sure they’ll catch LOADS of other criminals who bought those guns from the original “bad” buyer.
???
Trying to follow you- are you saying a lawful purchaser who was later denied might get a visit? Wouldn’t that suggest they weren’t really lawful?
Or did a lawful purchaser buy the gun with the intent to pass it to an UNLAWFUL one (straw sale)? If so, how did anyone know that until after the ill-gotten gun had already been found/seized by the police?
My understanding is that if a prohibited person buys a firearm and then sells to a legal buyer, once the ATF find that the transfer is legit, the legal buyer can keep the firearm as the illegal seller no longer posses it. If the firearm were stolen, then it would be confiscated and the illegal seller would be accountable for returning the funds.
At least that is how the ATF explained it to me.
More money AND more control. They want more betterer records, that way when someone shoots up a place they can wipe their hands and say it wasn’t their fault the suspect got a gun….. and then say that if you give them more money and more control, they can prevent the next one, until it happens again….. round and round it goes, where it stops nobody knows (hint* it ends with a police state).
You wouldn’t have shares of a movie for investing, you’d have points.
So um, friend wants to know: If he didn’t get a letter or a phone call, could he still expect a visit?
It’s happened to a friend of mine, he was on probation for a misdeamnor, bought a gun from wall Mart, around a week later the police show up, drags him off to jail for probation violation. So expect no ” we’ll give you a chance” phone calls or letters.
If you’re on probation for a misdemeanor, you need to check your probation instructions (or, if you have one, your PO). If there’s no restriction on guns, then there’s no restrictions on guns.
Of course, knowing your local laws is a big help, too.
IANAL.
Never trust what you see on TV (including “Cops”).
Probation rules rarely make a distinction between a misdemeanor charge and a felony charge, for a very simple reason: the “one size fits all” approach makes the P.O.’s jobs easier.
I watched an acquaintance’s attorney challenge half the items on the standard probation restrictions list because they had no relevance to the charged crime. He won most of his points, but guess what? There’s a little loophole in the law where it says the person on probation “must obey all orders and instructions” from the P.O. — so his P.O. just reinstated all the points the judge had waived, as an “order”.
And that power is pretty absolute: as a state representatives’ office explained to me, unless what is ordered is a felony or a crime against a person, there’s no appeal or redress from whatever stupid things a P.O.might instruct — so P.O.s decide where you can live, who you can see, what job you can have, whether you can pursue your hobbies, even if you can go to church, and they get away with it… even to the point that hit another guy I know, washing and waxing the P.O.’s SUV once a week.
That’s why I said, “Of course, knowing your local laws is a big help, too.”
I have no idea what your local rules concerning probation are, but I’d bet money they aren’t the same as where I am.
Rules even change from one judge to another in the same jurisdiction.
Check out the amount of shit those ATF bastards are carrying. It’s a raid 100 yards from your armored vehicle, bro, not a protracted military operation to remove an entrenched enemy 10 miles into the backcountry. At least you can tell they’re cowards. They wanna play dress up and pretend to be soldiers but clearly lack the balls to actually enlist. Who wants to be accountable when you can shoot the dog and flash bang the baby, then get a medal for valor and have the boot lickers worship you?
Yeah I remember hearing a conversation between a customer and a gun shop employee on the intricacies involved with shouldering a pistol brace when it was an issue. The gun shop employee told the customer that there is a local cop that is apparently deputized to act as an ATF agent, or enforce NFA laws, or something. Really can’t remember, but, the employee said that the cop told him that if he ever saw someone shoulder a pistol brace that he would put them on the ground with typical knee behind the neck. The employee related what the cop said with such zeal, as though he was proud to hear that a thug in uniform would enforce such a moronic ruling just to score some brownie points with his ATF scum buddies. I wish to god that I would have been there when the cop told the employee this so I could look him in the eyes and dare him to do it in front of me. I dare you to threaten to shoot someone in front of me for them merely placing a brace against their shoulder. I would have drawn down on you, you cowardly motherfucker, and put my knee behind your neck. I would also have loved to have asked an employee behind the counter to hand me a pistol brace equipped rifle just so I could shoulder it in front of him and dare him to draw his weapon. I know I may sound as though I am trying to be some type of hardass rebel, but, I can assure that the events would have unfolded as I typed them, had I been there. I just find it so disgusting that we allow government employees to threaten regular citizens with death and destitution because they refuse to follow illegal laws. Yeah, those little boys sure need all that gear to retrieve a Hi-Point, right? Lol. Fucking cowards. ATF agents are known as the bottom feeders of the fed ranks for a reason.
You know what would’ve been better? To see the look on that tool bags face when his beloved ATF approved the SIG brace!
When cops harass people because of regulations and not laws, it drives me up the wall on two counts: one, that any bureaucrat should be ceded the authority to make law without a legislature; two, that the same rules don’t apply to corporations — I learned in preparing for court on a ludicrous charge that for a corporation ignorance of the regulations is indeed an excuse, where for actual people it isn’t.
So when Romney said corporations are people, he was wrong: corporations are superior to people.
The entire background check systems is 100% security theater as is. More than that I have a sneaking suspension that this entire list of 4000 or so prohibited persons is going to end up being nothing but a list of veterans who made the mistake of talking to someone at the VA about their problems.
Common folks, as indicated in the article, these are convicted felons. They have had their day in court, they were given due process, and SCOTUS specifically says they maybe be forbidden firearms. Not only should ATF try to get the guns back – they should arrest every one of these felons and prosecute then for lying on the 4473 form and being felons in the possession of firearms.
The best way to prevent more gun laws is to actually enforce the federal laws we already have. I have been in the fight for 50 years and I have never seen gun control advocates demand that current laws be enforced – they do not want that. They want to be able to call for more laws……….
Being on record as insisting laws be enforced, it is not at all clear that the entire number of “retrieval” requests is restricted to convicted felons. As noted here many times, there are some ugly, overreaching rules that declare competent persons “prohibited” because of non-criminal conditions. These are not people who have “had their day in court”. First clarification needed is whether or not each one of the “retrieval” requests is, in fact, a convicted felon.
The next item to be addressed is the 72hr “must sell” requirement (of course any FFL can decide to not sell, anyway). The time line is in place to keep government from denying gun purchases by delaying determinations indefinitely. If someone believes 72hrs is to short, maybe 96hrs will be more effective in reducing “erroneous” gun sales. Maybe not. Point is, the 72hr performance parameter should not be considered a flaw.
Third, anyone can file a FOIA request with the ATF requiring provisioning of the results of the requests for “retrievals”. The best answer would be for ATF to tell interested parties to go piss up a rope. That would lead to all sorts of uncomforting attention from media and politicians. The next best answer would be to find that they have actually done nothing, leading again to unwanted public attention.
Now they are complaining about the 72 hour rule. They want a few months instead so they can cork up gun sales routinely without accountability.
Don’t think they wouldn’t do that after a mass shooting or around holidays when gun sales are highest
Precisely. Feds, all of them, hate being held accountable. I found them to be the most curious of animal. Coming into federal service from private industry, I found, in a legal environment where it is impossible to fire someone (regardless of the offense), feds were more worried about their jobs than those in industry I work with in the good old “dot bomb” days. In private industry, my job, salary, and/or bonus were on the line every day. I knew it, co-workers knew it, bosses knew it. Yet, while in federal service most of the strategizing on any subject was career protection (and leveraging “the system” for promotion). Even when we had what were claimed to be mandatory performance measures, gamesmanship could overcome most of them. Oddly, government is also quite capable of setting performance measures that, if achieved, result in a negative grade on your performance.
I used to (before I moved) frequent a gun store that had its own policy: five days (120 hours). With that limit, they cut down the ‘error’ rate to nil.
Intriguing. Do you happen to know if that was only to allow the FFL to review and re-review the 4473, or to allow further time for authorities to review the buyer’s background?
Well there you go. Had their day in court, convicted, released, your free, but not free. This is the bullshit. And straight from the horse’s mouth, NO LAW HAS EVER KEPT A LAW BREAKER FROM BREAKING THE LAW. never ever. .
In Hawaii, evidently, you can be prevented from having a gun without ever having a day in court. And the police will even go after you if you have one, but also have a medical MJ card.
There is a whole raft of rules that can make you a prohibited person without ever having a day in court.
In a few states, all it takes is someone complaining that you (with your gun(s)), scare them. That’s it. The police come and take your guns. You don’t even have the right to defend yourself from this.
Due process. What’s that?
Does anyone here really think that government employees will somehow become competent because another bill has been signed into law? That’s just not how gummint works in DC.
Senator John Cornyn.
Hmmm…I can see this is going to operate without a hitch-if slowly. Like one boo-lit a time. .Gov to the resue😢
Since more than 95% of denials are false positives, does that mean that 95% of the doors the jack booted thugs kick in will be those of innocents? And if they steal the property of those innocents will they be prosecuted for the theft?
So, we screwed up and let some prohibited persons have gu ns, and now we’re going to go back and seize those weapons we shouldn’t have let them have in the first place. If I trusted the fe deral gubmint this would be an obviously logical move. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t trust the feder al gubmint to wash my truck. So color me suspicious.
Some of these people could have had a civil commitment for drug use years ago, they could be fingered by an ex wife or gf for yelling at them, that they have not seen in years.
someone could have claimed they were a danger to themselves or others and all is fine now. It isn’t just ex felons
What if the prohibited person says they sold the firearm?
Answers: Name of person you sold it to knock knock, I’m Officer Over and I’m here to confiscate the firearm you bought from…. .What firearm?…… Back to I sold it. … He said he has no knowledge of firearm, you can cooperate and let us search( tear the walls down, literally) or I will need to get search warrant here in ten minutes.while you wait in handcuffs.
My edit don’t work) … Here’s what I do, look in the obituary, pick a name, let “them” argue with that family.
Why not go after the people when their application is rejected? When there’s good evidence that they have lied on the paperwork.
There is a report about the number of rejections and the convictions
Table I lists the number of “guilty plea or verdict” for NICS violations:
2010 13,
2009 32,
2008 43,
2007 48,
2006 73
In 2010 there were 6,037, 393 NICS applications.
In that year there were 72, 659 denials.
That’s a rejection rate of 1.2%
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/bjs/grants/239272.pdf
We elected a Republican President and Congress last November, right? I am genuinely confused at this point about who won last November.
They won last November. I can’t believe people think the Republicans and Democrats are two separate parties. It’s a game “they” play. The false hope that elections in higher office will make a difference. It’s one party, good cop bad cop. 8 years dem, 8 years Repubs, nothing changes. Smoke and mirrors gun rights, health care, wars, global warming, whatever “they” can use as click bait. Caterpillar don’t make a dozer big enuff to drain the swamp, and I’m tired of the mosquitos that live there.
If you read the USA Today article, you’ll see that ten years ago was the last time that many requests were issued. Republicans mean it when they say they want to enforce the laws on the books. Democrats lie when they say they want to stop “dangerous” people from having guns. What they want is to prevent the average citizen from being able to have the arms necessary to stop them from turning this country into a socialist hell hole like Venezuela, Cambodia, Nazi Germany, Maoist China, or Soviet Russia/Eastern Europe.
I sadly look forward to seeing the many deaths of gun owners and law enforcement officers.
Hey, I found a video of the confiscation order being given to all of the ATF agents.
Any Fed funding is a $$$ float to the (D)NC. Theyre hurting cause no Hillary Foundation foreign $$$, gov agency kickbacks, weak hollywood support, no foreign aid to terrorist losers to kick back to the (D)NC, Communist world leaders are hurting to bad to help, no globalist super PAC funding from global warming / African Rebel nation carbon cash.
Gotta let it implode without splashing ya.
One man in his castle defending himself against illegal seizure, just gets shot. They can have my gun when— exactly, and their you’ll lay, all by your dead self. And the headlines read what a terroristic criminal you were. And everyone says “thank LE for saving me from him”, It won’t be long before there’s another couple zeros added to that 4000., not all prohibited persons have been felons, if on probation for misdeamnor, your a prohibited person…. I believe the government perpetuates racism, another smoke and mirrors, got whitey hating on the blacks, and the blacks hating on whitey, everyone hates the mezkins, and we keep on keeping on, as ” they” keep taking. United people, not States. … …This came from a federal agent I have acquaintance with,” No lives matter”
“… if on probation for misdeamnor, your a prohibited person…”
Not always. Actually, not as often as you’d think.
If state law doesn’t make you one (and not all do), then you’d need to check your probation instructions, or your PO if you have one (probably don’t for a misdemeanor).
IANAL.
Here’s the report:
https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/2016-nics-operations-report-final-5-3-2017.pdf/view
So let me get this straight…We all know that. All gun laws fail if a person wants to acquire a gun bad enough.
2. There’s proof Gun laws do not prevent any crime, never have, and never will, and are so insignificantly a deterrent as to not even matter in comparison to the evil of gun laws in diminishing of rights of second amendment protections.
3. Gun law purchase paperwork are not supposed to be registrations. Yet they are, because look how fast the FBI picked up on thousands of ‘owners’ any time they wanted to…especially when they want to confiscate target groups. Which this article is a gleaming example of, and no doubt is more of a ‘practice’ run for the coming bigger picture if we don’t put a stop to it.
4.. We know that permanent banning/prohibition of mentally ill persons, domestic disputes, ex offenders, cannabis users, etc., and more, coming soon, to a totalitarian theater near you only creates more laws so that the Police State can accumulate a greater group target focus to disarm them beforehand if they become too great a second amendment threat to their totalitarian agenda.
5, We know that having an eternally ‘tainted’ and rapidly growing ‘ex-convict’ citizenry with permanent bans on gun ownership constitutes a devisive subculture that is herded out to constant social condemnation for past offenses even though they have paid for their mistakes and are now attempting to be law abiding value producing individuals again. So permanent bans on guns for any reason outside of active incarceration for immediate safety does more harm in society than good.
6. We know that “Shall Not Be Infringed’… Clearly does NOT mean ‘…except if you verbally threatened your neighbor who’s dog keeps shitting on your front steps, smoked weed at some time or another in your life, had a huge domestic fight that got a little physical and someone called the cops, so they seize and indefinitely confiscate every gun in your house, and ban you from purchasing any more, instead of just arresting the violent parties until they calm down, or you served time and are now free and clear, or you have a mental illness–which is not EVEN a crime— The Framers said Shall NOT BE infringed, PERIOD! No qualifiers or exclusions!
7. None of the original Revolutionary Freedom Fighters were prohibited from possessing their rights to liberty because of their past ‘history’? If they weren’t uncontrollable or currently imprisoned they ALL carried firearms! Everywhere, anywhere, concealed or not!
So my question is, Why do we even need or have ANY Gun Control laws at all? Especially when this is the ‘in your face’ way they’ll make more agenda based laws to eventually make most likely political dissenters against Tyranny potential criminals so they can confiscate their firearms anytime at will? (search ‘the intentional criminalization of the population, and even George T Will wrote an article on it)
I mean, is this the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on our civil rights for agenda based totalitarianism? All these bullshit laws supposedly for ‘extreme crime prevention’ and so-called Public Safety which is also nothing but a fraud that really serves to inhibit due process, while facilitating the destruction of the 1st, 2nd, an 4th Amendments, while raping and terrorizing every day citizens with Swat Raids and illegal detainments so that the police state can enrich themselves with Unconstitutional Asset Forfeiture/seizure laws!
Are we ALL just that freaking dumbed down and stupid or too brainwashed and mind controlled form all the Geoengineering chemicals being sprayed on us daily…
That if THEIR WERE NO GUN CONTROL LAWS, ESPECIALLY PERMANANT BANS FOR PAST OFFENSES…In other words guns could not be seized for any reason other than you are in the immediate possession of a weapon during a commission of a crime, or are in prison…
They could Never, ever target focus Disarm the American Citizenry through the implementation of illegal statutory mandate for police state actions.
And there would probably be a less violent and more law abiding society besides? Like there was back in the day when there WERE NO GUN LAWS!
The Heller opinion said:
“Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”
As the court did “not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment,” the language above is dicta, and not binding precedent upholding any of the prohibitions listed. It would take “[]take an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment” to determine what longstanding prohibitions were acceptable under a Scaliaesque historical examination of the limits of the 2A.
So I’ve tried to figure out what sort of long standing historical prohibitions existed before the Constitution was ratified. The biggest and most obvious are not being a White, Protestant, man. Obviously, hopefully, those longstanding prohibitions have been done away with by the 1A and 14A. Most other restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms were what today we would call “violent crime.” Not past convictions, but the crimes themselves. That’s what the whole prohibition on “dangerous and unusual” weapons is about if you trace it back further than Scalia did. The last and most analogous to any prohibition we have today dealt with a “peace bond” in which a person could be denied their right to bear arms after being accused of being a danger to others, but could get it back if they posted a bond. I can’t find where I read about that last one, but did find something that contradicts it.
In my study of the militia concept and system I have concluded that the restrictions of the right to keep and bear arms had two very significant parameters: it was local, not state, and it was peer — specifically, the local militia commander, based on the knowledge in that community (generally including the advice of the pastor of the individual under consideration), could determine that someone was not “competent to (bear) arms”. No one sitting in a capital city hundreds or thousands of miles away had any say in the matter; their only authority was to make use of the militia _as_the_local_people_organized_it_, when it was called up.
We have no such structure today (some Neighborhood Watch bunches qualify), but that does not transfer the capacity to make that determination to any capital, it only means we’ve dropped the ball on having the sort of militia that can preserve the security of a free state. The path back is to rebuild that structure.
I heard on the radio that “fugitives” are considered prohibited persons — and that if you have an outstanding parking or traffic ticket, you’re considered a fugitive.
It only applies to interstate fugitives, and you have to have an out of state warrant for your arrest. If you got a ticket in State A, but never paid it because you live in State B, and State B issued a warrant for your arrest when you didn’t show up at court, then you’re a prohibited person.
“These prohibited persons are, after all, convicted felons, those who have been involuntarily committed or are the subject of orders of protection.” How do we know that they don’t fall into any of the 6(?) other categories of prohibited person?
Should break the boredom.
Stupid politicians, and their redtaped bowel movements are more dangerous than guns, bullets, and bombs combined! This is the worst form of tyranny because it turns law into oppression! Our constitution only protects us if we protect it! The constitution isn’t worth shit if we don’t protect it from harm! The government along with the last 5 presidential defects have hacked away at our constitution while we did nothing to stop these criminals! The shit we see happening now is a result of this, and we are paying the price, for it! Our government has become a pig pen, and these greedy pigs sucking lady liberty’s tits dry! The top 1% of society has brought ruin to citizens, cities, and nations throughout history! This top1% federal mafia called the government has become a immediate danger to the people because it’s no longer by the people, or, for the people! We need to wake the fuck up!!