Biden, says there is agreement on universal background checks (I ask is that database very good?)
The vice president, speaking to reporters before a meeting on gun violence with sportsmen and women, outlined a series of the recommendations he said are emerging in the course of his conversations with various stakeholders in the conversation -- among which include universal background checks, restrictions on high-capacity magazines, and federal abilities to effectively research gun violence. Biden also stressed ongoing discussions about the importance of including the mental health community in the conversation.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57563314/biden-gun-violence-proposals-to-obama-by-tuesday/
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I agree with Biden. I think every gun purchase (even those of persons with Conceal Carry permits who, in some states can buy firearms materials without an NCIS check).
But when I took a look at summary data about the NICS data base, I was surprised to find out about some limitations of the NCIS system.
If we are going to depend on it, we'd better make sure it is a good reference. The US will probably need to invest many billion to make it that quality of tool.
I was surprised to find out that the largest number of active records--62.66% of prohibited persons--aren't convicts or the mentally ill. They are illegal/unlawful aliens. ICE reliably reports to the NCIS, so that group is very well represented.
Wayne LaPierre and many others, including Gabby Giffords and Barbara Boxer, are loudly arguing for improvements in identifying mentally ill and want them better represent in the NICS so that guns don't too easily fall into the hands of the mentally ill. I really don't want persons who are dangerous to themselves or others due to mental illness or "defect" to have firearms either.
So is NICS any good at capturing these records??
There are an estimated 4 million people adjudicated to be prohibited from purchasing guns in the US for reasons of mental health. 1.8 million of them ARE IN the database. Sounds like many are missed??? Yes, but that's a mouse hole compared to other Holland tunnel size holes in the data.
The office of technology assessment estimated 64 million criminal records held by states...only 727,255 are in the instant background check system.
The good news is the NICS is backed up by another database called the Interstate Identifier Index (the Eye-3). OTA says that brings another 41 million records into the background check system...
The bad news is that leaves about 23 MILLION criminal records not captured for the instant check systems and it turns out that group actuall REALLY does want to buy guns through licensed dealers.
Denials are an indication of who's trying to buy guns when they shouldn't be. The following numbers are for the period Nov 1998 to the end of Dec 2012, and the system denies some of them...
Persons with convictions resulting in more than 1 year prison sentences represent 58% of the purchases denied by NICS.
Compared to the mentally ill? Prohibited persons due to adjudication for mental health reasons represent 1.03% of the purchases denied by NICS.
And that's not all.
The OTA estimates 14 million unlawful users/persons addicted to controlled substances. Only 18174 of these prohibited persons appear in the NICS. 13 million of these people are missing from the database and this class of people represent 8.20% of the gun purchase denials over the last 12 years.
Huzzah!! Everyone agrees on background checks! I love that. Now, lets get serious about making the NICS a decent system for reference.
The following table was prepared from pdfs of database summary infor from the FBI NICS website:
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