Brett Bellmore
New member
Yet another demonstration of the futility of attempting compromise with the gun grabbers; Anything we win in the process will be targetted for later elimination!
http://www.dallasnews.com/metro/166020_brady_09met.AR.html
"Ineligible gun buyers can beat check system
Sales OK'd if process takes more than 3 days
09/09/2000
By Todd Bensman / The Dallas Morning News
The Brady law's new "instant background check" on gun buyers isn't always instant or foolproof, as David Jackson's family learned the hard way.
Jaron Ausbon killed Mr. Jackson last year in Louisiana with a handgun that a computerized FBI check was supposed to keep him from buying, because he was facing robbery and drug charges at the time.
All Mr. Ausbon had to do was falsify his birth date on the federal application form at a pawnshop, which made the FBI's computerized check take longer than the three business days allotted by law. So the shop legally transferred the weapon, and five weeks later Mr. Jackson, the father of a baby boy, was bleeding to death at a Baton Rouge carwash.
"A guy like Ausbon ... is smarter than any of our congressmen," said Tony Clayton, the prosecutor who helped put him behind bars. "They left all kinds of loopholes. The system is fatally flawed."
Although no tragedies like that which befell Mr. Jackson have been reported in North Texas since the background check became law in late 1998, federal investigators here say that the potential for one is high. They have investigated hundreds of cases in which people prohibited from purchasing weapons – accused and convicted felons, fugitives, abusive spouses, the mentally ill, drug addicts, undocumented immigrants – have succeeded in doing just that.
"It's taking up more than half our time right now, and we were strained for time as it was," said Mark Michalic, who supervises the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms' Dallas intelligence unit. "But there's a big elephant out there, and you have to eat it one bite at a time."
Stalling the instant check system is fairly effortless – changing a digit in a Social Security number or birth date, a letter in a name. Submitting an extremely common name also can slow things down. And, of course, some people use full-blown aliases.
Dallas ATF Agent Joe Patterson said he has come across many flagrant abuses of the system. One area couple with extensive criminal backgrounds have tried to buy guns from at least 22 stores, succeeding at times with various ruses. They remain at large and are probably reselling the weapons to others who can't pass a check, the agent said.
The problem with meeting the three-day deadline is compounded because many rural courthouses have not computerized their records and can't or won't verify an archived conviction immediately. Some courthouses even destroy records to make space. And often, pending indictments take a while to get entered in a law enforcement database.
The FBI estimates that 2 percent of all background checks can never be completed because criminal records have been lost or destroyed.
Small numbers
For all that, the number of ineligible people buying guns because of missed deadlines is relatively small when compared with the total number of checks performed, ATF and FBI officials stress. Since November 1998, more than 14 million background checks have been run, with ineligible buyers getting guns fewer than 7,000 times.
"If you look at successes, there are a lot of successes," said Daniel Wells, director of the FBI's background check office in West Virginia. "But if you look at the nuts and bolts of the system, we have some problems."
Ron Growth, owner of A-Action Guns in Irving, sees those problems up close all the time. The FBI, he said, does not respond in time to about 10 percent of his sales.
"You never hear from them again once you get past three days," Mr. Growth said.
An unlikely solution
Mr. Wells said the agency is working to expand the system's net to rural courthouses and databases that have not yet been tapped. But he and other federal law enforcement officials say the commodity they most need happens to be politically unavailable: more time to complete checks.
Six days would cover almost every conceivable situation, Mr. Wells said. But "sometimes it takes 30 days."
The National Rifle Association and other opponents of gun control have pressed for legislation that would cut the three days to one. One such bill died in the U.S. House last year after gun-control advocates pushed an amendment to bring unlicensed gun-show sales under the Brady law.
Gun-control advocates want the three-day period extended, both to provide more investigative time and to slow down angry buyers bent on violence. The original incarnation of the Brady law – which was passed in 1993 after years of lobbying led by Sarah Brady, the wife of former Reagan aide James Brady, who was shot during an assassination attempt on the president – carried a five-day cooling-off period for all buyers.
Some say authorities could improve the law's effectiveness by simply enforcing it. Pointing to a recent federal audit, they suggest that the Clinton administration has been reluctant to prosecute those caught lying on the purchase application form.
U.S. Rep. John D. Dingell complained in an Aug. 1 letter to Attorney General Janet Reno that her field offices across the country have prosecuted only 278 "false form" cases, which carry prison sentences of up to 10 years. The Michigan Democrat demanded to know why.
"Needless to say, these statistics are less than impressive," he wrote. "It is not hard to understand why this administration has been criticized for being lax in enforcing existing federal firearm laws."
A spokeswoman for Ms. Reno said a response to Mr. Dingell's letter was being drafted and was not publicly available.
The U.S. attorney in Dallas, Paul Coggins, said he has been unable to ascertain how many "false form" prosecutions his office has conducted. The ATF's North Texas division, which stretches across the top half of the state from Louisiana into part of New Mexico and all of Oklahoma, has recovered more than 400 guns that were sold to ineligible people.
Mr. Coggins estimated that he has handled about three dozen prosecutions since the computer check took effect, which "I'm willing to wager puts us in the top ranks of the nation." One reason there haven't been more, he said, is that he needs his limited number of prosecutors for the most serious cases.
Not out to prosecute
Dallas ATF officials said they sometimes refer the results of their investigations to local district attorneys but that relatively few result in prosecutions. The threat of prosecution, rather than prosecution itself, is used as a tool of persuasion to get a suspect to turn in a gun, they said.
"The object is gun return," said Andrew Traver, assistant special agent in charge of the ATF's New Orleans division headquarters, which presides over the nation's highest percentage of prohibited people receiving guns. "I see a lot of these cases, hundreds already, but very few of them get prosecuted."
In Baton Rouge, though, Mr. Ausbon was successfully prosecuted in a federal court for filing a false form. He awaits sentencing for both that crime and, in state court, for killing Mr. Jackson.
The dead man's baby, meanwhile, has become a toddler – and an orphan. Mr. Jackson's wife sat tearfully through the murder trial in June, family attorney Troy Humphrey said, then leaped to her death from a Houston hotel early on the morning of July 9.
Her late husband's birthday was July 8. "
******************************
The truly ironic thing, of course, is that the BATF has warned dealers not to exercise their legal right to sell when the checks take too long, and you or I would have a fat chance of actually making such a purchase!
------------------
Sic semper tyrannis!
http://www.dallasnews.com/metro/166020_brady_09met.AR.html
"Ineligible gun buyers can beat check system
Sales OK'd if process takes more than 3 days
09/09/2000
By Todd Bensman / The Dallas Morning News
The Brady law's new "instant background check" on gun buyers isn't always instant or foolproof, as David Jackson's family learned the hard way.
Jaron Ausbon killed Mr. Jackson last year in Louisiana with a handgun that a computerized FBI check was supposed to keep him from buying, because he was facing robbery and drug charges at the time.
All Mr. Ausbon had to do was falsify his birth date on the federal application form at a pawnshop, which made the FBI's computerized check take longer than the three business days allotted by law. So the shop legally transferred the weapon, and five weeks later Mr. Jackson, the father of a baby boy, was bleeding to death at a Baton Rouge carwash.
"A guy like Ausbon ... is smarter than any of our congressmen," said Tony Clayton, the prosecutor who helped put him behind bars. "They left all kinds of loopholes. The system is fatally flawed."
Although no tragedies like that which befell Mr. Jackson have been reported in North Texas since the background check became law in late 1998, federal investigators here say that the potential for one is high. They have investigated hundreds of cases in which people prohibited from purchasing weapons – accused and convicted felons, fugitives, abusive spouses, the mentally ill, drug addicts, undocumented immigrants – have succeeded in doing just that.
"It's taking up more than half our time right now, and we were strained for time as it was," said Mark Michalic, who supervises the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms' Dallas intelligence unit. "But there's a big elephant out there, and you have to eat it one bite at a time."
Stalling the instant check system is fairly effortless – changing a digit in a Social Security number or birth date, a letter in a name. Submitting an extremely common name also can slow things down. And, of course, some people use full-blown aliases.
Dallas ATF Agent Joe Patterson said he has come across many flagrant abuses of the system. One area couple with extensive criminal backgrounds have tried to buy guns from at least 22 stores, succeeding at times with various ruses. They remain at large and are probably reselling the weapons to others who can't pass a check, the agent said.
The problem with meeting the three-day deadline is compounded because many rural courthouses have not computerized their records and can't or won't verify an archived conviction immediately. Some courthouses even destroy records to make space. And often, pending indictments take a while to get entered in a law enforcement database.
The FBI estimates that 2 percent of all background checks can never be completed because criminal records have been lost or destroyed.
Small numbers
For all that, the number of ineligible people buying guns because of missed deadlines is relatively small when compared with the total number of checks performed, ATF and FBI officials stress. Since November 1998, more than 14 million background checks have been run, with ineligible buyers getting guns fewer than 7,000 times.
"If you look at successes, there are a lot of successes," said Daniel Wells, director of the FBI's background check office in West Virginia. "But if you look at the nuts and bolts of the system, we have some problems."
Ron Growth, owner of A-Action Guns in Irving, sees those problems up close all the time. The FBI, he said, does not respond in time to about 10 percent of his sales.
"You never hear from them again once you get past three days," Mr. Growth said.
An unlikely solution
Mr. Wells said the agency is working to expand the system's net to rural courthouses and databases that have not yet been tapped. But he and other federal law enforcement officials say the commodity they most need happens to be politically unavailable: more time to complete checks.
Six days would cover almost every conceivable situation, Mr. Wells said. But "sometimes it takes 30 days."
The National Rifle Association and other opponents of gun control have pressed for legislation that would cut the three days to one. One such bill died in the U.S. House last year after gun-control advocates pushed an amendment to bring unlicensed gun-show sales under the Brady law.
Gun-control advocates want the three-day period extended, both to provide more investigative time and to slow down angry buyers bent on violence. The original incarnation of the Brady law – which was passed in 1993 after years of lobbying led by Sarah Brady, the wife of former Reagan aide James Brady, who was shot during an assassination attempt on the president – carried a five-day cooling-off period for all buyers.
Some say authorities could improve the law's effectiveness by simply enforcing it. Pointing to a recent federal audit, they suggest that the Clinton administration has been reluctant to prosecute those caught lying on the purchase application form.
U.S. Rep. John D. Dingell complained in an Aug. 1 letter to Attorney General Janet Reno that her field offices across the country have prosecuted only 278 "false form" cases, which carry prison sentences of up to 10 years. The Michigan Democrat demanded to know why.
"Needless to say, these statistics are less than impressive," he wrote. "It is not hard to understand why this administration has been criticized for being lax in enforcing existing federal firearm laws."
A spokeswoman for Ms. Reno said a response to Mr. Dingell's letter was being drafted and was not publicly available.
The U.S. attorney in Dallas, Paul Coggins, said he has been unable to ascertain how many "false form" prosecutions his office has conducted. The ATF's North Texas division, which stretches across the top half of the state from Louisiana into part of New Mexico and all of Oklahoma, has recovered more than 400 guns that were sold to ineligible people.
Mr. Coggins estimated that he has handled about three dozen prosecutions since the computer check took effect, which "I'm willing to wager puts us in the top ranks of the nation." One reason there haven't been more, he said, is that he needs his limited number of prosecutors for the most serious cases.
Not out to prosecute
Dallas ATF officials said they sometimes refer the results of their investigations to local district attorneys but that relatively few result in prosecutions. The threat of prosecution, rather than prosecution itself, is used as a tool of persuasion to get a suspect to turn in a gun, they said.
"The object is gun return," said Andrew Traver, assistant special agent in charge of the ATF's New Orleans division headquarters, which presides over the nation's highest percentage of prohibited people receiving guns. "I see a lot of these cases, hundreds already, but very few of them get prosecuted."
In Baton Rouge, though, Mr. Ausbon was successfully prosecuted in a federal court for filing a false form. He awaits sentencing for both that crime and, in state court, for killing Mr. Jackson.
The dead man's baby, meanwhile, has become a toddler – and an orphan. Mr. Jackson's wife sat tearfully through the murder trial in June, family attorney Troy Humphrey said, then leaped to her death from a Houston hotel early on the morning of July 9.
Her late husband's birthday was July 8. "
******************************
The truly ironic thing, of course, is that the BATF has warned dealers not to exercise their legal right to sell when the checks take too long, and you or I would have a fat chance of actually making such a purchase!
------------------
Sic semper tyrannis!
I have no criminal history or any other such things that should cause such a problem. Previous purchases were not delayed. It was really disturbing that I had to wait when I had done nothing wrong. Some people are delayed even longer and I can only imagine how frustrated they must have been. Perhaps we could call it a "getting fired up period" 