FBI database lacks millions of criminal records and diagnoses

Фото: Depositphotos

There are no millions of records of convictions, diagnoses of mental illness and other labels in the FBI background check system that would not allow selling weapons to potentially dangerous hands (as, for example, in the case of the shooting of 26 people in a Texas church).

Experts studying the data say that government agencies responsible for maintaining such records have not sent data to federal databases for a long time, since officials have decided that they are too expensive and take a long time to update.

Shooting at a Texas church showed that what the FBI does not know can kill people. In this case, the shooter was convicted during the trial on charges arising from a domestic violence case. Officials say the Air Force never notified the FBI of his misconduct, so when he bought the weapons in the store, he was able to pass the test.

The FBI said it didn’t know the scale of the problem, but the National Association of Riflemen discovered about 7 millions of records missing in the system, according to the 2013 report of the non-profit National Consortium for Information and Justice Statistics. The report found that “at least 25% of criminal sentences are not available” in the National System of Instant Criminal Control, supported by the FBI.

The government financed a four-year job, which began in 2008, to try to estimate how many records are missing in the FBI system. In 2012, these works were canceled due to the high cost.

Фото: Depositphotos

The National Rifle Association complained that the federal database was incorrect.

In light of the shooting in Texas, Air Force officials have launched an internal audit.

According to the experts involved in the audit, a large number of people convicted for domestic violence who are prohibited from buying weapons are also missing from the FBI database, especially in states that do not require fingerprints for such convictions.

By the end of last year, 153 109 court records of domestic violence in relation to inspections for the purchase of weapons were recorded in the FBI main database. Officials said the situation has improved markedly from past years. For example, in 2008, there were only about 46 000 such records in the system. But FBI officials said they cannot say how many domestic violence sentences are still missing. An FBI spokesman declined to say which states did not provide important data to the system.

Awareness of database problems goes even further. President Barack Obama signed an executive decree in 2016, aimed, inter alia, at improving the quality of the federal arms control database. He instructed the FBI to rebuild the system so that the checks were faster, and to hire 230 staff to help with the check.

At the Pentagon, the problem continues for decades. In 1997, during an internal audit, it became clear that the military "does not always submit criminal history data to the files of the FBI criminal case."

In an era of mass executions, more and more people became aware of the link between the perpetrators of such crimes and domestic violence. According to a study conducted by the Weapons Protection Group, “Everytown for Gun Safety", 54% of recent mass executions were associated with domestic or family violence.

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