2aguy
Diamond Member
- Jul 19, 2014
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And here we have a look at who exactly is being stopped from buying a gun through our Federal Background check system....and why the Feds are not hauling them off to jail....
How Background Checks Have Failed To Deliver On Promises
Gun Owners of American executive director Erich Pratt took to the pages of USA Today last week to express his thoughts on the topic, and he makes some good points.
“ATF agents did not consider most of the prohibited persons who had obtained guns to be dangerous.”
Those words, quoted last year by USA TODAY, explain why the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and local governments are not prosecuting most gun buyers who get denied by FBI background checks.
It’s because these people are largely not the “bad guys.” Rather, they consist of hundreds of thousands of veterans who didn’t know they had been stripped of their constitutional rights without due process.
Or they’re people subject to bench warrants who didn’t realize their unpaid traffic tickets made them outlaws.
Or they were people like Navy veteran Jeff Schrader, whose 45-year-old misdemeanor conviction for a street fight prevented him from buying a gun.
The FBI understands that to prosecute these cases would be a joke. As even noted in this month’s Government Accountability Office report, “These cases are not appealing to judges and juries. (Officials) find juries questioning why the case is being prosecuted.” The report also shows that states are achieving a horrid conviction rate of about 10 percent in prosecuting these cases.
After hundreds of millions of dollars spent, the Brady background check has failed to live up to its promises. Yet USA TODAY wants to double down and enforce a failed law even more vigorously.
How Background Checks Have Failed To Deliver On Promises
Gun Owners of American executive director Erich Pratt took to the pages of USA Today last week to express his thoughts on the topic, and he makes some good points.
“ATF agents did not consider most of the prohibited persons who had obtained guns to be dangerous.”
Those words, quoted last year by USA TODAY, explain why the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and local governments are not prosecuting most gun buyers who get denied by FBI background checks.
It’s because these people are largely not the “bad guys.” Rather, they consist of hundreds of thousands of veterans who didn’t know they had been stripped of their constitutional rights without due process.
Or they’re people subject to bench warrants who didn’t realize their unpaid traffic tickets made them outlaws.
Or they were people like Navy veteran Jeff Schrader, whose 45-year-old misdemeanor conviction for a street fight prevented him from buying a gun.
The FBI understands that to prosecute these cases would be a joke. As even noted in this month’s Government Accountability Office report, “These cases are not appealing to judges and juries. (Officials) find juries questioning why the case is being prosecuted.” The report also shows that states are achieving a horrid conviction rate of about 10 percent in prosecuting these cases.
After hundreds of millions of dollars spent, the Brady background check has failed to live up to its promises. Yet USA TODAY wants to double down and enforce a failed law even more vigorously.
