NICS -- Something Is Very Wrong Here

[IndispensableDestiny]

Something is wrong here, very wrong.

As of 12/31/2011, 6,977,700 persons were on parole, probation, or in prison.

http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/cpus11.pdf

Yet, as of 1/31/2013 only 730,399 persons were in the NICS database as prohibited from buying a firearms for "Convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year or a misdemeanor punishable by more than two years"

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/nics/reports/20130205_nics-index.pdf

Source is the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the FBI.

 

[Chevy]

Lots them could've done less then one year and alot could've done plea deals to lesser charges on probation.

My money would be lack of keeping up with it. What's the point if you not enforcing laws anyway?

 

[Hopalong]

Yup. Quite a few states have very low reporting of prohibitive "things". That's why I say to people in favor of "universal background checks" that we need to get states complying with existing background checks before we even consider expanding their scope.

 

[IndispensableDestiny]

Lots them could've done less then one year and alot could've done plea deals to lesser charges on probation.

It's not the time they do, it's the time the charge carries. Conviction of a felony, 18 months, suspended, means they are prohibited.

 

[KimuraFTW]

There are tons of charges that people get quite often that do not potentially carry more than 1 year of jail time. Whether prohibited persons being absent from the database is an issue or not, I cannot be sure. However, these numbers don't prove that there is a problem.

 

[IndispensableDestiny]

There are tons of charges that people get quite often that do not potentially carry more than 1 year of jail time. Whether prohibited persons being absent from the database is an issue or not, I cannot be sure. However, these numbers don't prove that there is a problem.

"At yearend 2011, there were 1,537,415 prisoners serving
sentences of more than one year, about 15,000 fewer than at
yearend 2010 (table 5)."

http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/p11.pdf

 

[jrumann59]

Yup. Quite a few states have very low reporting of prohibitive "things". That's why I say to people in favor of "universal background checks" that we need to get states complying with existing background checks before we even consider expanding their scope.

This

Maryland is one of those states. Hypothetically a prohibited person in MD could move to PA or VA and be allowed to purchase a gun because MD keeps things "in house".

 

[miben]

Lots them could've done less then one year and alot could've done plea deals to lesser charges on probation.

lots of them are likely to have prior arrests. who goes to jail on the first offense.

 

[Ab_Normal]

Something is wrong here, very wrong.

As of 12/31/2011, 6,977,700 persons were on parole, probation, or in prison.

http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/cpus11.pdf

Yet, as of 1/31/2013 only 730,399 persons were in the NICS database as prohibited from buying a firearms for "Convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year or a misdemeanor punishable by more than two years"

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/nics/reports/20130205_nics-index.pdf

Source is the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the FBI.

NICS is a registration scheme. Nothing more.

 

[MS2k]

Maryland's DPSCS is severely understaffed and bureaucratized into incompetence. People who should get reported to NICS don't, because the people in charge of reporting are too busy to do it and too underpaid to care.

Maryland can't even track the one thing you know it cares most about (money!); a few years ago I was placed on probation for a non-disqualifying crime and the Division of Parole and Probation "lost" my $106 probation fee, in spite of the fact that my PO said she received it. Three angry letters and one formal investigation later, I found out that DPP does not report payment info directly to the Central Collection Unit, but instead goes through a third middle-man department. These divisions and departments all have their own separate databases that are supposed to communicate with each other, but they're so old that they all depend on manual entry by underpaid staffers to keep information current and correct.

When it comes to non-money matters, such as reporting disqualifying criteria to own firearms, I can easily see why Maryland doesn't share. It doesn't know how.