Brady Law Works; Let It Be

The National Rifle Assn. has steadily opposed the Brady law, which requires a background check of potential gun buyers. Now, with a friendly majority in Congress, the pro-gun lobby is close to significantly weakening this vital crime control tool. The House passed legislation before its holiday recess that would require the FBI to destroy gun buyer records within 24 hours of the sale of a weapon, wiping out a database that police use to solve gun crimes and rescind some gun sales. The Senate will take up the NRA-drafted proposal this month, and senators who regularly declare themselves to be tough on crime will have no choice but to oppose it.

The Brady Handgun Violence Protection Act, approved in 1993, requires that would-be handgun buyers pass a national computer background check before they can walk out of the store with their new weapons. Prospective purchasers are barred if they've been convicted of a felony or domestic violence, are "mentally defective" or are the subject of a restraining order or arrest warrant.

The law has worked well so far. Ninety-one percent of the time, the person gets an instant green light to buy the gun; last year, the checks disqualified 136,000 dangerous or unstable people. That part of the law would remain untouched. However, federal law requires the Justice Department to keep those electronic records for 90 days. FBI agents combing through this data sometimes discover that incomplete or incorrect information let someone who can't legally buy a handgun get one anyway. That's how the FBI retrieved more than 18,000 firearms since 1994 from ineligible buyers, according to federal studies. Law enforcement agencies also use this database to trace recently purchased weapons used in crimes.

It doesn't surprise me that the LA Times opposed any pro-gun measure. What surprises me is the ignorance revealed by this particular complaint. The particular law in question only applies to legal gun sales! What does that mean in this case? It means that if the application comes back DENY than the record can be kept. I'm not sure how delays would be handled, but presumably while the status is "delay" they can be kept, and when a final determination is made that can be acted on appropriately.

Does the anti-gun lobby really think that criminals get their guns by filling in legal and correct information on their background check forms?