Congress Is Sitting on More Than $1 Billion That Could Improve Federal Gun Background Checks

http://www.thetrace.org/2015/07/nics-background-check-congress-spending/

The NICS Improvement Amendment Act of 2008 was intended to improve lapses in state record keeping that have allowed dangerous people like Dylann Roof to get a gun. Here’s why almost 90 percent of that money has never been spent.
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Congress agrees (that accurate access to local and state records is often inconsistent): Back in 2008, President George W. Bush signed a bill authorizing more than $1 billion in grants to improve local records reporting. What’s got Campbell confused is why — if there’s so much consensus around the idea that NICS would work better if states did a better job of reporting records to the FBI – almost none of the money authorized in 2008 has actually been released.
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(Former Rep) James Moran had a more political explanation for the parsimoniousness. Back in 2007, the NRA publicly applauded the Act for its relief from disability provision and the fact that it barred federal fees for NICS checks. It looked like a non-controversial way to better enforce current laws. But Moran says the NRA then turned around and worked with allies in Congress to cut off funding for these grants when the appropriations committee put each year’s budget together.

“Everybody knew what was going on — the NRA never wanted any records kept,” says Moran. Keeping the background check system incomplete, Moran believes, allows the NRA to point to it as a failed system and rally against its expansion to private sales.