National Instant Social Background Check System

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Recommended: The importance of firearm safety

The millennial generation has the displeasure of being alive in a culture where people use dangerous weapons to commit horrible crimes. On December 14th, 2012 someone walked into Sandy Hook Elementary school and open fire on children and adults taking 26 lives (Weekend Edition Saturday). On July 20th, 2012 a gunman in Denver Colorado, open fired on a crowded movie theater killing 12 and wounding 58. On January 8th, 2011 six people laid dead in the parking lot of a grocery store in Tucson, Arizona. All were victims of gun violence. All of these men should of been forbidden to obtain firearms under the Brady Bill passed in 1993. Mr. President, I ask that you consider funding an updated background check system that will save American lives. …show more content…

The NICS is designed to prohibit people from purchasing firearms who are felons, drug abusers, or mentally ill. The problem with this is that the NICS is literally missing millions of records. “Every day, 34 Americans are murdered with guns, and most of them are possessed illegally” (Guns and Violence). The NICS is still in effect today, however, the numerous horrific acts in the news are proof that the system is not working. The FBI is in control of the NICS so whenever someone is convicted of a crime, ideally, their legal records would be sent directly to the FBI who would document it properly and prevent further gun violence. There are several ways that a criminal could evade the system. As in the case of the Navy yard shooting of 2013, the perpetrator could be a criminal whose records simply never got sent to the FBI to be included in the …show more content…

The former begins on the law enforcement end. Anyone who has a felony, their name should be sent to the FBI to be placed on the NICS database. This would mean holding law enforcement professionals accountable to reporting. Currently, there is no punishment for law enforcement that fail to send these records. The later is where a lot of federal funding could potentially be needed. This would involve every gun seller to abide by this background check system. Updating and using such a system on a national level will require much needed additional

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