I received a GOA alert about S.675 – NICS Denial Notification Act of 2021, so I thought I would check it out.

On the bright side, it’s unlikely to go anywhere. It was introduced 3/10/2021 and was immediately referred to committee where it has sat ever since.

Downside? It’s a mess. Here’s the meat of the bill.

“(a) In General.—If the national instant criminal background check system established under section 103 of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (34 U.S.C. 40901) (commonly referred to as ‘NICS’) provides a notice pursuant to section 922(t) of this title that the receipt of a firearm by a person would violate subsection (g) or (n) of section 922 of this title or State law, the Attorney General shall, in accordance with subsection (b) of this section—

“(1) report to the law enforcement authorities of the State where the person sought to acquire the firearm and, if different, the law enforcement authorities of the State of residence of the person—

“(A) that the notice was provided;

“(B) the specific provision of law that would have been violated;

“(C) the date and time the notice was provided;

“(D) the location where the firearm was sought to be acquired; and

“(E) the identity of the person; and

“(2) where practicable, report the incident to local law enforcement authorities and State and local prosecutors in the jurisdiction where the firearm was sought and in the jurisdiction where the person resides.

First off, as GOA notes, “9 out of 10 times these denials are false positives.” That’s a lot of pointless investigations.

Next up is what exactly are state and local authorities going to investigate? 18 U.S. Code § 922 is federal law, violations of which would be a matter of federal investigation. Making local authorities do it would be a unfunded mandate.

And what exactly would anyone be investigating? While it is a felony for a prohibited person to purchase or possess a firearm, 18 U.S. Code § 922 doesn’t have a provision for attempted, but failed, acquisition. Nor, I think, do most state laws. About all anyone could get such a person on is violation of this 922 provision, if they lied on the 4473.

(6)for any person in connection with the acquisition or attempted acquisition of any firearm or ammunition from a licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, licensed dealer, or licensed collector, knowingly to make any false or fictitious oral or written statement or to furnish or exhibit any false, fictitious, or misrepresented identification, intended or likely to deceive such importer, manufacturer, dealer, or collector with respect to any fact material to the lawfulness of the sale or other disposition of such firearm or ammunition under the provisions of this chapter;

And intent would matter, mens rea. Relatively few prohibited persons try to buy their guns from FFLs. In one case I know of, a man attempted to purchase a firearm. NICS turned him down. It turned out that decades before he had gotten a misdemeanor conviction (bar fight, I believe). It had never been an issue at gun stores before. But apparently that state had realized — again decades later — that his charge carried a potential two year sentence (if I recall correctly, he only got probation), and added him to the NICS database.

The poor guy never knew until that purchase attempt that he was a prohibited person. He had always heard that it only applied to felony convictions and misdemeanor domestic violence. Sadly, 922 doesn’t read “felony or misdemeanor domestic violence; ” it’s “a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year.

He filled out the 4473 in good faith. Would it be worth waste time and money on an investigation of him?

For the most part, this bill would just tie up law enforcement resources. There is one interesting part though. It would also add this to 18 USC “§ 925, an “Annual report to Congress. The report would require the ATF to report the number of denials; the number of denials determined to be false; and best of all, the number of investigations, prosecutions, and convictions. It would be nice to have all that gathered in one convenient document to wave in gungrabbers’ faces, to show how pointless NICS really is.