[lbo-talk] Gaps in F.B.I. Data Undercut Background Checks for Guns

Wojtek S wsoko52 at gmail.com
Fri Dec 21 04:31:02 PST 2012


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/21/us/gaps-in-fbi-data-undercut-background-checks-for-guns.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0

The database is incomplete because many states have not provided federal authorities with comprehensive records of people involuntarily committed or otherwise ruled mentally ill. Records are also spotty for several other categories of prohibited buyers, including those who have tested positive for illegal drugs or have a history of domestic violence.

While some states, including New York, have submitted more than 100,000 names of mentally ill people to the F.B.I. database, 19 — including New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Maryland and Maine — have submitted fewer than 100 records and Rhode Island has submitted none, according to federal data compiled by Mayors Against Illegal Guns. That suggests that millions of names are missing from the federal database, gun control advocates and law enforcement officials say.

[WS:] This once again illustrates the futility of any meaningful gun regulation in the US. The legislature can pass all the laws they want to appease urban liberals, but the enforcement of these laws will always be weak in most states because there is no popular or political will to enforce them, since most Americans love their guns. End of story.

-- Wojtek

"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."



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