Should the Attorney General be required to submit a report to Congress detailing the demographic breakdown of individuals who are denied firearm purchases?

Crime and Law Enforcement (e.g., Gun Laws)
NICS Data Reporting Act (H.R. 2267)
Awaiting Vote
Bill Summary

The bill states that the Attorney General will be required to submit a report to the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate and the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives that includes the demographic information of the people who are considered ineligible to purchase a weapon based on a background check conducted by the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Some of the information would include one’s race, ethnicity, national origin, sex, gender, age, disability, average annual income, and whether the person is a native English speaker. Sponsors: Rep. Thomas Massie (Republican, Kentucky, District 4), Rep. Ben Cline (Republican, Virginia, District 6), and Rep. Victoria Spartz (Republican, Indiana, District 5)
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Opponents say

•     "The NICS database does not include many people barred by law from processing firearms." Source: Salvador Rizzo, Washington Post writer


•     "While this bill might help us learn more about NICS, it will unfortunately not address the daily harms that law-abiding people of color experience in their interactions with our criminal justice system." Source: Former Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (Democrat, Texas, District 18)


•     "NICS is a data-driven input system - therefore, it can only check what information is inputted into it and in many cases, states and others fail to enter legally allowable information that would stop a 'prohibited person' from passing the background check." Source: Donald J. Mihalek, Executive Vice President of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association


•     "The NICS database should be able to access the 64 million felony, domestic abuse, immigration, and arrest warrant documents to process background checks. However, 7 million are not electronically accessible because they are manual records. An additional 16 million are housed in state databases, which are not instantly available during federal checks." Source: Philip Caramia, senior analyst for the General Accounting Office

Proponents say

•      "Because within ethnic and racial groups, you share first names and surnames as well. And there is a large population of blacks that is incarcerated or has committed crimes or have been convicted, and because they share these names… it is built into the system, and it needs to be fixed. But to fix something, we need to see the data, and that is what this [bill] would do ." Source: Rep. Thomas Massie (Republican, Kentucky, District 4)

•      "This [bill] will help us [gain] a fuller understanding of who is denied but why." Source: Rep. Jerry Nadler (Democrat, New York, District 12)

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