The Justice Department’s Office of Justice Programs (OJP) is planning to spend more than $20 million to enhance the firearm background check system, in an effort to improving the sharing of information with the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) by states. The OJP’s Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) and Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) are providing funding for three grants to make all records prohibiting the purchase or possession of firearms instantly available to NICS.
The NICS background check system relies on states as a “critical source for several key categories of relevant records and data, including criminal history records and records of persons prohibited from having guns because of domestic violence or for mental health reasons.”
The grants would be used to improve access to and reporting of prohibiting mental health information such as involuntary commitments to mental health facilities, felony convictions as well as misdemeanor convictions of domestic violence, domestic violence restraining orders and immediate access to active felony and misdemeanor warrants. The grants will also support upgrades and enhancements to electronic submissions of fingerprints to state and federal systems as well as linking of arrest and disposition.
Funding will be provided under National Criminal History Improvement Program (NCHIP), NICS Act Record Improvement Program (NARIP), and a new, one-time initiative called, Improving the Completeness of Firearm Background Checks through Enhanced State Data Sharing. This new initiative creates a competitive grant program designed to incentivize states, territories and tribes to share information with NICS by closing information gaps that inhibit complete and accurate background checks.
Since 1995, the BJS has provided grants and technical assistance to states to improve criminal history data availability for background checks and other purposes under the NCHIP. In 2009, after the Virginia Tech shootings, BJS launched the NARIP, addressing information requirements of NICS firearm background checks and requiring states to make additional records available.