Menendez, Booker, Colleagues Introduce Bicameral Gun Safety Bill to Ensure Completion of Background Checks to Keep New Jersey Communities Safe from Gun Violence

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senators Bob Menendez and Cory Booker (both D-N.J.) yesterday joined a group of colleagues in the Senate and the House of Representatives in introducing the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) Data Integrity Act, a bill that would close an existing loophole that allows individuals to purchase firearms even when a background check is incomplete or inconclusive. The legislation would require the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to complete all gun-purchase background checks.

“Loopholes in our current gun safety laws continue to allow individuals with incomplete or inconclusive background checks to get their hands on a firearm. This is reckless and has to stop,” said Sen. Menendez. “This common-sense legislation will help keep our communities safe by directing the FBI to maintain information necessary for conducting firearm background checks in cases of incomplete or inconclusive firearm checks, and by using additional relevant databases as part of a firearm-related background check.”
 
“As gun sales have increased over the years, an overburdened system with glaring loopholes has prevented federal law enforcement from completing background checks that it initiates for all firearm purchases,” said Sen. Booker. “This critical, common-sense legislation will ensure that the FBI is able to complete these background checks in a comprehensive manner to ensure prohibited individuals do not have access to firearms, which in turn will keep our communities safer.”

Under current law, the FBI is unable to complete background checks if they are not finalized within 88 days. After that arbitrary time period, the FBI is required by law to purge all records related to a background check from its systems. The result is that prohibited individuals are sometimes allowed to retain possession of firearms because a background check wasn’t finalized.

This 88-day requirement has become even more of a burden as gun sales have increased in recent years. More gun sales mean more background checks that must be completed by an already overburdened system.

In New Jersey, applications to obtain a permit to purchase a handgun or a Firearms Purchaser Identification Card (FPIC) must be processed through the New Jersey State Police or local law enforcement, which in turn use the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) and other state and local records to verify that prospective purchases are not prohibited from possessing a firearm.

In addition to removing the deadline in which the FBI must complete a background check, the bill also requires the FBI to search specific databases during the background check process, all of which contain information relevant to determining whether a buyer is legally eligible to purchase a gun. Currently, there is no established process for which databases must be searched.

In addition to Sens. Menendez and Booker, the bill is sponsored in the Senate by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Alex Padilla (D-Calif.). The House companion bill was introduced by Rep. Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.-20) and is cosponsored by Representatives Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.-15) and Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.).

According to an internal FBI report, the agency was required to purge more than 1.1 million incomplete background checks between January 2014 and July 2019 due to the current law. Everytown for Gun Safety estimates that 7,500 guns could have been obtained illegally in 2020 due to delayed background checks – more than the previous two years combined. However, since the data was purged, there is no way to know exactly how many gun sales should have been blocked.

Sen. Menendez has long been a strong leader on common sense gun legislation to ensure New Jersey communities are kept safe from gun violence. In April, Sen. Menendez and Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.-12) reintroduced the Help Empower Americans to Respond (HEAR) Act, federal gun safety legislation to ban the importation, sale, manufacturing, transfer and possession of gun silencers or suppressors. At the same time, he reintroduced the Keep Americans Safe Act to ban high-capacity magazines that can hold over ten rounds. In March, he took additional steps to help combat the scourge of gun violence in America by leading his colleagues in urging President Biden to close the ghost gun loophole and reintroducing the Gun Records Restoration and Preservation Act, which would repeal the Tiahrt Amendments – provisions that severely hamstring law enforcement’s ability to solve and prosecute gun crimes, stop illegal gun trafficking and hold negligent gun dealers and owners accountable. In 2020, Sen. Menendez joined Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Booker, amongst other Democratic colleagues, in introducing the Gun Violence Prevention and Community Safety Act – a comprehensive bill to end the epidemic of gun violence in America.