LI Congresswoman Introduces Law To Stop Abusers From Getting Guns

On Monday, Representatives Kathleen Rice, a Garden City Democrat, and Mike Turner, an Ohio Republican, introduced the Domestic Violence Records Reporting Improvement Act, a law designed to help prevent domestic abusers from purchasing guns.

Rice announced the introduction of the law at Bethany House in Baldwin, a shelter for women and children. She was joined at the announcement by Linda Beigel Schulman, whose son Scott was killed in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida in 2018.

“We cannot ignore the lethal relationship between domestic violence and firearms. Research has shown that victims of domestic violence are five times more likely to be killed if their partner owns a gun,” Rice said. “That’s why people convicted of certain domestic violence offenses are legally prohibited from buying a gun. But all too often, those convicted of such an offense are still able to pass a background check and buy a gun because their records haven’t been reported. Our bipartisan bill would help fix that. It creates common-sense incentives for states to improve their reporting of domestic violence records so that we can enforce our laws, keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers, and save lives.”

The Domestic Violence Records Reporting Improvement Act (H.R. 4600) encourages states to improve domestic violence records in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) by making them eligible for NICS Act Record Improvement Program (NARIP) grants if the primary purpose of the grant is to improve the accessibility of domestic violence records in NICS. NARIP grants are available to states specifically to improve the reporting of criminal history, mental health and protection order records to NICS for gun purchaser background checks.

However, states are currently not eligible for these grants if they haven’t implemented a program that provides a way for people subject to the mental health disqualifiers to regain their gun eligibility. Rice's law removes that legal barrier so that states that want to improve domestic violence reporting are not denied funding that can help them to do so.

Research has shown that victims of domestic violence are at a much higher risk of being killed if their abuser owns or has access to a gun. Half of all women killed by guns in the US each year are shot by their intimate partners.

The federal background check requirement involves a search through NICS, a group of databases maintained by the FBI using information provided primarily by states and local governments. The extent to which domestic violence records are accessible during a NICS background check varies significantly from state to state. Many states have no protocols to distinguish misdemeanor domestic violence convictions from other misdemeanor convictions in their records, and many states do not provide sufficient information to NICS about domestic violence restraining orders.

Without this information, NICS cannot readily identify whether a conviction or restraining order disqualifies a person from possessing a gun, meaning that domestic abusers can still pass a NICS background check. According to the Government Accountability Office, inadequacies in the available records allowed domestic abusers to pass background checks and obtain guns more than 6,700 times between 2006 and 2015.