Bipartisan deal on creating new gun legislation that would add more information to the database used for background checks on firearm purchasers has been reached, Politico informs. Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn and Senator Chris Murphy were the ones who pushed the legislative. The aim of the legislation is to fix what Cornyn and Murphy say is a flawed National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).
The bill is still not formally released, but sources familiar with it say that the plan has two elements. The first is to motivate the states to send more information about criminal histories to the database, something that they usually don’t have to do. The bill would also hold federal agencies accountable for sending information to the background check system. According to one unnamed source, the new bill would also include punishments for agencies that don’t comply.
Recent mass shootings in the U.S. have been a kind of motivation for the officials from both parties to support Cornyn and Murphy’s initiative. Shortly after the deadly attack in a church in southern Texas, where 26 people lost their lives after a gunman opened fire, it was revealed that the gunman Devin Kelley slipped through the system and bought firearms even though he had a history of violence. The gunman had been convicted of domestic abuse in 2012 while he was serving in the Air Force, but the forces didn’t report that to the FBI’s criminal database. If that had been made, Kelley would not be able to buy firearms.
Last week Cornyn said that he was cooperating with Murphy and Democratic Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Martin Heinrich on legislation to improve NICS. According to an unnamed aide, senator Orrin Hatch also supports the bill.
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