Fix NICS, Cont'd.

A few more items for good measure.

Like bump stocks.

Indian Tribal Governments get attention

A shortened version of the Fix NICS bill is attached as Section 205, under the misleading title “Improving information sharing with the States,” to add Indian tribal governments. It basically sweeps in Indians, under similar conditions described above. An effort to add as many people as possible to the NICS Index is the primary goal of the section. A required assessment to determine if this has “resulted in improvements,” without defining that, is included.

SEC. 205 also requires the NICS system to notify local law enforcement when NICS issues a denial, regardless of the validity of the denial. We know 25% are completely bogus (FBI stats), or false positives, or at least insufficient to bring charges or obtain convictions for anything. Local cops are not required to act -- lack of federal authority to require that is well established -- but it does tend to set a potential liability if local police get advised of some miscreant and don’t do anything about it. An avalanche of NICS rejects will flood local police and encumber their real work.

Bump stocks

Finally, SEC. 206 requires the AG to issue a report in 180 days on “bump stocks” used in crime, how often they’ve been used in crime, and attempts to define them. The last section, 207, assigns tens of millions of dollars and renumbers things, again, without careful oversight by me, knowing these things will change, and hey, I have only so much tolerance for this. Did you even read this far?

Comments

[Thane "Goldie" Eichenauer]

I read this far Alan.

[Geoff]

The problem is if ATF decides to redefine what a machine gun is by including bump stocks or Slide Fire stocks then it declares them as illegal as no new machine guns can be owned by civilians after May 19, 1986 due to the Hughes Amendment to FOPA, courtesy of Charlie Rangel.