Texas' senior senator says he wants to ensure the military complies with the law on background checks after the Air Force failed to submit the criminal history to the FBI of the gunman who killed 26 at a Texas church. (Nov. 7) AP
Pentagon's failure to report to the gun background check system has been known since 1997. Now there are dozens dead: Our view
Five-year-old Ryland Ward's tiny body was shattered by five bullets while he prayed with his family in church this month. He miraculously survived. Twenty-five people, including a pregnant mother, did not. Carlin Brite Holcombe, just weeks before being born, died as well.
They're the victims of the church massacre in Texas that might never have happened if the Clinton and Obama administrations had reacted with more urgency to warnings about flaws in the gun-buyer background check system enacted in 1993.
Under federal law, the shooter's 2012 court-martial conviction for assaulting his then-wife and cracking the skull of her infant prohibited him from purchasing a gun. But Devin Kelley passed background checks and bought firearms after the Air Force failed to send the disqualifying conviction to the FBI.
If this were a single record tragically falling through the cracks, it would be bad enough. But it isn't.
OTHER VIEWS: After Devin Kelley, Air Force requested a review
The Pentagon has known for years about gaping holes in the military’s system to report convictions and fingerprints to federal databases meant to keep guns out of dangerous hands.
While transmitting these data might sound like a technicality, it is a critical link in a protective chain. Prohibitions against buying guns work only if the necessary information gets where it is supposed to go.
The military, which is all about following orders, flouted its own directives and federal law each time it failed to report a conviction. And failure was rampant. USA TODAY offered the Department of Defense the opportunity to write an opposing view to this editorial, but a spokesman declined.
Pentagon warnings since '97
According to a 1997 report by the Defense Department’s inspector general, the Navy failed to submit the final disposition of serious criminal charges to the FBI in 94% of cases, the Army in 79% and the Air Force in 50%. The report, sent to the civilian Clinton administration political appointees who led each service, found policies and instructions inadequate, oversight and follow-up non-existent and military investigative services that put little emphasis on reporting.
A full 17 years passed before the IG looked into the problem again. Sadly, not much had changed. From August 2012 through January 2013 — a period that coincides with Kelley’s 2012 domestic violence sentencing — the Air Force did not submit any data on convictionsto the Pentagon's reporting system. Whether that’s the reason for Kelley’s missing data is unclear.
And according to the most recent IG report in 2015, the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corpsfailed to transmit to the FBI fingerprints and final outcomes in about 30% of a sample of 1,100 cases.
Was anybody at the Pentagon reading these reports? Or did they read them and do nothing?
The holes were originally discovered during the Clinton administration, and the system remained porous while President Obama was in office. Both presidents made preventing gun violence a top priority; Obama mourned the innocents murdered and called for stricter gun control after a heart-breaking number of mass shootings. But it took him until January 2016, a year before he left office, to order a database overhaul.
The executive order called for hiring 230 new background check examiners but did not address the Defense Department's omissions. Starting in August 2016, the database availability was increased to 24 hours a day, but the FBI says it can't provide the number of new examiners hired.
One mistake, many victims
The three FBI background check databases contain millions of records. Over 16 years, ending in December 2014, nearly 1.2 million people were prohibited from buying guns. The system works when there are records to check.
Every missed opportunity is a potential tragedy. Each has a name, like Annabelle Pomeroy, the 14-year-old daughter of the pastor at Sutherland Springs' First Baptist Church.
In 2015, white supremacist Dylann Roof purchased a gun — one he should have been stopped from buying — that he later used to kill worshipers at a church in Charleston, S.C. A breakdown in the background check, and a loophole that allows a purchase if a denial isn’t issued in three days, let Roof get his hands on a gun.
That one failing left behind the names of nine victims, including the Rev. Clementa Pinckney. President Obama gave the eulogy at his funeral.
Deeper data problems
Domestic violence convictions even in civilian courts present their own set of problems in making it to the FBI system. For example, defendants are prohibited from buying guns only if a conviction for misdemeanor assault notes that it was domestic violence. That information is often missing.
Disqualifying mental health records too often aren't transmitted either, though every state should have learned that lesson after the 2007 Virginia Tech gunman slipped through yet another dangerous crack to get his weapon. Three states — Montana, New Hampshire and Wyoming — have each sent 51 records or fewer. Other lagging jurisdictions include places with strict gun controls, such as Massachusetts and Washington, D.C.
Prohibited buyers can always purchase a gun without a background check from private sellers, who are not required to run background checks. It’s another loophole that should be plugged.
Presidential accountability
After every heart-rending mass shooting, Republicans and the NRA have thwarted sensible gun control measures. But here, Presidents Clinton and Obama share blame for failing to fix a broken system. While George W. Bush’s administration did not receive a direct warning from the Defense inspector general, the 1997 report was public, and plugging such a serious problem should have been an urgent priority.
Defense Secretary James Mattis has called for an investigation into what went wrong. And several lawmakers are pushing measures to ensure that the military follows the law on transmitting records.
It's about time. The country should never again have to look back and wonder how another Dylann Roof or Devin Kelley got his hands on a gun.
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