Trump ‘Supportive of Efforts to Improve’ Gun Federal Background Check

MARY CHASTAIN FEB 19, 2018 10:00 AM

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders has announced that President Donald Trump expressed an interest to improve gun federal background checks.

From Fox News:

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said Trump spoke on Friday to Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn about a bill the Texas Republican had introduced alongside Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., which would “improve federal compliance with criminal background check legislation.”Sanders continued, “While discussions are ongoing and revisions are being considered, the president is supportive of efforts to improve the federal background check system.”

Cornyn introduced his bill last November after a shooting at a Texas church. From USA Today:

The bill penalizes federal agencies that fail to properly report relevant records and provides incentives to states to improve their overall reporting to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. The bill also directs more federal funding to the accurate reporting of domestic violence records.“For years agencies and states haven’t complied with the law, failing to upload these critical records without consequence,” Cornyn said. “Just one record that’s not properly reported can lead to tragedy, as the country saw last week in Sutherland Springs, Texas. This bill aims to help fix what’s become a nationwide, systemic problem so we can better prevent criminals and domestic abusers from obtaining firearms.”

It turns out, in that case, the Air Force never submitted a criminal conviction on shooter Devin Kelley, which would have banned him from purchasing a gun.

When you purchase a gun, you fill out a form and the person selling the gun will run it through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NCIS) that the FBI maintains. The FBI listed out those who cannot receive a firearm:

• A person who has been convicted in any court of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year or any state offense classified by the state as a misdemeanor and is punishable by a term of imprisonment of more than two years.
• Persons who are fugitives of justice—for example, the subject of an active felony or misdemeanor warrant.
• An unlawful user and/or an addict of any controlled substance; for example, a person convicted for the use or possession of a controlled substance within the past year; or a person with multiple arrests for the use or possession of a controlled substance within the past five years with the most recent arrest occurring within the past year; or a person found through a drug test to use a controlled substance unlawfully, provided the test was administered within the past year.
• A person adjudicated mental defective or involuntarily committed to a mental institution or incompetent to handle own affairs, including dispositions to criminal charges of found not guilty by reason of insanity or found incompetent to stand trial.
• A person who, being an alien, is illegally or unlawfully in the United States.
• A person who, being an alien except as provided in subsection (y) (2), has been admitted to the United States under a non-immigrant visa.
• A person dishonorably discharged from the United States Armed Forces.
• A person who has renounced his/her United States citizenship.
• The subject of a protective order issued after a hearing in which the respondent had notice that restrains them from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner or child of such partner. This does not include ex parte orders.
• A person convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime which includes the use or attempted use of physical force or threatened use of a deadly weapon and the defendant was the spouse, former spouse, parent, guardian of the victim, by a person with whom the victim shares a child in common, by a person who is cohabiting with or has cohabited in the past with the victim as a spouse, parent, guardian or similar situation to a spouse, parent or guardian of the victim.
• A person who is under indictment or information for a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year.

This all comes a few days after 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz murdered 17 people at a high school in Parkland, FL. Trump visited the injured over the weekend and will host students and teachers at the White House on Wednesday.

Since the massacre, everyone has been blaming the NRA and demanding gun control even though the FBI admitted last Friday that the department received a credible warning about Cruz in January and did not follow up on it. The FBI also received a tip from a YouTube vlogger about a comment left by a Nikolas Cruz that said, “I’m going to be a professional school shooter.”

Thing is, though, the community and school even knew Cruz was a threat, so much so that the school banned him from campus while wearing a backpack.

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