Virginia Incorrectly Adds 46,000 Citizens To FBI’s NICS Prohibited Person List

Banned iStock-1055867850.jpg
Virginia Incorrectly Adds 46,000 Citizens To FBI’s NICS Prohibited Person List, iStock

RICHMOND, VA-(Ammoland.com)- A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by Gun Owners of America (GOA) shows that the Commonwealth of Virginia incorrectly added over 46,000 of its citizens to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) indices.

According to Virginia State law, anyone who is voluntarily committed to a mental institution loses their gun rights. Only potential buyers who have been committed involuntarily or have been will lose their gun rights federally. Even though they lose their state gun rights, they are not prohibited from buying firearms by federal law.

The Virginia State Police will also run the potential buyer through NICS in addition to a state database. The State Police also can add people prohibited from buying guns by state law to the NICS Indices. If a buyer is not permitted to purchase firearms by state law because of a “voluntarily admission to a mental institution as a per Virginia statute,” then that person’s database entry should be marked as PCA “J.” If a buyer is prohibited by federal law for being “adjudicated as a mental defective or involuntarily committed to a mental institution” then that person’s database entry should be marked as PCA “D.”

Virginia is a single point of contact state. Being a single point of contact state means that federally licensed firearms dealers in the Commonwealth contact the Virginia State Police to run a background check on a potential buyer. If a state is not a single point contact state, the dealer will contact the FBI to run the buyer through NICS.

GOA filed a FOIA request with the FBI to get the results of the agency’s NICS audits of the Commonwealth of Virginia. All single point of contact states must submit to NICS audits. Gun Owners o America exclusively shared the results of the FOIA request with AmmoLand News. For full disclosure, the writer of this article is the Virginia State Director for GOA.

The FBI NICS audit showed the Virginia State Police was marking everyone a PCA “D” that has been committed to a mental institution regardless of whether it was voluntarily or involuntarily.

This mistake means that the Virginia State Police incorrectly added over 46,000 residents to the NICS indices as federally prohibited.

Adjudicated as a Mental Defective Instead of State Prohibition
Adjudicated as a Mental Defective Instead of State Prohibition

If any one of these people who the Virginia State Police marked incorrectly in the NICS indices moved to a different state and tried to buy a firearm, the FBI would deny them. The person would be considered a “prohibited” person and would have to prove that they are not prohibited from purchasing a gun.

The problem centered around the Virginia Police IT System automatically marking everyone submitted to NICS for being committed to a mental institution as a PCA “D.” The system didn’t have the ability to mark residents as PCA “J.”

Someone from the State Police who spoke to AmmoLand News, off the record, claims this mistake was an oversight by the State Police since the developers were never told about the different categories!?

The FBI requested a list of people incorrectly entered into the NICS indices. The Virginia State Police responded to the FBI with the list of the 46,000+ people. The Virginia State Police also requested verification that being committed to a mental institution voluntarily did not prohibit a person from buying a gun federally.

The FOIA doesn’t show if the IT system has been fixed. The Virginia State Police didn’t verify with AmmoLand News that the system had been corrected. An employee of the State Police that isn’t authorized to speak to the media confirmed to AmmoLand News that the system had been fixed.

Gun Owners of America considers the audit results as an example of the dangers of background checks. Even when no malice is intended, people can incorrectly end up on the NICS indices as a prohibited person. As we have seen time and again the majority of NICS denials are false positives.

The FBI didn’t respond if this was an isolated incident or if these mistakes have been made in other states across the Country, like say… New Jersey?


Virginia Incorrectly Adds 46,000 Citizens To FBI’s NICS Prohibited Person List GOA FOIA 


About John Crump

John is a NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. John has written about firearms, interviewed people of all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons and can be followed on Twitter at @crumpyss, or at www.crumpy.com.

John Crump

 

21 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
swmft

and when has it been enforced, lots of lies spread to stump trump

Cruiser

One or two maybe as high as ten, fortysix thousand? aaaaaaaaaaa No!

Hazcat

The Virginia State Police also requested verification that being committed to a mental institution voluntarily did not prohibit a person from buying a gun federally.”

So the dumb-shit popo doesn’t know the law and THEY are in charge of NICS checks! What could go wrong?

LET’S GO BRANDON

WI Patriot

“incorrectly”…??? How about intentionally…

Deplorable Bill

With a tap on your keyboard the inhabitants of a small CITY becomes felons! A prudent way to deal with your enemies, especially your political enemies. Gun control ala Russia or china, or N. Korea? Accident? These days, after what the nation went through ever since Trump and wife announced he would run for president, I would have to say not likely. If I had to bet, I would say done on purpose. I expect there is going to be a law suit with a VERY BIG pay out in the, hopefully near, future. I might remind Virginia politicians to… Read more »

Arizona

Another example of incompetent government workers and the piss poor quality of government work.

Long past time to remind them who they work for, clear house, down to the foundations, and rebuild according to Constitutional limits of authority.

We have easily 500,000 extraneous federal employees, if not 1,000,000. We have entire “departments”, agencies and hundreds of programs that directly violate the Constitution by existing. We need to abolish them. Now.

1 2 3