Could this mean that the system IS working?>>>
Background checks stopped more than 200,000 gun buys last yearBy MICHAEL J. SNIFFENAssociated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Background checks blocked 204,000 of the more than 8.6 million prospective gun sales last year, according to a Justice Department report that shows state and local police rejected a higher percentage of would-be gun buyers than the FBI. The 1999 figures brought the number of purchase rejections since the Brady Act instituted background checks in February 1994 to 536,000 out of almost 22.3 million applications, the department's Bureau of Justice Statistics reported. That confirmed earlier estimates of more than 500,000 rejections. The bureau's report provided the first hard numbers on the differences between checks by state and local police and those by the FBI. The FBI performed 4.5 million of the 8.6 million last year, compared with 4.1 million by state and local agencies. The rejection rate among state and local agencies was 3 percent, compared with 1.8 percent for the FBI. The report attributed this difference to state agencies' access to more detailed criminal history records than the FBI's. In 1999, 73 percent of rejections were because would-be buyers had been convicted of or indicted on felony charges. Last year, the report said, all state agencies had access to "computer databases that record past felony convictions, and many accessed databases with other disqualifying information such as fugitive status, court restraining orders, mental illness and domestic violence misdemeanor convictions." The Clinton administration long has argued that the states are better equipped than the FBI to do background checks, but some states have not wanted to pay the costs. Twenty-six states handle some or all their checks. The overall national rejection rate has remained 2.4 percent since 1994, despite the Nov. 30, 1998, switch to computerized instant checks and the addition then of checks on long-gun purchasers. Only handgun buyers were checked before. A second statistics bureau report largely recapped data already released by the Justice Department during its debate with the National Rifle Association over gun controls during the past few months. The gun owners' group opposed President Clinton's gun control proposals and argued federal prosecutors were not enforcing existing gun laws. The administration said federal prosecutors were focusing on serious offenders and shifting smaller cases to state and local prosecutors and that combined gun prosecutions were up. The report said preliminary 1999 data showed 6,728 defendants were charged with federal firearms offenses, up from 6,287 in 1998. It also showed that between 1992 and 1997 the number of federal firearms defendants decreased 19 percent, from 7,621 to 5,993. The report attributed part of this decline to the Supreme Court's 1995 Bailey vs. United States decision limiting prosecutors' ability to charge defendants with using a firearm during a violent or drug offense. It estimated that 2,500 more defendants would have been charged with illegal gun possession between 1995 and 1998 if the court had ruled differently. The bureau said prosecutors compensated by seeking longer sentences for weapon use. In a statement, Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder said that since 1992, combined state and federal gun prosecutions grew by more than 22 percent. When final data are assembled, "the number of people charged with federal gun crimes in 1999 should be equal to the number of people charged in 1992, even though there has been a dramatic drop in gun crimes during that period," Holder said. He also noted that the number of federal firearms offenders sentenced to more than five years in prison is up more than 41 percent, and the average sentence rose by almost two years between 1992 and 1998.
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