Senators Introduce Bipartisan Bill in Wake of Texas Church Shooting

By Erika Haas

A group Democratic and Republican senators introduced legislation Thursday to improve the National Instant Background Check System (NICS).

The move comes less than two weeks after the Sutherland Springs shooting in which a man with a history of domestic violence massacred 26 innocent churchgoers, many of whom were children.

The gunman’s criminal record should have prevented him from purchasing a firearm. However, the United States Air Force failed to enter the conviction into the system, meaning the future killer’s background check came back clean.

To prevent another potentially deadly mistake like this from happening, Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Tim Scott (R-SC) – with the help of Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Dean Heller (R-NV) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) – crafted the “Fix NICS Act of 2017.”

The bill would require states and federal agencies to create and implement a plan to ensure they are accurately reporting relevant criminal information to the FBI.

States that properly report this type of information will be rewarded with more federal funding, while federal agencies who fail to do so will be penalized by withholding bonus pay for political appointees.

“For years agencies …Read the Rest

Source:: Bearing Arms