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The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act A Policy Critique BY Bone Analyze the Problem Every program or policy starts with a problem in need of a solution, and the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act is no different. The need for change was very simply Justified: violent crimes are most often committed with a handgun. (DOG, 1995) More outstanding however, in the case of the Brady act, was the specific assault against president Reagan and the crippling of James Brady.
Similarly, the earlier Gun Control Act (CA) of 1968 was precipitated by the high-profile assassinations of John ND Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jar. Against this Justifiable backdrop the gun control activists launched campaigns to help regulate firearms nationwide. Gun crime has a long history. Regulating handguns, however, is a fairly recent proposition. The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, along with the CA before it, was one of the first major gun control policies enacted by the US government.
This history of the problem however, is almost unfathomable. As soon as man invents a technology, he figures out a way to make it into a weapon to kill his fellow man with it. For the sake of amusement, the author attempted to find the first recorded handgun murder- unsuccessfully. The first murder, however, happened in the garden of Eden, perpetrated by the 3rd human to ever exist. This is important to the study of the Brady Act for one clear reason. The question remains: is handgun violence a result of the availability of weapons or of man’s inclination to kill each other?
Examining the potential causes of man’s violence towards each other is a far more philosophical endeavor than this paper. Suffice it to say that the causes of violence goes far beyond just the availability of a certain convenient method. This perhaps is one of the first, great oversights of the Brady Act: the idea that denying the sale of registered handguns to certain individuals deemed likely to misuse them is going lower the number of incidents of handgun violence. As mentioned above, notable previous interventions include the Gun Control Act of 1968.
This intervention created a broad basis of regulation by defining characteristics that would prohibit certain people, such as fugitives, felons and convicts, from owning guns. It also mandated the licensing of gun sellers. What the CA did not accomplish, however, was the creation f a clear and proactive meaner of preventing the prohibited parties from obtaining weapons; it Just made it illegal to do so. It could be said that, in the process of identifying the relevant stakeholders involved in the creation of the Brady Act, that all of the people of the United States are involved.
After all the US Constitution, Amendment II, which applies to all citizens, quotes, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. ” To narrow down the stakeholders a bit, there are essentially two sides that effected the Brady Act and its creation, implementation, Ana Monticello. Gun control activists, proponents AT Managua control, Ana people affected by gun crime like the Brady essentially created and lobbied the Brady Act into Congress, and obviously desire to see it made into law and at work in the community.
On the other hand, gun ownership proponents and those that oppose legislation on firearms fought the Brady Act from beginning to end. Most specifically, the National Rifle Association (NEAR) played a large role in shaping the Brady Act by representing the latter of the two groups. Both of these groups are probably not actually going to be affected by a change in the legislation either way, rather they are both idealists that believe they are protecting people and their rights, and both feel their approach is in accordance with the second amendment, but these two groups are fiercely opposed to each other.
Gun control advocates read the amendment in the context of the time period (the Revolutionary War) it was penned in, and believe that the rising crime rate is now a greater threat than invading armies, and protecting the citizens in the spirit of the law is of more interest than the ownership f guns. The NEAR interprets it as the absolute right of Americans to own and carry firearms. In a way, both of the interpretations are correct. The article exists to ensure the protection of the citizens, and in the sass (and arguably, today as well), owning weapons accomplished Just that.
More moderate explanations point out that its quite okay to allow gun ownership with some regulation. Gun control is a well-meaning interpretation, but requires an additional look into the history and numbers of control legislation to ascertain if its even effective or not. However, those proponents f total gun control- that support highly regulated ownership- suggest a radical interpretation of the amendment, one that if adopted, could lead to further reinterpretations of other, more governmental sections of the Constitution.
To suggest the ability to radically redefine our nation from the roots is a grotesquely bold statement. To allow violence unchecked in the streets is grosser still. Analysis of the impact of the Brady Act’s implementation should have taken into account the fact that imposing regulation on any market is going to reduce the amount of licensed dealers. The Brady Act did Just that, and for some gun dealers, the additional amount of resources required to comply was enough to cause them to shut down. The decrease in the number of licensed dealers is due in part to the increased fee.
Reducing the amount of firearm dealers could be understood as counter to Brandy’s objectives, after all, if licensees are being decreased, the number of regulated firearm outlets does as well. Setting Goals and Objectives Simply put, the goal of the Brady Act was to reduce violence committed with handguns, as evidenced in the title itself: The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act. That’s a rather heady goal, as crime data puts handguns as the choice weapon in crime by far. Data from as far back as 1976 shows crime supplemented by a handgun to be more prevalent that those with other weapons combined. DOG, 1995). Specifically, the Brady Act would accomplish its objectives by requiring licensed gun dealers to conduct presage background checks on gun purchasers- with a list of disqualifies. Phase one started on February 28th, 1994. The measure of impact had to be determined once the policy was implemented. What the legislature did not specify, however, was a expected or reasonable denial rate. Instead the denial rate varied by location depending on what Jurisdiction was in charge of completing the Docudrama scene.
I nee variation was partly Owe to ten Tact Tanat law endorsement used different standards in selecting the criteria that rendered a buyer disqualified. For example, while some checked only for felony status, other agencies may refuse the sale because of a warrant, even warrants for unpaid traffic tickets. Ever since the CA of 1968, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (TAFT) was the nation’s leading agency of firearm policy enforcement, and would be responsible or ensuring dealers comply with the Brady Act.
However, the Brady Act, once past its interim stage, would require that licensed gun dealers have access to criminal databases to look up potential buyers’ backgrounds. This is where the FBI, the premier criminal information clearinghouse of the nation, is involved. The interim stage, however, required that a Chief Law Enforcement Officer (CLEO) perform the background check during a 5-day waiting period. The Brady Act, especially at its interim stages, followed a bottom-up approach, with its effectiveness heavily dependent on the cooperation of the local law enforcement ND the handgun sellers.
Applying these goals in the Brady Act’s impact model seems pretty straightforward. The problem with gun crime was that is was all too easy for anyone to buy a gun. The policy to be implemented would proactively prohibit illegal gun ownership. Those deemed ineligible would be the persons statistically most likely to commit a violent crime. In addition, the mandatory 5-day waiting period would allow the potential buyer to ‘cool down’ from whatever incident had provoked him/her to want to purchase the firearm in the first place.
It has been discussed above that the opposition between the gun control vs.. UN ownership advocates that doubtless played a role in the creation of Brady. However, during the implementation, one outstanding incompatibility exists. The licensed gun dealers, on whom so much of the responsibility lies, have nothing to gain from cooperation in the Brady Act. These are businesses that make profit from selling guns, and outside of idealism, they could not be expected to want to deny the sale of a handgun too client.
In addition, the workings of the Brady Act create additional work for the employees of the gun dealers as well as the CLEO. Cooperation from both these groups is required although they have no stake in the outcome, but instead are saddled with additional responsibility. No real incentives exist for the seller other than that noncompliance results in disciplinary measures from the TAFT and almost certainly losing their license to sell. However, its clear that the TAFT lack the resources to actually enforce compliance.
The TAFT Director said in 1994, “With 285,000 licensees and only 240 TAFT inspectors to check their premises and the records that they keep to ensure compliance, it would take approximately 10 years for us to inspect all the gun dealers. ” (33rd Congress, 1994) Designing ten Program or Policy choose an intervention approach Because of the mandatory-compliance nature of the workings of the Brady Act, a policy doubtless served as the appropriate intervention approach. In the strictest sense, the Brady Act is actually an amendment of the CA and simply creates new policies in which to enforce it.
Persons included in the workings of the Brady Act are all prospective handgun buyers, and specifically those that fall under the disqualification categories. Since the CA, handgun ownership has been illegal for anyone that has been convicted of a crime punishable by more than 1 year in prison; s a fugitive of the law; is an unlawful user or addict of a controlled substance; has been adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to a mental institution; is an illegal alien; is a dishonorable discharged veteran of the Armed Forces; or is a person who has renounced U. S. Citizenship.
Also involved, of course, are the gun dealers and local law enforcement mentioned already. At first, during the interim period, the primary responsible authority was the CLEO, who the licensed dealer was required to contact to conduct the background check. The CLEO was not required to approve the purchase, but rather had five days to sportive it. The CLEO can, however, approve the sale before the end of the 5-day period. If the waiting period elapses without hearing from the CLEO, the dealer can sell the handgun. Recognizing the likelihood of error, the Brady Act did make provisions for remedy.
Erroneous denial can be contested and corrected and the sale of the firearm be approved. In addition, the court may even make provisions for an attorney’s fee for the prevailing party. The most important provision that the Brady Act required was the creation of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICKS). While the interim period ladled upon resources that largely existed already (mainly the ability of the CLEO to perform a background check), the final ‘permanent’ phase called for the creation of a database that would allow for instant point-of-sale background checks.
The legislation called for the NICKS to be operational with 60 months of the start of the interim phase. Once implemented, the NICKS replaced both the CLEO and the 5-day waiting period. The TAFT created a form for the licensed firearm dealer to distribute to the subject of the background check, which the buyer and then the dealer fills out and submits to the CLEO. The CLEO then searches criminal history databases and other records that could indicate the prospective buyer is ineligible.
At this point the CLEO can inform that the subject is allowed to own the gun or not, either way the process can be over unless the buyer appeals. The procedure is pretty straightforward, except for one variable: the Brady Act actually specified the CLEO is not liable for not performing the background check. The Department of Justice declared specifically that law enforcement cannot be penalize Tort not carrying out tenet responsibilities unaware ten Brady Act. In Tact, ten Brady Act’s interim provisions provide only that a CLEO “shall make a reasonable effort to ascertain” in conducting a background check. Brady Handgun Control Act. Public Law 103-15) For a policy that relies so heavily on the cooperation of the local law enforcement, it seem a bit shaky that the work of the CLEO is practically voluntary. On one hand, some law enforcement adopted the spirit of Brady; for example, in one particularly clever situation, Arkansas police disqualified an individual because of ‘mental defect’ when they found the potential handgun owner plead insanity during a battery and property damage charge.
Quite the opposite, some Clef’s have even legally challenged the constitutionality of background checks for handgun purchasers under the Brady Act, to the point of filing lawsuits against the policy in federal circuit courts. Were the law enforcement agencies that produced these lawsuits performing the background checks as they contested the policy? Investigations into the implementation of the Brady Act have found that most of the time, individual law enforcement agencies did not have the resources to make a complete investigation into all the prohibited categories.
GAO, 1996) Of course, all agencies have access to criminal record databases, but information that can also disqualify potential buyers like immigration status, military discharge details, and mental history are not always immediately accessible. This oversight was no longer of consequence, however, when the final stage of the Brady Act was implemented and the information was all readily available through the NICKS. Developing An Action Plan When it came to distributing resources, the Brady Act had a few shortcomings.
Unfortunately, the Brady Act provided no funding for the CLEO to perform the aground check, causing yet another hitch to the interim phase, as states were often hesitant to oblige to their duties without both accountability or funding. The states’ attitude can be heard in a 1994 Montana court’s ruling: “the phase I background check provision substantially commandeers state executive officers and indirectly commandeers the legislative processes of the states to administer an unfunded federal program. ” (Print v. United States, 854 F. Soup. 1503, 1994).
However, while the interim policy went largely unfunded, the Brady Act focused most of its funds toward the creation and successful implementation of the NICKS. The legislation gives the Attorney General the ability to, with “preference to States that as of the date of enactment of this Act have the lowest percent currency of case dispositions in computerized criminal history files”, grant money to each state to help establish the NICKS for use in the permanent phase of the Brady Act. The money was appropriated from the Violent Crime Reduction Trust Fund.
This was crucial to the development of the final provisions of the act, as dramatic changes would have to take place in individual states’ criminal information systems in order for the NICKS and the Brady Act to work as planned. Also developed under the Brady Act was the National Criminal History Improvement Program, another grant program, that, as well as assisting states in development of their computerized background check systems, is notable for establishing the Firearm Inquiry Statistics Program (FIST).
FIST collected data on potential outcomes of implementing background checks on handgun purchasers sun as ten under AT Docudrama scenes Tanat would performer, TN percentage of those checks that would result in a disapproval and the reasons for the rejection. The TAFT releases the data in an annual report. As a solid action plan, TAFT also released a FAQ of 60 questions and answers outlining the responsibilities of each party involved in the application of the Brady Act. Brady legislation was rather specific about time-frame for establishing the permanent phase as well as getting the NICKS running.
For all the criticisms of the interim phase’s obvious flaws, it was after all, a temporary provision, and its replacement was crucial. The 57-month interim ended on November 30, 1998, at which point it became mandatory for the instant background check to be operational for all federal firearm licensees and applied to all handgun purchasers. Not only was this phase change important because of the shortcomings of the interim phase, but also because of a 1997 supreme court ruling.
In a 5-4 vote, the Justices ruled that it was unconstitutional for the federal government to require local police to conduct background checks on potential handgun buyers. Jurist Antonio Scalia pointed out that such a requirement fell firmly into the controversial category of federalism; which is, in short, when the federal government forces legislation or policy upon the states, the very attitude that caused the US Civil War. This ruling effectively disabled he interim provisions, and the background check became entirely discretionary for local law enforcement. The development of the NICKS became crucial for the Brady Act to function.
Once the final provisions are enacted, the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act would be fairly self-sufficient. Firearm dealers would have the automated point-of-sale background check, information would be provided by the FBI for the NICKS and kept current with daily updates. As mentioned above, the FIST program was developed to keep track of the numbers that the Brady Act was producing. It outlined and categorized the procedures of the Brady Act. Knowing how many background checks were being run, how many were denied the firearm purchase, and for what reasons is the very baseline for monitoring what the Brady Act was doing on the street.
FIST accomplished this by measuring the impact of Brady. Not only that, it also created a record book that allowed analysis, for the Brady Act’s doings but also of the origin of firearms being used in crimes. Develop A Plan for Monitoring Policy Implementation Mentioned above was the Tuft’s agents responsible for inspection of the firearm lealer to ensure their compliance with Brady, and although it was in the context of their inferior number, they do represent a monitoring instrument.
TAFT also issued a number of surveys in selected Jurisdictions, including a few months since implementation and at the first year anniversary of the act. Again, the information of interest was the number of checks being completed and the denial rate. The Treasury Department made a One-Year Progress report as well, which also took the data from the selected Jurisdictions and extrapolated it to estimate a total denial rate ND number of denied handgun purchases for all the states.
The Treasury’s data estimated a probable number of total denials in Just 12 months to be over 40 thousand. (Department of the Treasury) This data however, is a little too simplistic. Particularly in the interim phase, the act of rejection was a somewhat arbitrary event Witt great variation across Jurisdictional- mostly a result AT ten Deterrent rejection criteria established by local law enforcement and the background check information available.
Furthermore, the Brady Act makes no requirement for the CLEO to store information regarding reasons for approvals or rejections, nor does the TAFT have the authority to require such. This leaves the investigator with a simple percentage of rejections over a total of background checks, and although surveys have shown a huge disparity across certain Jurisdictions (for example Ohio rejection rates are below 0. 6% while Harris County, Texas shows 26. %)(information by the local law enforcement agencies. GAO, 1996) it remains largely speculative whether the variation is a result of procedure, demographic, or criminal background information available. Develop a Plan for Evaluating Outcomes By 2003, at least some form of criminal record automation had reached 49 states; while all the states have stored information regarding felonies, fugitives, domestic violence and other disqualifying factors, only recently has this data become automated.
Delays can occur, however, when accessing incomplete data; especial when the disposition of a criminal charge is in question (for example, a background check could reveal a felony charge, but the subject is denied only if there’s a felony conviction). The development of information systems is crucial for the survival of Brady; after all, it was the mandatory waiting period that the NEAR fought most fiercely, and making the process as near-instantaneous as possible best suits the main objective: to keep guns from illegal ownership without violating the rights of legitimate gun owners.
Brandy’s outcome can be measured in multiple ways. For one, its doubtful that the creators of the legislation had anything in mind other than the policy applying to all 50 states without exception; in several states however, the policies of the Brady Act do not apply and alternate systems or procedures exist. These “non-Brady” states are still required to screen handgun purchases and meet or exceed Brady provisions. So while the act hasn’t applied to every state, it has set the bar for what is expected in the screening process. The question arises, though: what exactly is the Brady Act’s objective?
Its title reads “the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act”, but does that really represent what it accomplishes? The purpose of the Brady Act it to prevent the transfer of firearms from a licensed dealer to an ineligible person, and even the policymakers recognize that there is no way they can regulate both the black market and transactions twine private parties- which consequently represents an enormous amount of handguns. Additionally, thousands of firearms are stolen each year, and a stolen gun is by definition in the hands of a criminal.
Keeping guns out of the hands of criminals is a practically impossible feat, but the Brady Act does what it can to make possible it doesn’t happen through the outlets that the policy can regulate. Its success can best be measured by assuming that all the weapons that were denied sale to a prohibited party would have otherwise been sold without thought. In this manner, the Brady Act’s objective is almost common sense: the government enforcing its laws where it can. Reducing handgun violence, however, is an entirely different task altogether.
That is, rater all , ten reason ten government restricts Telegram ownership In ten TLS place, to make the streets a better place, right? Unfortunately, trying to find a correlation between the Brady Act’s implementation and violent crime tells a different story. Scholars who have undertook this very study have come up with disappointing results. Based on findings during the interim period of the Brady Act, professor and expert on gun control Philip J. Cook concluded , “Our study did not find significant trend differences between the Brady and non-Brady states in the most reliably measured gun crime – homicide.
Thus the direct effect on gun crime that advocates expected from denying disqualified adults in the Brady states does not reveal itself in our data. ” To put it frankly, we can compare long-term homicide rates. Unfortunately, 1991 and 1997 rates are nearly identical: 65 and 66 percent respectively. (Cook, 2000) Suicide rates under the Brady Act have held a bit more positive data. The apparent deduction is mostly a result of the waiting period-which consequently never applied to many high crime states-, and has now been replaced by the instant POCK (point of contact) background check.
Reassessment and Review Perhaps the most dooming report comes from Cook’s direct statement “The Brady Bill seems to have been a failure”, and not because of its inability to keep guns out of the hands of those who don’t meet the program’s requirements, but because of the ironic fact that those most likely to commit violent crime obtain their weapons from so-called ‘secondary sources’, or unregistered or illegal dealers. This unregulated secondary gun market is in Cook’s terms ‘a gaping loophole’ in the Brady Act. Cook, 2000) In the process of review, the Brady Act should be considered successful. The U. S. Court of Appeals upheld the constitutionality of Brady in September 1995, effectively reversing the Judgments of the district courts. It was decided that the interim background check provision is a ‘minimal burden’ that the federal government can demand of states. In addition, of the nine Jurisdictions where Cleo had challenged Brady, seven of them were conducting background checks. Policymakers should be testified as long as the Brady Act serves to proactively enforce the Gun Control Act’s laws.
After reaching the permanent provisions and no longer requiring local law enforcement’s resources, its both low-profile and no longer controversially in violation of state’s rights. Even still, there are those that will challenge it constitutionality, and even more that will question its success, even its purpose. The Brady Act should not be expected to reduce gun crime in any way. Its purpose is to keep the licensed gun dealers a legitimate outlet of firearms to law-abiding citizens. It can help law enforcement to crack down on illegal gun activity by narrowing the sources of weapons for criminals.