As Gun Sales Rise Amid COVID-19 Pandemic, Connecticut Senators Call on Senate Leadership to Bolster Background Check Program

[WASHINGTON, DC] – With gun sales spiking since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Chris Murphy (D-CT) urged Senate leadership and appropriators to include funding in the next relief package to address the dangerous backlog of background checks. The Senators called for an additional $20 million for the National Criminal History Improvement Program (NCHIP) to ensure states and local governments are able to maintain accurate records and keep guns out of the hands of abusers and others seeking firearms illegally.

“Prohibited purchasers put our communities in imminent danger,” wrote the Senators to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-AL), and Senate Appropriations Vice Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT). “As gun sales continue to surge, we must provide additional funding to improve the submission of records into NICS in any future pandemic-legislation and work to pass the Background Check Completion Act in the immediate future. With these actions, we can keep firearms out of the hands of people who are prohibited from having them and, most importantly, save lives.

NCHIP was reauthorized in the bipartisan Fix National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) Act, and with additional funding, could address the unprecedented surge in background checks seen since March 2020. Without accurate records and timely background check processing, individuals who would otherwise be legally prohibited from obtaining guns may be able to obtain a weapon, as was the case with the shooter who killed nine people at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

In June, Blumenthal and Murphy introduced the Background Check Completion Act, which would close a loophole in existing law that allows gun sales to proceed if a background check is not completed after 72 hours, even if the gun buyer is not legally allowed to purchase a gun. The bill would require a completed background check for every gun buyer who purchases a gun from a federally-licensed gun dealer. The full text of the legislation is available here.

Blumenthal and Murphy also recently joined a letter to House and Senate leadership led by U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) to include the NICS Data Integrity Act, a bill that would allow the FBI to keep gun-purchase records until background checks are complete, in the next coronavirus relief package. Under current law, the FBI is required to purge incomplete background checks from its systems if they are not finalized within 88 days, a practice that often results in guns being sold without finished background checks.

The full text of today’s letter can be found here.

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