A report issued Tuesday shows that the Air Force failed to report dozens of convictions to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).
On November 6, 2017, Breitbart News reported that the Air Force failed to report the domestic violence conviction of Texas church killer Devin Kelley. NPR pointed out that Kelley was arrested in 2012 and “court-martialed for assaulting his then-wife and stepson.” He was convicted and that conviction “disqualified him from legally possessing a firearm.” But the Air Force “mishandled” reporting the conviction to NICS, allowing Kelley to pass a background check for the gun he used in the Texas church attack.
According to the New York Times, the Air Force has launched a review of reporting from Holloman Air Force Base—the base where Kelley was convicted—and “found several dozen cases in which the military failed to report service members charged with or convicted of serious crimes to the federal gun background-check database.”
The Air Force released a statement, saying, “The error in the Kelley case was not an isolated incident and similar reporting lapses occurred at other locations. Although policies and procedures requiring reporting were in place, training and compliance measures were lacking.”
It must be noted that the dozens of failures to report which have been uncovered were found in the very early stages of the review. This means it is possible that many others may yet be found.
AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com
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