Sen. Tim Scott said Friday that national background checks system needs to be revised to ensure guns do not end up in the hands of those who could use them to cause harm.
“There is something that we could’ve done or we should do and that is to make sure that the NICS system works,” Mr. Scott, South Carolina Republican, said on Fox News.
“It could have prevented the illegal purchase of the gun that caused the atrocity in South Carolina. That is the one piece of legislation that we could not get across the finish line in the Senate,” he added.
The National Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, checks the name and birth year of the purchaser to make sure they are eligible to buy guns or explosives. Most checks are completed within a few minutes, but the FBI technically has three days to review the information and make a determination. The system checks with the National Crime Information Center and the Interstate Identification Index as well as NICS own system, when a person is trying to purchase a firearm.
In the South Carolina shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in 2015, the shooter Dylann Roof, did have a conviction for unlawful possession of a proscription. The conviction should have disqualified him from purchasing a weapon, but there was an admitted system failure. Former FBI Director James B. Comey apologized for the “lapses” in the FBI’s system at the time.
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