The FBI issued more than 4,000 requests last year for agents of the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives to retrieve guns from owners who should have failed background checks, USA Today reported.
The outlet reported the number of take-back requests is the FBI's largest in 10 years — and comes in the wake of revelations a breakdown in the system allowed an Air Force veteran to buy a rife he used in the mass murder of 26 worshippers at a Texas church last month.
The FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System vets millions of gun purchase transactions every year — and must complete the check within 72 hours of a gun purchase or else the sale goes forward, USA Today noted. ATF is asked to take back the guns if the FBI later finds the sales should have been nixed.
"These are people who shouldn't have weapons in the first place, and it just takes one to do something that could have tragic consequences," David Chipman, a former ATF official who helped oversee the firearm retrieval program, told USA Today. "You don't want ATF to stand for 'after the fact.'"
Chipman told the outlet the 72-hour provision was "reckless,” calling it a concession to "the powerful gun industry that nobody wants to irritate," USA Today reported.
The outlet reported it was not clear how many gun seizure requests agents successfully executed last year, or how many weapons were ultimately recovered. Multiple firearms can be purchased in a single transaction, so the actual number of guns that should have been banned could be even higher, the outlet reported.
The spike in gun retrieval orders is attributed in part to the record 27.5 million background checks fielded by NICS examiners last year, USA Today reported.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.