U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “Your recent firearm purchase application is being delayed because the Department has identified state and/or federal records matching your identifying information or a stolen firearm record that if confirmed would prohibit the purchase,” a November 7 form letter from California Attorney General Rob Bonta to a gun buyer declared.
The determination was made it continued, based on information provided on the application. Of note is Bonta’s admission that the reasons for the delay had not been confirmed. “It is possible the prohibition record may not be yours,” the letter acknowledged, and the “stolen firearm record match” was only “possible,” and had not yet been investigated.
In any case, the statement would make its determination when “required,” that is, “within 30 calendar days,” and if the gun owner wished to challenge it, there was a form he had to submit, the Request for Live Scan Service. How much that would expedite matters is not immediately clear, but the form requires entry of personal information already submitted in the initial application, with additional legalese to include carve-outs on how that can be disclosed.
Noting how Bonta’s agency “wrongly made public the personal information of perhaps hundreds of thousands of gun owners in up to six state-operated databases,” California gun owners not trusting him to be a credible guardian for their data is understandable, especially since the state does not give them a choice if they wish to “legally” exercise their right. And there’s no reason to trust the reason given for delaying the purchase, either, as AmmoLand’s correspondence with the gun owner involved demonstrates.
We’ll refer to him here as “Ed”, because as he explains, “I’m a very private person. I don’t want everyone in the world to know my personal business.” Here’s what he experienced in his own words:
“Been purchasing guns since I was 21, over 50 years. No Criminal history, or drugs, etc. Have purchased about 12-15 hand and long guns over the last 10 or so years. Made a purchase of an H&K at (local) Sportsman’s Warehouse on 11/03/22, DROS form and all. I was called on 11/07 by shooting sports dept mgr. that I will NOT be able to pick up the F/A on the 13th as per 10-day wait time and he said may take up to 30 days more per notification he rcd from DOJ. He gave me their phone # and I called to get only a ditz that kept saying she can’t give me any information, neither can/will anyone else. On 11/12 I rcd letter from DOJ telling me nothing more than according to information I submitted on the idiot DROS form, my description appears to match criminal activity, firearm theft and is being submitted to law enforcement for further investigation, which could take up to 30 days. I couldn’t believe it!!! I took the letter to the SW store and showed it to the manager and he told me … he’s been seeing a lot of their customers come in telling that they’re receiving the same thing, and they’ve got SHELVES filled with guns that customers aren’t able to pick up!!!”
As part of investigating this story, I called the store and spoke to the manager in question for corroboration. As expected, policy precludes employees from disclosing company information to the media, and he agreed that corporate relations would not know the specifics of this case. That being the case, using their website contact form, I asked Sportsman’s Warehouse to comment about if they are seeing this happening with other customers and how often, and will include any response in this article if received in time.
As for gun owners being falsely rejected, an analysis from Gun Owners of America sheds some light:
The overwhelming majority of National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) denials are false positives. A 2016 “audit” of cherry-picked or “judgmentally selected” NICS checks was used by the Obama Administration’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to claim a denial “accuracy rate that ranges from 99.3 percent to 99.8 percent.” However, information obtained by Gun Owners of America pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request shows the FBI’s records undermine its own claim: “27.7 percent of [NICS] appeals received during the requested time period were overturned and the firearm purchase/transfer transactions were proceeded.” Research by Dr. John Lott of the Crime Prevention Research Center has compiled several government reports which reveal the overwhelming failure of NICS false-positive denials. In 2009, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) denied 71,010 individuals at the gun store, but only 6.6% (4,681 individuals) were referred for further investigation by ATF field offices. A Department of Justice report stated: “The remaining denials (66,329, or about 93%) did not meet referral guidelines or were overturned after review by Brady Operations or after the FBI received additional information.” Of those ATF field office investigations, 51% (2,390 individuals) were of delayed denial cases, not initial denials. 572 of these were admitted to “not [be] a prohibited person.” This leaves 4,154 legitimate FBI denials in 2009, resulting in a false-positive denial rate of roughly 94.2%.
This also presupposes a citizen has the wherewithal to fight a gun denial. In Ed’s case, he’s determined to seek justice not just as a matter of principle, but as a matter of legal protection. That’s because he’s not just a longtime owner of multiple guns.
“Also, for what it may matter, I am a CCW holder for the past 6 years that will be up for renewal in about 6 months,” he says. “I wonder if that’s on their radar as well.”
If the California DOJ won’t let Ed buy a gun, what’s to say they’ll let him keep the ones he already has if their misidentification persists? It’s not like they don’t know what he has and where he lives. That alone, along with the propensity of state disarmament enforcers to violently descend in the middle of the night, makes calling attention to his plight a matter of personal safety.
What Team Bonta is doing here may just be the result of bureaucratic incompetence, or it may be, as has been speculated, “in response to the SCOTUS verdict and/or intentionally slowing down processing their paperwork to slow down firearm sales.” It’s not like the boss hasn’t made his feelings about armed citizens known.
For whatever reason, the saying comes to mind that “a right delayed is a right denied,” derived from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail”:
“We must come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that ‘justice too long delayed is justice denied.’ We must come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday [Gladstone et al.] that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.’”
30 days may not seem like too long of a delay to those who favor prior restraints on rights, but to the freedom-minded, it is an intolerable act. To others, any “waiting period” can literally turn into a death sentence:
“‘[T]here are very real cases where waiting periods have actually facilitated homicide,’ Erich Pratt, executive director of the rights organization Gun Owners of America, told CNN. He was referring to Carol Bowne, a New Jersey woman who was killed during the waiting to take home a gun she’d bought to protect her from the assailant.”
As for what more he can do, I have advised Ed to make the Firearms Policy Coalition and/or the California Rifle and Pistol Association aware of his situation. They’ll have the visibility to know if this is a growing concern, and also the legal acumen to advise him on what he needs to do beyond what is outlined here.
The Bonta letter, with Ed’s personal information redacted, follows:
Afterword
Two related developments happened after the initial draft of this article was completed:
1. Sportsman’s Warehouse replied. Not to the question, but they emailed a survey saying:
We’d love to hear how we did! Tell us about your recent experience… On a scale of 1-5, how courteous or uncourteous would you say our service team member was? (1 being extremely uncourteous 5 being extremely courteous)
What can I say but “Corporate”…?
2. Ed returned to the same store on Black Friday and bought 500 rounds of Fiocchi 9mm. California requires an “eligibility check” in order to complete ammunition purchases. That means the same group of bureaucrats who disallowed his gun transfer approved the ammo sale, all, evidently, in the name of “commonsense gun safety.”
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
