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Delaware NICS Act Record Improvement Program
Note:
This awardee has received supplemental funding. This award detail page includes information about both the original award and supplemental awards.
The NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007, Pub. L. 110-180 ("NICS Improvement Act"), was signed into law by the President on January 8, 2008. The NICS Improvement Act amends the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993 ("the Brady Act") (Pub. L. 103-159), under which the Attorney General established the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). The Brady Act requires Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) to contact the NICS before transferring a firearm to an unlicensed person for information on whether the proposed transferee is prohibited from receiving or possessing a firearm under state or federal law. The NICS Improvement Act authorizes grants to be made in a manner consistent with the National Criminal History Improvement Program (NCHIP).
Presently, in Delaware, persons acting strangely that were arrested and taken to the hospital for evaluation have been coded as mental patients by the arresting officer even before the doctor made his/her determination. This information was coded into the state database and transmitted to NICS as person prohibited from purchasing a firearm. To address the problem, the Delaware Health and Social Services submitted to DELJIS (Delaware Criminal Justice Information System) the records that needed to be added to the G4 file. This file contains the records that have been validated by Health and Social Services as true commitments. In 2015, the Delaware Department of Safety and Homeland Security received funds to match criminal history records in the states criminal history repository against the G4 file to check for accuracy and completeness. This year, the agency is seeking funds to match criminal history records in the states criminal history repository against the courts database. If the courts record matches the information in the G4 file, then Delaware plans to flag the record as a match. Records of a deceased mental health patient will be flagged. DELJIS will also manually check court files to see if a person had an involuntary commitment to a mental facility and flag those record. Updated information will be added to the states database and the NICS Index.
