U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Justice Programs 
Bureau of Justice Statistics

Survey of State Records Included in Presale Background
Checks: Mental Health Records, Domestic Violence
Misdemeanor Records, and Restraining Orders, 2003


August 2004, NCJ 206042


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A Zip archive of the tables in this report in spreadsheet format
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Peter Brien
Bureau of Justice Statistics

Overview 

Federal law prohibits the transfer of a firearm to several categories 
of individuals, including those who have been committed to a mental
institution, have been adjudicated as mentally ill, are the subject 
of a domestic violence restraining order, or have been convicted of a
domestic violence misdemeanor(18 USC sec. 922(g)).

The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) conducted a special survey of
State repository directors to examine the quality and availability of
State records for these categories of individuals. The Survey of State
Records Included in Presale Firearm Background Checks: Mental Health 
Records, Domestic Violence Misdemeanor Records, and Restraining Orders, 
2003 was conducted between October 2002 and February 2003 to supplement 
the information that BJS provides as part of its Firearm Inquiry 
Statistics (FIST) project.

Some of the highlights from the survey are summarized below.

Mental health records

Fourteen States do not have the ability to access mental health records 
for purposes of a background check at the time of a firearms purchase.  

Among States that are capable of checking records of mental commitments,
24 States and the District of Columbia utilize court records for such 
checks.  

In most States, court records are the primary source for data on those
found not guilty by reason of insanity or incompetent to stand trial.  

Common reasons given by States for not accessing mental health records
directly were the lack of interface between the checking agency and the 
agency maintaining the database, mental health records that are 
incomplete or not automated, the inability to positively identify a 
person in mental health records, and State privacy laws that prohibit access.

Records for misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence

Fourteen States and the District of Columbia do not have the ability to
check records for misdemeanor convictions for domestic violence because 
such records are either incomplete or not fully automated.  

An additional eight States indicated that flags are needed on the
conviction transactions to identify the conviction as a domestic
violence incident.  

Nine States indicated that resource constraints inhibited the 
identification of such offenders, and seven States indicated that 
the Federal definition of relevant domestic violence convictions 
was problematic.

Protection orders

Fifteen States indicated that their records of protection orders are
either incomplete or not fully automated and eighteen States indicated
that they do not forward all of their protection order information to 
the FBI for inclusion in the National Protection Order file because 
of incompleteness or lack of automation.

Twenty-seven States indicated that court record systems were the 
primary location for obtaining information on the imposition of 
protection orders. 

Methodology

This survey is part of the ongoing BJS project, Firearm Inquiries
Statistics (FIST), which is conducted by the Regional Justice
Information Service (REJIS) of St. Louis, Missouri. BJS and REJIS
jointly developed the survey instrument in September 2002, and REJIS
mailed it to all 50 States and the District of Columbia in October 
2002.

The 39 States that have a "checking agency" (an agency that conducts
background checks for firearm sales, purchase permits, or exempt
carry permits) received a survey with 13 questions, including questions
about the checking agency. The 11 States that do not have a "checking 
agency" received a survey with nine questions on the status of their 
records. By February 2003 all 50 States and the District of Columbia 
had returned the survey to REJIS.  


End of file
08/04/04 ih