How Do U.S. Gun Background Checks Work?

The U.S. House has passed legislation that would mandate more background checks during gun sales, but these bills (H.R. 8, H.R. 1446, and the Protecting Our Kids Act) are stuck in the Senate. Learn more about how they would change the law in this episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://people.howstuffworks.com/hr8-gun-background-checks-news.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey
brain Stuff, Lauren vogebam here. In the aftermath of the
most recent mass shootings in the United States, there's been
a surge of conversation about HR eight, the Bipartisan Background
Checks Act of This is a longstalled piece of legislation

(00:23):
that would require background checks for all gun purchases across
the nation. Sponsored by California Democrat Representative Mike Thompson, the
bill was passed by the U. S. House in March
by a narrow two to three vote, getting support from
just eight Republican legislators. In the Senate, the bill has

(00:43):
languished for months due to the reality that it stood
little chance of passage in that chamber because it's split
fifty fifty Republican and Democrat and would need to attract
at least ten Republican supporters in order to prevent a
filibuster by opponents and moved to a final vote on
the law, but Senate Democrats have indicated that despite the
odds against them, they're nevertheless hoping to put the bill

(01:06):
on the legislative calendar should that plan come to fruition.
Another gun control bill passed by the House. HR fourty
six would be put to a vote as well. This
bill would increase to ten days the time a purchaser
must wait for a background check. And now, as of
early June, there's a new package of gun control legislation

(01:28):
on the table, the Protecting Our Kids Act. So today
let's talk about these bills and how the laws that
are currently on the books work. Right now, when someone
tries to buy a firearm from a federally licensed gun dealer,
the dealer is required to contact the federal government's National
Instant Criminal Background Check System, either electronically or by phone.

(01:51):
The buyer fills out a form that asks them about
a bunch of things, past criminal indictments and convictions, use
of drugs, court ordered confinement in mental institutions, dishonorable discharges
and convictions in military courts, convictions for domestic violence, and
whether the person is a legal resident of the United States.
After that, these systems staff performs a background check to

(02:14):
verify that the buyer is eligible to purchase or own
a firearm. This background check system, which was created by
the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of and went online,
has conducted more than three hundred million checks on gun purchases.
Most purchasers passed the screening, but more than one point
five million would be gun buyers have been rejected, according

(02:36):
to the FBI. Even so, critics point to major loopholes
in the screening process of people who don't make a
business of selling firearms but only make occasional sales or
purchases are exempt from the background check requirement unless they're
a seller who has reason to believe that a purchaser
might be legally barred from owning a gun. Additionally, Federal

(02:59):
logged doesn't established a clear line for when a gun
seller becomes a professional dealer, of just a vague rule
of thumb that someone who repetitively sells guns with the
motive of making a profit must be licensed and conduct
background checks. That gaping gray area enables non licensed dealers
to sell scores of weapons at gun shows or via

(03:22):
Internet ads, or you know wherever, to whoever's buying. A
study that was conducted by Northeastern University and Harvard University
researchers and published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine
in estimated that of gun owners who had obtained a
weapon in the previous two years had done so without
going through a background check, and of prison inmates who

(03:47):
had been prohibited from owning the gun that they used
in a crime had obtained it through an unlicensed seller.
HR eight, one of the proposed laws, would eliminate the
private sales loophole by making such transactions a eagle. Instead,
private sellers would be required to hand the weapon over
to a licensed dealer, importer, or manufacturer, who would then

(04:08):
comply with the background check requirement before transferring the weapon
to the buyer. HR eight would still allow a few exceptions.
Law enforcement agencies would be allowed to do transfers without
background checks, as would family members giving weapons to other
family members. A person could also inherit weapons without a
background check. Finally, in the case of an eminent threat

(04:30):
of bodily harm or death, a person could give a
weapon to someone else to protect themselves, as long as
the weapon was returned when the threat went away. The
idea of universal or nearly universal background checks is supported
by the majority of the American public. In April one
Quinnipiac University poll, for example, found that eight percent of

(04:52):
Americans favor such a requirement, while only eight percent oppose
universal background checks. A March one Morning Consult poll had
a similar result, with eighty four percent of voters, including
seventy percent of Republicans, supporting mandatory screening before gun sales. Eighteen.
Gallop Pole found that Americans favored mandatory checks by a

(05:15):
nine to seven percent margin before the article This episode
is based on How Stuff Works, spoke with Dan Flannery,
a professor of psychiatry and pediatrics and the director of
the Begun Center for Violence Prevention Research and Education at
Case Western Reserve University. He said that enacting universal background
checks is an important first step toward reducing gun violence,

(05:38):
but pet cautions that the information reported in the system
is limited and may not necessarily detect everyone who is
a threat. The teenage gunman in the Valdi shootings, for example,
legally bought two rifles from federally licensed gun store shortly
after his eighteenth birthday. Grown check system didn't detect the
disturbing behaviors noticed by friend and relatives that have since

(06:01):
come to light. Flannery said having more mental health resources
and thread assessment protocols for when kids who are identified
who may be at risk. Having those systems of supports
in place is another thing. Many of the school shooters,
in particular, have told someone else personally or on social
media of their attempt, and there were opportunities to intervene.

(06:24):
Proponents of HR eight face a difficult challenge in the Senate,
where sixty votes are necessary for passage. When the New
York Times survey GOP senators, it found that only four
out of fifty were even open to considering universal background checks.
Though the Democrats could change the rule to allow a
straight majority vote, some conservative Democrats opposed such a move

(06:47):
and favor a different compromise in that vein. A new
package of gun control legislation passed in a House vote
on June eight, called the Protecting Our Kids Act. It
passed two twenty three to two oh four, with five
Republicans crossing the aisle to vote for it and two
Democrats voting against it. The Act includes bills that would
raise the age necessary to purchase or receive particular types

(07:10):
of semi automatic firearms from eighteen years to twenty one years.
It would establish new federal offenses for gun trafficking, established
frameworks for regulating firearms without serial numbers and the storage
of firearms, and prohibit large capacity magazines. And create a
governmental buyback program for people who currently own those. News

(07:30):
about this new act is still coming in as we
record this episode, but experts expected to face difficulty in
the Senate as well. How Stuff Works also spoke with
Dave Chapman. He's a twenty five year veteran of the
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or the a
t F, and was President Joe Biden's initial choice to
head that bureau. He said that conducting background checks on

(07:54):
nearly all gun purchasers quote would make an extraordinary difference
in preventing gun violence in this country. He also called
for raising the federal minimum age for purchasing a rifle,
which again is currently eighteen years quote. Until we change that,
a high school senior can roll into a gun shop
and lawfully by and assualt rifle in the same one

(08:15):
I carried on a t F squat team, nothing's ever
going to change. Today's episode is based on the article
HR eight mandates gun background checks? Why is it stuck
in the Senate? On how stuff works dot com? Written
by Patrick J. Keaiger. Brainstuff is production of I Heart
Radio in partnership with How Stuff Works dot com and

(08:36):
it's produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts My Heart Radio,
visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.