Florida's FY 2011 NICS Act Record Improvement Program (NARIP)

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

Under this award, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) will use funds to complete tasks associated with the following ten projects: 1) work with the 67 Clerks of Court to identify potential civil mental health dispositions that are firearm disqualifiers and make the records available to NICS; 2) continue efforts to develop a Warrant Data Exchange Interface within counties to improve the consistency of data sharing and quality; 3) complete modifications to the state's Logan system and Computerized Criminal History system to improve the completeness and accessibility of data available to NICS; 4) research historic disposition records for potential firearm purchase disqualifiers; 5) research approximately 750,000 records with potential firearm disqualifers and update the files with correct dispositions and/or domestic relationship; 6) research and update 64,000 missing arrests in the state repository; 7) purchase the necessary infrastructure to electronically store mental health information submitted by the state's Firearm Purchase Program (FPP); 8) research and retrieve approximately 6,000 missing out-of-state dispositions for potential firearm purchasers to support Florida's operations as a POC state; 9) support additional FPP staff to handle the higher volume of background check transactions completed during peak seasons; and 10) support the Statistical Analysis Center's work to analyze the data used for NICS in support of the Repository's targeted data quality efforts and to assist the Task Force and/or MECOM User group activities. (CA/NCF)