Arizona NICS Act Records Improvement Program

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).

The Arizona Criminal Justice Commission will use funds to oversee tasks associated with the following objectives: 1) project management of the Arizona NICS Record Improvement initiative and development of the Arizona NICS Record Improvement Strategic Plan. The strategic plan will assess the current reporting processes for probibiting records with a priority focus on mental health records, develop recommendations for improvement, and identify opportunities for the implementation of automated solutions for the transmittal of information. The Arizona Task Force will also determine if future changes to state law are required to mandate that mental health records are properly reported; 2) suppport efforts to gather and assess information on the state's current reporting systems to establish systems requirements and develop functional specifications for a technical design recommendation to inform Task Force work on the development of a strategic plan; and 3) competitively grant subawards to local criminal justice agencies to assist their record quality improvement efforts to reduce disposition backlogs and resolve rejected dispositions with priority given to prohibiting records used by NICS, notably mental health involuntary commitments, felonies, drug convictions, and domestic violence-related convictions. (CA/NCF)