Delaware NICS Record 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).

Under this award, the Delaware Department of Safety and Homeland Security will use funds to match criminal history records in the state's criminal history repository against the G4 file, the file that contains the records that have been validated by Health and Social Services as true commitments and persons prohibited from purchasing or owning a firearm. The remaining records will be matched to those in the complaint/incident file to see if the person is in the incident file as a mental transport. If the person appears, the record will be deleted on the criminal database and recoded in the incident file as a medical transport. Delaware will create a new file for records that do not match either file. These records will be used for other law enforcement purposes. Completion of this project will ensure that Delaware is in full compliance with NICS and ensure that citizens in in the state that are legally permitted to purchase firearms are not erroneously denied due to data quality issues. (CA/NCF)