FY 2019 Tennessee NARIP

The NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007, P. L. 110-180 ("NIAA"), was initially signed into law by the President on January 8, 2008 (reauthorized by Title VI of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018, P.L. 115-141). The NIAA 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 NIAA authorizes grants to be made in a manner consistent with the National Criminal History Improvement Program (NCHIP).

The Tennessee Department of Finance and Administration (TDFA) will transfer funds to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) to aid in the state's efforts to improve criminal history records. TBI will have staff work overtime to research and manually flag appropriate records with disqualifying charges, and conduct queries of the state’s computerized criminal history (CCH) repository to identify and flag persons with past applicable disqualifying charges. Temporary staff will be used to review and submit backlogged dispositions, containing domestic violence related charges, into the state’s CCH. TBI also plans to conduct an assessment of Tennessee’s domestic violence and mental health records to improve the identification and reporting of these records to NICS. Findings will be published in a report recognizing strengths and weaknesses in the system.

Funding will also be used to add the ability for booking agencies to indicate a domestic violence incident and the relationship between the victim and the perpetrator into livescan machines. Project management and administrative fees, as well as travel expenses to the National Association for Justice Information Systems Conference for OCJP and TBI staff will be covered under this award.

(CA/NCF)