Quote of the Day
In the National Instant background Check System (NICS) data, it appears most of the denials are false positives. Hard data on the errors found in the NICS system are not available. John has pointed out there are very few prosecutions of people who have been denied by the NICS system compared to the number of those denied. John stated NICS denials are often based on the phonetic spelling of the last name. The denials are not done with high levels of certainty. Because many people in the same ethnic group have similar sounding names, and because Blacks and Hispanics have much higher rates of felony convictions than Whites or Asians, it is likely Black and Hispanic people are denied from purchasing firearms in the NICS system at a much higher rates than people who are not Black or Hispanic.
In October of 2020, John Lott was appointed as a senior adviser for research and statistics at the Office of Justice Programs. This was the second time he had worked for the government in D.C. When John got to DC, John went to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) and proposed a study of the NICS denials including data on race and sex. The BJS thought it was a great idea.
The the BJS sent the request for data to the FBI. went through the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). The BJS thought the idea of analyzing the NICS data was very good. When the Bureau of Justice Statistics contacted the FBI, The FBI responded, claiming there was no way we can get this done before January 20th. In any case, we are sure the Biden Administration will not be interested. After more emails and calls, the FBI response was: we just can’t think of any reason why anyone would want to break down this data by race and sex.
John responded: You guys break down everything by race and sex. What’s the big deal with this?
The BJS tells the FBI, it is not your decision to make. We decide what to look at and study. Your job is to collect and give us the data. The FBI refuses and the BJS persists. Finally, the FBI says the BJS will have to submit a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
…
The AG, Bill Barr, orders the FBI to stop mucking around and send the data to the BJS.
…
The FBI dithers and delays. After a couple of weeks, the BJS receives the data, but something is wrong with it. It does not make any sense. The BJS complains, and the FBI apologizes, says they do not understand what went wrong. There are more delays, then the FBI sends another batch of data, which still doesn’t make an sense. This sequence happens a couple more times. The last time the FBI sends data which does not make sense is on January 19, 2021. Then the Biden administration takes power.
Dean Weingarten
June 22, 2025
GUN WATCH: John Lott Expounds on FBI Politicized Resistance to Data Sharing (corruption?)
End NICS. Drain the swamp. Prosecute the swamp rats.
Via JPFO.
Short of abolishing the FBI, no one will ever convince me that they are not retaining the data, regardless of what the law says.
Yes, and all the Form 4473 info the ATF has collected is floating around on hundreds of thumb drives.
A lot of the old paper 4473s were put in a leaky warehouse in WV (thanks Sen. Byrd). Some were digitized, some rotted away and some are probably still there.
More evidence that the FBI needs to be disbanded and all employees banned from federal employment. Build new agencies from the ground up to fulfill the FBI’s missions.
Agreed. The FBI, like almost all federal agencies, has suffered from MASSIVE “mission creep” since its creation and authorization.
Disband all the agencies, re-form them — from the ground up, as you say — with ONLY the powers and duties originally authorized by Congress, and then “silo” them to make inter-agency collaboration inefficient and difficult. Cull all the “creep” back to the original missions and scopes.
(Remember, for another example, that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives — colloquially known as ATF — was not created to be “law enforcement”, heavily armed and with arrest powers; it was formed for tax enforcement under the purview of the Treasury Department. Basically a product-specific IRS. The armed SWAT teams, zero-dark-thirty raids, shooting dogs, etc., are all mission creep.)
Sometimes you just have to hit that Reset button and restore everything to its factory settings.
While you’re at it: distribute all those agency HQs to economically disadvantaged counties around the country. Pick somewhere relevant to the mission, or at random… but here’s the second part: move them every ten years. Simply empty DC until it is a museums, memorials and embassies district.
Yes, there will be a federal facility built in every Middelohnowhere, YOUR STATE. And every ten years, they’ll up stakes and move to a different Middelohnowhere, OTHER STATE, and the facility gets refurbished for two years and then a different agency comes and plops into that federal facility. And the money to build, maintain and refurbish that facility will go back into those little towns’ economies. And electrical power, sewer, water and telecom improvements will come along with it, as well as some relatively inexpensive land getting some nice housing construction, which will empty out every two years so the locals can buy up better housing on the cheap then drive more housing construction. Better grocery, retail and other services will come along.
As a jobs program and economic development program combined with a NO EMPIRE BUILDING program, there’s much to recommend it.
To paraphrase Thomas Sowell: when you remove a tumor, why would you replace it with anything?
I can almost guarantee, the FBI’s own analysts have pored over all that data, and they know something.
What they know, exactly, we can’t tell without having someone neutral like John Lott look at it. The only sure things are: 1. Whatever it is, the Bureau does NOT want it shared; and 2. Whatever it is, they already knew it before John Lott and the BJS asked.
Am I the only person thinking that this is like any form of censorship? You know, the old adage that, if there’s a book the government thinks you shouldn’t read, you really need to buy a copy, read it, and buy a second copy.
Put in context: If there’s something the highly-politicized FBI doesn’t want us to know, We the People really need to know it.
The data I’ve seen on prosecutions for failing background checks says that the ATF agrees that most are false negatives because over 90% of those they investigate they do not recommend prosecution.
Personally, as an FFL while I’ve only seen 1 Denied, I’ve seen a bunch of Unresolveds – I’ve discussed them with the buyer and everyone of them was either court ordered payments that were finished and not yet updated by the FBI (some had been finished for 6 months!) or they were sealed misdemeanors from years that “somehow” made it into NICS as pending. I’m told there is a class action lawsuit underway in CA because their software update flipped a bit and made thousands of new felons accidentally.
The whole system is a very bad joke. If you get an Unresolved, you can’t get any item requiring a Form 4, which one of my customers is fighting the system over.