The goobermint finds itself stuck between a rock and a hard place
Biden DOJ Angers Gun Control Allies by Truthfully Admitting NICS Can’t Stop Violent Criminals
The Biden White House has for the most part worked hand-in-glove with gun control advocacy groups toward their shared goals of civilian disarmament. But a lawsuit against the government by survivors of the Sutherland Springs attack in 2017 is putting a strain on this harmonious relationship and causing embarrassment to all concerned. That’s because defending the suit has forced the government to admit inconvenient truths about the limitations of gun control. Now Biden & Company face a tough choice: Pony up more than $230 million or appeal the current judgment against the government and incur the wrath of its usual allies by truthfully admitting the top priority of gun controllers doesn’t really stop violent criminals.
The crimes in question were committed by a former member of the Air Force who was convicted under a general court martial of domestic violence charges in November 2012, some five years before the incident at Sutherland Springs. That disposition, however, was never reported by the Air Force to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), which must be queried when a person purchases a firearm through a federally licensed dealer (FFL). The Sutherland Springs perpetrator acquired the firearms he used in those crimes from FFLs in multiple purchases between 2012 and 2017, the last of which occurred the month before the crimes themselves.
The plaintiffs in the civil suit claimed the court martial made the perpetrator federally prohibited from acquiring or possessing firearms and should have been reported by the Air Force to NICS, thereby blocking any subsequent attempt by the perpetrator to acquire firearms from an FFL. The government’s failure to do so, they insisted, violated a legal duty of care and resulted in the deaths of their family members and loved ones.
Nevertheless, the government argued that “[the perpetrator] was aware of many avenues for obtaining firearms without going through a background check,” and he was determined to commit his premeditated crime. Thus, the government insisted, the background check system’s failure to stop the sales could not be considered a legal cause of harm because, under the circumstances, the perpetrator would still have found a way to get a gun and go through with his plans, even if the FFL sales had been denied.
The government also asserted that it would not have been foreseeable from the evidence of the perpetrator’s domestic violence that he was a risk for the mass shooting he actually committed. Thus, so the argument went, the government could not be held responsible for that outcome when it failed to act on that information.
The trial judge hearing the case agreed with the plaintiffs, finding the government defendants in the case “60 percent responsible” for the deaths and injuries mentioned in the lawsuit and issued a judgment against the government for more than $230 million. This ruling, significantly, found the government’s own wrongful conduct contributed more to causing the victims’ harms than the actions of the perpetrator himself!
The government noted its intention to appeal the decision, and as a recent NBC News article reported, it faced a filing deadline of Jan. 9. What the government would argue on appeal was unknown prior to that filing, but gun control advocates were angry over the possibility that it could continue to press its argument that “the background check system … does not work, which critics say is a common talking point of the gun lobby.”