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Justice Dept. to Prioritize Prosecutions for Lying in Gun Background Checks

The Justice Department will ask federal prosecutors to step up prosecutions of prospective gun buyers who lie on federal background check forms, according to law enforcement officials.Credit...Wendy Carlson for The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department plans to ask United States attorneys to prioritize the prosecutions of prospective gun buyers who lie on federal background check forms, according to two law enforcement officials briefed on the decision.

The request, part of a larger set of recommendations by the Justice Department expected to be announced in the coming days, would essentially enforce existing laws that govern gun purchases. It allows the Trump administration to take action on gun-related violence without riling opponents of more restrictive gun policies.

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.

The directive comes as the Trump administration weighs responses to the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., last week, in which 17 people were killed.

But the renewed emphasis on background checks would not have stopped the suspect in that shooting, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, who legally purchased several firearms — including an AK-47 within the past month.

Thousands of prospective gun buyers are denied firearm purchases every year through the F.B.I.’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Prospective buyers must fill out a six-page application, including whether they have ever been convicted of or indicted in a crime, which would disqualify them from purchasing a firearm.

The buyer can be approved, denied or issued a delay for the purchase. Under the third option, the firearms dealer must wait three days while the F.B.I. determines whether the prospective buyer’s application is truthful and whether that person is eligible to buy a gun. If firearms dealers do not hear back from the bureau during the waiting period, they are legally allowed to sell the gun.

While lying on the background forms is a felony, it is a crime that has rarely, if ever, been prosecuted.

Thousands of prospective gun buyers are denied firearms purchasers annually, but between 2008 and 2015, fewer than 32 cases a year were even considered for prosecution, according to the Justice Department’s inspector general.

The new directive is expected to be welcomed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which is responsible for policing background check violations. But it is unclear whether federal prosecutors offices will share the enthusiasm, and whether there will be any recourse if the guidance is not heeded.

Gaps in the background check system have prompted scrutiny in an array of high-profile failures. Its three-day waiting period loophole allowed Dylann Roof, who in 2015 murdered nine people in a Charleston, S.C., church, to buy the gun used in the shooting, despite having been charged that same year with felony drug possession.

Despite issuing a hold on his purchase, the F.B.I. did not get back to the local gun dealer who sold Mr. Roof the weapon he used in the shooting within the three-day waiting period. The dealer legally sold Mr. Roof the gun when he returned after the waiting period.

In November of last year, Devin P. Kelley killed 26 people at a Texas church with firearms that a background check should have indicated he was not permitted to purchase. Mr. Kelley’s criminal record — he was kicked out of the Air Force after being convicted of domestic violence in 2014 — was never transmitted from the service to the F.B.I.

More recently, thousands of people with outstanding warrants were purged from the background check system over a discrepancy over the definition of the word “fugitive,” which the Justice Department said should not necessarily preclude someone from purchasing a firearm.

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