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WASHINGTON (AP) - Focusing on a key gun issue, the Justice Department will offer states more than $20 million to strengthen the background checks designed to keep guns from being sold to potentially dangerous people.

States are critical to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. They keep criminal histories and records of people barred from having guns because of domestic violence or for mental health reasons.

The $20 million would help fill information gaps by improving reporting to the national system on involuntary commitments to mental health facilities, felony convictions, misdemeanor convictions for domestic violence, domestic violence restraining orders and active criminal warrants.

Congress is debating whether to expand the background check system, which applies only to sales by federally licensed gun dealers, not private transactions at gun shows or online.


(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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    2cents wrote...
    Further, the irony is that . . .
    March 22, 2013 11:21 am
    The Fed has spent billions to buy up . . . . for some very, very strange reason . . . all the ammo in the country to the extent that municipalities nationwide are desperate, and cannot support their own police inventory. Is it not a prime directive of DOJ to support law enforcement activities in state and local jurisdictions? It is? Then why would they be undermining that very thing? Makes one wonder what they are up to . . .
  • Abuse
    2cents wrote...
    DOJ can afford $20 million . . .
    March 22, 2013 11:22 am
    as payola to those States who do their bidding? Could they not instead redirect all that expendable taxpayer money to, say, reopen the White House to touring citizens . . . . or return to States the educational funds confiscated under the guise of sequester? Or at least that could go toward the lavish spending of, for example, Bidens February one-night stay at a Paris hotel for $585,000 and in London for $459,388.65? I know Obama has not provided a budget during his reign, but such actions makes one wonder about what he is up to.
  • Abuse
    SurpriseMe wrote...
    anther bad decision
    March 22, 2013 11:32 am
    spend more money. rate of return on your 20 million is never going to be felt. Government again making bad decision with money. If they had to run a business they would bankrupt the business in weeks.
  • Abuse
    ZingerRinger wrote...
    Homeland secruity
    March 22, 2013 12:42 pm
    What if Obama is building up Homeland Security to be his personal army, ready to do follow his instructions at any moment. If you disagree with him, you will be labeled "a nut" and demonized for your beliefs. They will go house to house, rounding up "trouble makers" and "enemies of the state". (Just like Hitler did with the SS) Try to resist them and you will be taken out by a drone strike, robbed of your due process guaranteed to you by the Constituion.
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