WASHINGTON—Congressman Tom Emmer (MN-06) will lead 53 of his House Republican colleagues in re-introducing the Firearm Due Process Protection Act tomorrow. The bill provides recourse for law-abiding Americans who were improperly denied the ability to legally purchase a firearm because of administrative errors made during a background check.
Emmer said, “Thousands of Americans every year are being prevented from exercising their constitutional rights not because they are criminals, but because of bureaucratic errors. The Firearm Due Process Protection will provide important recourse to Americans whose Second Amendment freedoms are being restricted through no fault of their own. We are grateful to our over fifty colleagues who stand in support of this common-sense fix.”
“Every year, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) falsely denies thousands of Americans their constitutional rights because of clerical errors contained within the system’s records. Rep. Tom Emmer’s commonsense legislation would provide law-abiding Americans a course of action to correct these errors in a timely manner while holding the FBI and its NICS system accountable to Congress. This legislation will go a long way to ensuring that every Americans’ constitutional rights are protected,” said Randy Kozuch, Executive Director of the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action.
“Rep. Emmer’s bill would help protect gun owners from the broken National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). The system disproportionately targets minorities and individuals with common last names, either rejecting background checks due to cultural spellings of names or falsely flagging individuals as criminals because they share a common last name. To remediate this failure, Rep. Emmer’s bill allows for affected individuals to seek recourse through litigation,” said Aidan Johnston, Director of Federal Affairs for the Gun Owners of America.
Background
In 2022 alone, 7,471 individuals were wrongfully denied a firearm because of an error in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), such as mismatched fingerprints or an inaccurate criminal record. The Fix NICS Act, which became law with Emmer’s support in 2018, requires the FBI to process appeals for these individuals. However, there is still no private right of action to enforce this requirement.
The Firearm Due Process Protection Act gives Americans the ability to seek a court judgment to correct invalid information if the FBI does not act on an appeal within the two-month deadline. Additionally, the legislation increases congressional oversight by requiring statistics regarding the total number and nature of appeals be reported to Congress annually. Emmer previously introduced the legislation in 2019 and 2021.
The Firearm Due Process Protection Act is cosponsored by Representatives Kelly Armstrong, Don Bacon, Andy Barr, Aaron Bean, Stephanie Bice, Andy Biggs, Michael Bost, Ken Calvert, Buddy Carter, Mike Collins, Scott Desjarlais, Byron Donalds, Jeff Duncan, Ron Estes, Randy Feenstra, Brad Finstad, Michelle Fischbach, Chuck Fleischmann, Tony Gonzales, Bob Good, Lance Gooden, Paul Gosar, Garret Graves, Glenn Grothman, Diana Harshbarger, Clay Higgins, John Joyce, Doug LaMalfa, Nick Langworthy, Jake LaTurner, Julia Letlow, Tracey Mann, Mary Miller, Alex Mooney, Dan Newhouse, Ralph Norman, Bill Posey, Mike Rogers, John Rose, Matt Rosendale, Austin Scott, Pete Sessions, Adrian Smith, Pete Stauber, Elise Stefanik, Bryan Steil, Greg Steube, Claudia Tenney, William Timmons, Jeff Van Drew, Wesley Hunt, Brandon Williams, and Mike Flood.
Full text of the bill is available here.
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