[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 44 (Thursday, April 18, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Page S2942]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 NINETY DAYS IS SIMPLY NOT ENOUGH TIME

 Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, a letter released last week by the 
General Accounting Office highlighted serious problems that could 
result from reducing the period of time that National Instant Criminal 
Background System records are retained to only 24-hours after a firearm 
sale. Under current NICS regulations, records of allowed firearms sales 
can be retained for up to 90 days, after which the records must be 
destroyed. On July 6, 2001, the Department of Justice published 
proposed changes to the NICS regulations that would reduce the maximum 
retention period from 90 days to only one day.
  According to FBI officials and the GAO letter, retained records that 
were more than 1 day old but less than 90 days old were used to 
initiate over 100 firearm-retrieval actions by law enforcement in the 
4-month period beginning July 3, 2001, through October 2001. As a 
result, the GAO believes that next-day destruction of NICS records 
would likely obstruct the ability of law enforcement to retrieve 
firearms from individuals who were mistakenly approved to purchase 
firearms. Since its inception, NICS checks have prevented more than 
156,000 felons, fugitives and others not eligible to purchase a firearm 
from doing so. While not infringing upon any law-abiding citizen's 
ability to purchase a firearm.
  The retention of NICS records for a sufficient period of time is 
important. I am greatly concerned by the Attorney General's action and 
I support the ``Use NICS in Terrorist Investigations Act'' introduced 
by Senators Kennedy and Schumer. This legislation would codify the 90-
day period for law enforcement to retain and review NICS data. The GAO 
letter provides further evidence that the Schumer/Kennedy bill is 
common sense legislation that deserves enactment.

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