Nothing in the public record would have stopped alleged Aurora theater shooter James Holmes from legally obtaining guns. He had never been found criminally insane by a judge or convicted of a felony, both of which could have resulted in his name being entered into the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). And even if he had been adjudicated as mentally defective, there is no guarantee his name would have been added to the database against which gun-purchase applications are compared.
More than 2 million qualifying mental-illness records are missing from the NICS index, according to the National Center for State Courts and SEARCH, the National Consortium for Justice Information and Statistics. Judges who find a defendant mentally defective under the law are required to add that person's name to the index.
"Part of the reason they don't report is lack of funding, and part is they just don't make this system a priority," said Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
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