(CNN) — Since an ex-US airman shot more than two dozen people inside a church in Sutherland Springs last November, the US military has added more than 4,000 names to the nation’s list of dishonorably discharged military personnel banned from owning firearms.
It’s a sign of what has been a massive hole in the nation’s gun buying background check system.
The gunman, Devin Patrick Kelley, had been kicked out of the military for assaulting his wife. By federal law, that should have prevented him from purchasing his semiautomatic rifle, but the US Air Force later admitted it had not submitted Kelley’s records to the FBI’s background check system.
In the months since, the US Department of Defense has scrambled to ensure all of its branches have properly updated the FBI’s system to track personnel kicked out of the military who are barred from owning firearms.
That push has uncovered a backlog so significant that the FBI’s tally of dishonorably discharged former service members has ballooned by 4,284 names in just three months, a 38% leap.
The FBI figures track the reasons civilians and ex-military personnel are barred from owning guns. The agency separately quantifies dishonorable discharges, which includes personnel convicted by a general court-martial. Other types of military dismissals that could legally stop someone from owning a gun are not broken out from the civilian population in the FBI data.
Since 2015, the number of people barred from owning firearms because they were dishonorably discharged had hovered at about 11,000, according to FBI statistics published online. That number suddenly jumped to 14,825 last November, then to 15,583 in December. It now stands at 15,597.
The Defense Department has not yet publicly acknowledged that the military has vastly expanded its submissions since the shooting. The belatedly filed reports mean that, for an unknown period, more than 4,000 people had the opportunity to buy guns from dealers while they should have been legally barred from it.
“I’m encouraged that they’re trying to hurry up and get through this backlog. But it was a failure of duty and responsibility to not report these people to the federal database. I’m highly disappointed,” said US Rep. Scott Taylor (R-Virginia), a former Navy SEAL now working on a bill to improve the background check system.
New scrutiny across military branches
Dishonorable discharges are reserved for people convicted by the military of violence or serious misconduct — crimes equivalent to a felony — and thus federally prohibited from owning guns. The armed forces are also required to report personnel who receive a “bad-conduct discharge” for causes such as domestic violence or dealing drugs, which also disqualifies them from gun ownership. The Texas church shooter received a bad-conduct discharge. But only dishonorable discharges are reflected in the recent jump.
CNN tracked the sharp increase in dishonorable discharges in the FBI’s records by reviewing archived pages of the agency’s website, which publishes occasional updates of the data within its background check system.
CNN reached out to all five branches of the military. The US Marine Corps, Air Force and Navy acknowledged that they have been combing through old records.
“We are in the process of conducting a thorough review of past cases to ensure that any prior failures to report are rectified and the appropriate information is provided to the FBI,” said Capt. Christopher R. Harrison, a spokesman for the Marines. He said the Marine Corps was planning changes that would “increase the speed and efficacy of reporting.”
The Air Force has been under particular scrutiny because of the Sutherland Springs case. Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson told Congress in December that her military branch is reviewing cases dating back to 2002.
The US Navy pointed to a December DOD Inspector General’s report, unrelated to the Texas shooting, in which it promised to conduct a thorough search of cases dating back to 1998 to make sure all missing files are sent to the FBI.
The US Army said it would be “inappropriate” to comment, citing a pending lawsuit about its failures to report these types of cases.
The US Coast Guard assured CNN its numbers weren’t included in this recent spike, because it always reports to the FBI on time. And no Coast Guard personnel were dishonorably discharged in November or December, it said.
“We can’t speak to what the other services are doing. The Coast Guard puts information into the FBI database upon receiving the results of trial. We are not clearing a backlog of personnel,” said spokeswoman Alana Miller.
The Pentagon’s Office of Inspector General is currently reviewing how the Air Force failed to process the case file for Kelley. It is also reviewing how the branches of the military submit relevant information to the FBI.
The-CNN-Wire
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