Oversight Groups Have Repeatedly Identified Flaws In Military Crime Reporting
The Air Force failed to report the Texas shooter's criminal history to the FBI, which would have blocked his gun purchases. But concerns over military crime reporting have been raised for years.
In 2012, after Devin P. Kelley was convicted of domestic violence by a military court, Holloman Air Force Base failed to input that conviction into a federal database used for gun-purchase background checks.
The oversight enabled Kelley to buy multiple weapons from licensed gun dealers, which the ATF says were found at the scene after he killed 26 people at a Texas church.
The U.S. military has broad, longstanding problems sharing criminal records with the FBI. The Department of Defense is required to share data with the FBI under federal law, but, as the Kelley case lays bare, the fact that it's mandatory doesn't mean it actually happens.
Nicholas Johnson, a law professor at Fordham
