WASHINGTON, July 26 (UPI) -- A federal watchdog says the government is not devoting enough resources to recovering guns from felons and others banned from owning them.
The Justice Department's Inspector General Glen Fine, in a report released Monday, examined the way the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives responds when guns are sold to people banned from owning them because a background check was not completed within the three day period allowed by law.
When the check -- mandated by the so-called Brady Act of 1993-- is not completed in time, the dealer can legally sell the weapon. If it later turns out the purchaser was a felon, illegal alien or otherwise prohibited from owning a gun, the bureau has the responsibility of retrieving the weapon.
But the inspector general found "the (bureau's) Brady Operations Center does not have sufficient resources to pursue Brady Act violations in a timely manner."
Of nearly 190 cases studied, guns were retrieved within one month about 60 percent of the time. But 15 percent of cases took more than four months to resolve, and some were not settled for more than a year.
"Delays in retrieving firearms increase the risk that prohibited persons may use the illegally obtained firearm," says the report.
