Posted on 07/07/2021 10:38:23 AM PDT by devane617
No, the 4473 only asks if you received a dishonorable discharge.
What a bull-hit ruling by this judge. Yes, the AF did not put the individual in the data base, but being in the data base would not have prevented this individual from getting a gun on the street. Also, as the article states, being in the data base COULD have prevented him from buying a gun from an FFL but that is not a sure thing either, especially with the screwed up incompetent FBI we no have. The AF was wrong for not putting in the data base, but it is not responsible nor mostly responsibe for the acts of this guy. The individual is. Judge is an idiot
Then the Army is 60% responsible for Nidal Hasan.
It was a bad conduct discharge and not a dishonorable discharge but I get your larger point that in either case if it is not reported it doesn’t make a difference.
“A federal judge has ruled that the U.S. Air Force is mostly responsible for a former serviceman killing more than two dozen people at a Texas church in 2017 because it failed to submit his criminal history into a database, which should have prevented him from purchasing firearms.”
Sure, because if the gun store turns you down, there is just no other way to acquire a firearm.
That’s it; your criminal designs are thwarted. “Curses, foiled again.”
A bad conduct discharge is just one step above a dishonorable discharge. They are divided into two categories, administrative and punitive.
https://lawforveterans.org/benefits/497-military-discharge
“So he would have gotten a firearm and body armor by going around the law.”
The Judge apparently thinks that no murderer would dare obtain weapons except through the strictest legal method possible. Similarly, he believes that all meth addicts get their meth from CVS using doctors’ prescriptions.
Nope. But it is obvious that his superiors knew of his radical leanings.
Well, at least it wasn’t the gun’s fault.
Probably.
Well, how silly of me to have thought it was the sicko who’s finger pulled the trigger was at fault.
But, it would have been discriminatory for the AF to put him in DB. Right?
That’s the problem with these ‘databases”, they absolve others for their own actions.
If the service branch doesn’t submit the conviction at court-martial to the FBI, then the FBI wont’ know about. They’re not clairvoyant. They rely on states and the military to input convictions into their NICS system.
Just to be clear though for others who may be reading your comment, both a BCD and dishonorable are punitive discharges. While the latter can only be issued after conviction at a general court-martial, the former can be issued at a summary court-martial.
Interestingly, the FBI background check application only asks about general court-martial referrals and convictions. While it’s probably true many convictions at summary court-martial wouldn’t necessary foreclose future gun ownership, a few might...like this one.
So, help me understand what the discharge was for this guy? Should he have been placed in DB, or was it truly an error by the AF.
Is this piece indicating that he was convicted by court martial? If so it’s my understanding that court martial convictions are considered Federal convictions in the same way that most Mafia convictions are considered. One would think that any such conviction would be put into the database.
Air Force Security Forces or AFOSI should have put it into the system after his conviction was final. They failed to do so. Unfortunately, this is one of those post-conviction administrative tasks that gets forgotten because, “What are the chances there will be an issue?” Based on 30 years as a USAF JAG.
The 4473 only asks: Have you ever been discharged from the Armed Forces under dishonorable conditions? A BCD does not fall under those conditions. As the link said, you can receive a BCD for being absent without leave, being drunk on duty, driving under the influence, committing adultery, arrest for disorderly conduct and passing bad checks.
It is very rare for someone receiving a BCD on those grounds. Most likely they would receive NJT (non-judicial punishment) from their commander. In the Navy it is called Captain’s Mast under an old tradition of holding a non-judicial hearing in the center of the ship with all the crew watching. The Marines call it Office Hours.
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