Conservative Media Cooks Up Outlandish Claim That Obama Admin. Is Racially Profiling Gun Owners
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on September 18th, 2014 11:08 pm by HL
Conservative Media Cooks Up Outlandish Claim That Obama Admin. Is Racially Profiling Gun Owners
Right-wing outlets are claiming that the Obama administration is using the standard form for federal gun background checks to engage in “racial profiling” and to find out “who has guns” because the form asks about race and ethnicity. But the form has asked for this information since at least 2001, and identifying information is destroyed within hours of a background check being processed.
People who buy firearms from licensed dealers are required to fill out the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’ Form 4473, which is processed by the FBI-administered National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). The form asks buyers for information such as name, height, weight, date of birth, and race and ethnicity.
In a September 16 article, Washington Times reporter Kelly Riddell wrote that a 2012 revision of Form 4473 meant that “[t]he Obama administration quietly has been forcing new gun buyers to declare their race and ethnicity, a policy change that critics say provides little law enforcement value while creating the risk of privacy intrusions and racial profiling.” According to Riddell, the change was made by the ATF “[w]ith little fanfare.”
But the previous version of Form 4473, issued in August 2008, also asked about race and ethnicity in question 10:
The change in the 2012 revision is that race and ethnicity were separated into questions 10.a. and 10.b.:
The Times story has been touted by Fox Nation, conspiracy website WND, Newsmax, and The Week.
