Licensed gun dealers would be able to run their employees through the government’s background check system under a new rule the Biden administration proposed Wednesday.
Under current rules, dealers are only supposed to run checks on prospective purchasers. But the Justice Department says it wants dealers to be able to voluntarily check their own workers who handle firearms.
The department also proposed a second rule that would firm up an existing policy that calls for those under age 21 to undergo more stringent background checks by giving the FBI access to juvenile records.
Officials said both policies are a result of a gun law Congress passed in 2022, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which followed in the wake of several high-profile mass shootings. That law pushed limited expansions of background checks.
Attorney General Merrick Garland, in his gun dealer proposal, said the dealers are not required to conduct the checks, and may not conduct them without written permission of the employees or prospective workers they want to check.
The proposal is aimed specifically at employees of federal firearms licensees, or FFLs, who handle firearms in the course of their business.
“FFLs may inadvertently employ prohibited persons, who would then have access to firearms through their employment duties and who may be able to use their positions to engage in illegal trafficking of firearms or to otherwise illegally possess or use firearms,” Mr. Garland said in justifying the proposal.
The FBI said it’s not clear how many people might be covered by the expanded checks.
For the proposal dealing with gun buyers under 21 years of age, the FBI is now supposed to request juvenile records from state and local authorities where the purchaser lives.
The FBI began doing that in October 2022, and the Justice Department said nearly 1,000 purchases have already been blocked.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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