For gun bill, unusual partners

Other problems also surfaced, such as processing delays, incomplete information, and confusion among states about which records they were required to submit to NICS. For instance, 25 states have computerized only 60 percent of their criminal records, according to a report by the Legal Community Against Violence, a legal-services organization in San Francisco dedicated to ending gun violence. That means 40 percent of felony convictions in these states don't make it into the federal database system right away.

But the biggest problems are associated with domestic-violence and mental-health records. Thirteen states simply do not share information about domestic-violence restraining orders, and 33 states have not computerized or do not share records about mental-health adjudications, as required by the federal law.

There are also inconsistencies between state and federal law, which became tragically apparent recently in Virginia. The gunman at Virginia Tech, Seung-Hui Cho, had been ordered by a judge to get mental help. Under federal law, that would automatically disqualify him from buying a gun. But Virginia law requires that a person be committed before he or she is disqualified from buying a gun. As a result, Mr. Cho's mental adjudication was never entered into the NICS system, and he was able to buy two semiautomatic pistols.

For many in Congress, it was one too many examples of NICS not doing what it was originally intended to do.

"The NRA has an interest in seeing to it that the law works, as do I," said Dingell in a phone interview. "To have the law work … we have to separate the people who should be eligible to buy a firearm from those who are not. That's what the NICS system is supposed to do."

Some gun-control advocates are concerned that the legislation doesn't require buyers in private gun sales to undergo background checks. Calls for comment about the compromise to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence went unanswered as of this writing. It is unclear whether the organization will support the bill.

The Violence Policy Center, a gun-control think tank in Washington, has come out against the compromise because it is concerned the appeals process will make it easier for dangerous individuals to get access to guns.

Gun Owners of America (GOA), the NRA's smaller rival, is also opposed to the compromise, saying that the appeals process is too cumbersome.

"We are opposed to requiring honest people to prove their innocence," says Erich Pratt, communications director of the GOA. "Even with the compromise … these people are still presumed guilty, and they're going to have to spend time and money to prove their innocence [before buying a gun]."

The NRA, which negotiated provisions that make it easier to appeal to have one's name removed from the NICS database, says it will support the bill as long as it is passed as negotiated.

"But if there are any gun-control amendments added, we will unequivocally oppose it," says Andrew Arulanandam, the NRA's director of public affairs.

Dingell says he hopes to use procedural maneuvers to ensure the bill cannot be amended. He's determined that it passes as is.

"We'll pull the house down if it goes bad," he says.

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