What the TSA could teach Congress about gun control

[usonian]

TSA PreCheck uses enhanced background checks to make everyone safer.
https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/6/7/23153524/tsa-gun-control-background-checks

With the country continually in mourning over gun violence — we keep seeing mass shooting after mass shooting after mass shooting — it’s time to find ways to prevent it, lest we remain the “only nation where this regularly happens.” Those solutions needn’t be new, and could perhaps be kind of banal, like the risk-based decision-making behind TSA PreCheck screenings.

The Transportation Security Administration introduced TSA PreCheck in response to September 11 to prevent future terror attacks on airplanes. The system has a dual mission: expediting travel for people who submit to enhanced background checks and making everyone safer by allowing the government to focus on people who are considered risky or whose risk is unknown.

To qualify for TSA PreCheck, passengers undergo a screening process that determines whether or not they’re a risk. The process requires a questionnaire about biographical information and criminal history, fingerprints, and an in-person interview (exactly what’s involved in those background checks is classified). If approved, a so-called known traveler faces fewer security checks than everyone else. And by some measures, this system has been very effective. Experts say air travel has become safer even as threats have continued to evolve, partly since PreCheck allows the TSA to focus its attention on higher-risk travelers.

As it considers a raft of new gun control legislation, Congress could learn a thing or two from TSA PreCheck. First off, a similar system for guns would require, at a base level, that everyone go through a federally standardized background check to get a gun, much like everyone has to go through airport security to fly. This would improve on the current state of background checks for guns, in which loopholes allow people to buy guns from private sellers or online without any type of background check. Gun laws also vary widely from state to state, which leads to a flow of weapons from less-strict states to stricter ones. Universal background checks are very popular on both sides of the aisle and even among gun owners.

PreCheck-inspired background checks for guns could also be more thorough and use a wider array of signals than existing background checks for guns, which typically look at just criminal records, institutionalization, and drug use. For example, the Buffalo shooter obtained his gun legally because he didn’t have a criminal record. A system that took into consideration more factors — his young age, the type of weapon he wanted to buy, and the amount of ammunition he requested — could have flagged him as a danger.

It’s also worth pointing out that travelers who have gone through the TSA PreCheck screening only need to do so once every five years. Adopting such a system for guns could mean that once gun owners are deemed safe, they can make purchases unencumbered — as long as they don’t do anything to nullify the approval — while the government directs its attention to those more likely to commit violent crimes.

Sheldon H. Jacobson, a computer science professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign whose research was foundational for creating the TSA PreCheck system, thinks lawmakers could employ similar risk-based decision-making to counter the scourge of gun violence in this country. Using a variety of signals to determine who might be a risk for causing gun violence in the first place, authorities could better match resources with risk.

In a recent interview with Recode, Jacobson pointed out that millions of Americans have submitted themselves to background checks to get TSA PreCheck membership. They even do it for loans. Why are guns any different?

Long-ish conversation follows.
Clipped from it:

You’ve noted that we regularly go through risk screenings for much more banal stuff than guns, like travel and mortgages. Why are guns different?

... there’s a group of people who just feel that they want to have the right to have a gun, no questions asked.

If a legislator is against background checks, then they should be against PreCheck and they should relinquish their PreCheck status and they should never apply for a loan.

[Phoenix61]

1. Claritan-D is the only allergy medicine that works for me.

Because it has Sudefed in it I can only purchase 1 pack of 15 24hr pills at a time. So effing annoying to know I can by all the ammo I want at one time but it’s Sudefed that’s the danger.

[NJCher]

2. This makes so much sense

The article refers to known travelers and how they behave. They have an investment in the precheck because it saves them time. The hope would be that responsible gun owners would form a similar behavior pattern.

Truth is that the problem people stick out and would be relatively easy to detect. At some point it’s the layers of the known gun owner that would reveal who these people are—if they got that far.

The TSA security protocol is a resource that is tested and proven. It offers hope that we can solve this problem.

[Ferrets are Cool]

3. "Why are guns different? " 'Merika

[madville]

4. Could incorporate it with concealed carry licenses

Concealed carry licenses in most states already cover the fingerprints, red flag and background check aspects. Here a license holder is exempt from the 3-day purchase waiting period. Combining a national Precheck system with a national concealed carry license honored everywhere could really simplify and streamline the patchwork of state laws.