McCarthy bill: Toughen rules on gun buying

Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-Mineola) introduced a bill Tuesday to tighten the gun background-check system by closing the "gun-show loophole" and prodding states to better report ineligible gun buyers.

McCarthy's proposal, a companion bill to legislation previously introduced in the Senate by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), was spurred in part by the shooting rampage in Arizona in January that left six people dead and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) seriously wounded.

Alleged shooter Jared Loughner was rejected by the U.S. Army for habitual drug use, but Arizona failed to report that status, which would have barred him from buying a gun.

The bills would create penalties to prod states to improve reporting of records on criminals, drug abusers, domestic violence offenders and the seriously mentally ill -- who by law cannot buy guns -- to the federal National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

The bill would stiffen penalties and raise standards for complying with the requirement to report ineligible gun buyers to NICS.

The current penalty a state faces for failing to report 50 percent of required records is a 3 percent cut in a state's federal Justice Assistance Grant. The bills would boost the penalty in 2013 to 15 percent grant cut for failing to report 75 percent of the records, and raise it in 2018 to a 25 percent grant cut for failing to report at least 90 percent of the records.

The bills also would require background checks for gun purchasers in private sales, including a gun shows.

The legislation was developed by Mayor Michael Bloom-berg's Mayors Against Illegal Gun coalition.