Cities fi le suit over gun-check failures

NEW YORK — Three large U.S. cities filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against the Department of Defense, arguing that many service members who are disqualified from gun ownership weren’t reported to the national background-check system.

New York City, San Francisco and Philadelphia said the military’s broken system for relaying such information helped spur the massacre of 26 people inside a Texas church last month.

“This failure on behalf of the Department of Defense has led to the loss of innocent lives by putting guns in the hands of criminals and those who wish to cause immeasurable harm,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement.

Local law enforcement officials rely on the FBI’s database to conduct background checks on gunpermit applications and to monitor purchases.

The lawsuit, filed in Alexandria, Virginia, seeks judicial oversight to ensure ongoing compliance with the Defense Department’s obligation to submit records.

Military officials previously acknowledged problems.

“The department continues to work with the services as they review and refine their policies and procedures to ensure qualifying criminal-history information is submitted to the FBI,” said Tom Crosson, a Pentagon spokesman.

The Defense Department’s failure to report “significant numbers” of disqualifying records to the FBI’s national background-check system allowed former Air Force member Devin P. Kelley to buy a rifle and shoot 26 people to death Nov. 5 in a Sutherland Springs, Texas, church, the lawsuit said. Kelley had been convicted of assaulting family members in a 2012 court martial.

Air Force leaders acknowledged that the service failed to alert the FBI to Kelley’s criminal history and also said they discovered “several dozen” other such reporting omissions.