by Dennis Myers
Cultural exChange
FBI official Kimberly Del Greco’s signature on her letter to Nevada’s public safety chief.
Gun shows in the Silver State preceded rises in gun-related deaths and injuries in the Golden State, according to a National Institutes of Health-funded study scheduled for publication in Annals of Internal Medicine, a professional journal. The study contains figures indicating that deaths and injuries in some California areas increased up to 70 percent after Nevada gun shows, which are less regulated than in California. The effect lasts for about two weeks. According to a prepared statement, “The study identified 275 gun shows in Nevada (mostly in Reno and Las Vegas) and 640 gun shows in California between 2005 and 2013. No publicly available database of gun shows exists for either state, so the researchers combed through trade publications to identify the dates and locations of gun shows. Gun shows in Nevada were associated with increases in firearm deaths and injuries in California communities within convenient driving distance. California gun shows, in contrast, were not associated with local, short-term increases in firearm deaths and injuries. Non-firearm injuries served as a negative control and were not associated with California or Nevada gun shows. “Compared to the two weeks before the gun shows occurred, post-show firearm injury rates remained stable in regions near California gun shows. But post-show firearm injury rates increased from 0.67 per 100,000 people to 1.14 per 100,000 in regions near Nevada shows. This 70 percent increase translates to 30 more firearms deaths or injuries in California near the state line after 161 Nevada gun shows.”
PHOTO/DENNIS MYERS
hotel to be sold Lake Tahoe’s Cal Neva Lodge appears likely to go through the latest in a nine-decade whirl of ownership changes. Published reports say billionaire Larry Ellison—named by Forbes as the world’s seventh richest man—is likely to purchase the Lodge. Ellison won the right to make the purchase by default when no other buyer came forward. A federal bankruptcy judge gave the OK for a sale. The hotel is noted for a line representing the Nevada/ California border painted on the floor of the swimming pool. On June 10, 1980 when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected California’s effort to move the state line, the National Association of Attorneys General happened to be meeting in convention at the hotel, providing reporters with a ready-made story. Built in 1926, the hotel was a case of life imitating art. A long-running 1918 Broadway play, Lightning, had told the tale of a Lake Tahoe hotel that straddled the Nevada/California state line, allowing guests to establish residence for a Nevada divorce while using a California return address in writing to the folks back home. The property went through numerous owners over the years, including part owner Frank Sinatra, who briefly invested while the hotel was held by an investment group headed by Bert Grober. Sinatra added a showroom and once held a notable party for the cast of The Misfits, a movie then being filmed in western Nevada starring Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, Eli Wallach and Thelma Ritter. Sinatra was forced to surrender his gambling license and sell his interest in the club after he entertained an organized crime figure at the hotel and cursed a state agent who was trying to investigate the incident. In recent years, the hotel has continued bouncing from one owner or entity to another, and the hotel has been promoted with folk tales of dubious accuracy on its history. While the Sinatra period got attention, the property has long been troubled, with debtor committees, needed repairs, disputes with casino regulators, and management changes.
—Dennis Myers
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10.26.17
information for processing background checks than the FBI, thus resulting in fewer system misses of disqualified persons and enhancing system responsiveness for non-qualified persons. The [Nevada officials] have access to more current criminal history records and more data sources—particularly regarding noncriminal disqualifiers such as mental hospital commitments—from their own state than does the FBI, and have a better understanding of their own state laws and disqualifying factors.”
loCal laws
Weighty letter FBI letter to Nevada examined In the 2016 election, nevadans enacted a new law providing for background checks on some weapons purchases. It was listed on the ballot as Question One. The law provides that, of two check systems available—state or federal—the federal system must be used. The state system is administered by the Nevada Department of Public Safety. We term it Nevada/DPS. The federal system has a name—the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. We call it FBI/NICS Following the election, on Dec. 14, FBI official Kimberly Del Greco wrote a letter to Julie Butler, an official in the Nevada Public Safety Department. Del Greco’s letter prompted Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt to issue an opinion that allowed state officials to ignore passage of Question One. Del Greco’s letter has become of greater interest since the Las Vegas concert killings that left 58 people dead and 546 injured. A few days after writing the letter, in January, Del Greco was named deputy assistant director of the FBI Criminal Justice Information Services division’s information services branch. She now heads the FBI/NICS. The letter in some reports (“The FBI Won’t Help Nevada Enforce Its
Background Check Law”) was characterized as adversarial toward Nevada, even belligerent, an impression neither Laxalt nor any other local official sought to correct. That impression was created by the last paragraph in the letter: “The recent passage of the Nevada legislation regarding background checks for private sales cannot dictate how federal resources are applied. The position of the NICS section is that these background checks are the responsibility of Nevada to be conducted as any other background check for firearms, through the Nevada DPS.” That impression was also fostered by the language of the AG opinion: “The FBI’s refusal …” In context, however, the letter was cooperative and offered advice on ways Nevada could go about trying to make the ballot measure work. Because Del Greco did not know the details of Question One, some of her suggestions were not workable, but they indicated the collaborative tone of the letter. In the letter, Del Greco made a remarkable admission. She wrote that Nevada’s background check system is better than the FBI system. State and local officials seeking a background check, she wrote “are likely to have readier access to more detailed
Further, Del Greco wrote, “Nevada checks additional databases to include state protection orders, state warrants, state driver’s licenses, parole and probation [reports], and SCOPE (which is Clark County, Las Vegas area records). Also, most of Nevada’s protection orders are not in the National Crime Information Center file, which is important to note since only the [Nevada officials have] access to these protections orders, and if the FBI were processing background checks on private sales of firearms for Nevada, these protection orders would not be part of the NICS check.” Question One dealt with private sales. The Nevada/DPS check includes an FBI/NICS check, plus the additional sources listed by Del Greco. Moreover, she said Nevada officials are better able to understand their own legal terrain. “The state of Nevada can provide a more comprehensive NICS that is accomplished when a [state or local official] accesses state-held databases that are not available to the FBI,” Del Greco wrote. “The Nevada DPS is also in a better position for understanding and applying state laws. It is for these reasons… the state of Nevada will be best suited to conduct the NICS checks for private sales as provided for in [Question One], as opposed to the FBI conducting these checks.” As though to make Del Greco’s point, she was apparently not aware that Question One bars the state of Nevada from using Nevada/DPS for the checks it requires. Question One, whose text has been removed from the Nevada secretary of state’s website, contains language barring the background checks from being done through “the central repository”—a term for the Nevada/DPS system. This is a problem that might have been remedied by the 2017 Nevada
