The Hill- Gun checks see record funding boost in bill

House lawmakers are planning the largest funding increase for background checks on gun purchases.

The trillion-dollar "cromnibus" bill to fund the federal government would set aside $73 million to help states improve their record keeping systems, which aim to keep guns out of the hands of convicted criminals and the dangerously mentally ill.

States can apply for grants to "upgrade criminal and mental health records," which are stored in the federal database and checked by federally licensed gun dealers during all in-store purchases.

Funding for the program, known as the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), falls just short of the $78 million grant pool proposed by Democrats earlier this spring.

Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) had urged the House to boost the funding for the system just days after the deadly shooting near the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The NICS has increasingly found bipartisan support in Congress after high-profile shootings like those in Newtown, Conn., and remains one of the rare areas of compromise between gun control and gun rights groups.

Its funding levels have increased dramatically as a result of lobbying groups usually on different sides of the issue — such as the National Shooting Sports Foundation and Everytown for Gun Safety.

The previous spending bill included $59 million of funding, compared to just $18 million the year before.

While the number of mental health records kept in the system has swelled dramatically since the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007, it is not a fail-safe solution.

Every mass shooter since 2009 would have passed a federal background check, and few prohibited gun sales over the last 15 years have been due to mental illnesses.