Thank Biden's DOJ

 1/14/23 NPR:

It's been more than five years since the mass shooting in a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas killed 25 people, including one pregnant person, and injured 22 others. Officials put the total death toll at 26.

A District Court ruled in 2021 that the government was 60% responsible for the massacre after shooter Devin Kelley, who was discharged from the Air Force after a felony conviction, wasn't entered into the national database that would have prevented him from buying a gun. A judge said the government also owed victims $230 million in damages.

But in court documents filed this week, the Department of Justice pushed back on paying damages and denied that they were primarily responsible for the shooting — a move that gun control advocates say not only harms victims and their families, but is also a backwards step for the Biden administration's own stance on gun control policy....

Jamal Alsaffar, the attorney representing the Sutherland Springs victims and their families, said that by appealing the ruling from the district judge, the DOJ is playing into the National Rifle Association's hands.

"If the DOJ wins, we have substantially weakened the ability to enforce background check laws," Alsaffar said.

The NRA's legislative arm released a statement saying the lawsuit "forced the government to admit inconvenient truths about the limitations of gun control."

The NRA said it was "significant" that the Justice Department has argued that a background check on the shooter may not have stopped the shooting, and argued that the Air Force could not have known that the shooter had the potential to commit such a crime.

"Both those admissions essentially negate any further claims by the Biden Administration that firearm background checks have any essential role to play in public safety," the NRA wrote.

"The Biden DOJ is walking right into the NRA's trap," Alsaffar said. "Why the DOJ wants to undermine the very most important element of the Biden administration's gun safety policy is beyond me."

Because they're stupid?  Or are they are telling the truth.  The government cannot do even the simplest of jobs: reporting criminal convictions and involuntary mental hospital commitments?