A Florida gun owner spent two weeks in jail after the federal background check system allegedly flagged him as a felon because of a decade-old misdemeanor from another state, according to Gun Owners of America host Ben Sanderson.
In a Minuteman Moment video for Gun Owners of America, Sanderson said the case shows how a government error inside the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, commonly known as NICS, can become more than a denied firearm purchase. In this case, he said, it became an arrest, jail time, and weeks of legal uncertainty for a man who insisted from the beginning that he was not a felon.
The gun owner, identified by Sanderson as William Brewer, had a concealed carry permit and said he had previously bought firearms in Kentucky without problems. After moving to Florida, Brewer tried to buy a new firearm and was denied.
According to Sanderson, NICS falsely flagged Brewer as a prohibited person because of a 10-year-old misdemeanor in Kentucky.
“The government gets it wrong, you go to jail,” Sanderson said.
A Background Check Turns Into An Arrest
Sanderson said Brewer’s denial did not stay inside a gun store or government database.
Because of the NICS Denial Notification Act, which became law in 2022, the FBI is required to report NICS denials to state and local authorities within 24 hours. Sanderson argued that this system, combined with the FIX NICS Act, helped create the conditions for Brewer’s arrest.
The NICS Denial Notification Act did not itself make Brewer a prohibited person. But according to Sanderson, it turned a false denial into a report that reached local authorities, who then treated Brewer as if the database result was correct.
Brewer later described his story in an interview with The Civil Rights Lawyer on YouTube, which Sanderson played during the GOA video.
Brewer said he was from Louisville, Kentucky, and had legally purchased firearms there for years. He said he had been pulled over before, shown officers his concealed carry card, and had no problems.
After moving to Florida about three years earlier, he still owned firearms and later decided to buy another one.
That is when the denial happened.
“I’m Not A Felon”
In the bodycam footage played by Sanderson, Brewer told deputies repeatedly that he was not a felon.
When officers asked where he got his guns, Brewer said a friend of his was a licensed dealer and that the firearm was registered to him. He told them he was legally allowed to possess it.
“I’m not a felon, sir,” Brewer said.
One deputy told Brewer he was not accusing him of lying but was trying to understand why one gun store flagged him while another previous purchase did not.
Brewer answered with the same basic point: he did not know because he was not a felon.
That exchange is one of the most important parts of the story. Brewer was not making a complicated legal argument on the roadside. He was saying the database was wrong, and he was asking the officers to understand that the paperwork did not match his life.
Sanderson said deputies trusted the NICS result instead of digging deeper at that moment.
Brewer said he spent exactly 14 days in jail, then was released on an ankle monitor for another two weeks.
Brewer Says The Mistake Was Known Early
In the interview clip, Brewer said he believes officials knew early that there had been a mistake but did not move quickly to fix it.
He said Florida authorities could hold charges for a period of time even with evidence that he was not a convicted felon. He said prosecutors eventually did not file the charge, but only after he had spent the maximum period in limbo.
Brewer described the situation as if the system was trying to find a felony on him to justify what had already happened.
“They were trying to make me a felon,” Brewer said.
He said the delay affected his family, his job, and his life, while no one seemed to show urgency about correcting the error.
Sanderson said Brewer’s lawyer went to Florida, but officials initially did not drop the case. Instead, according to Sanderson, they offered an ankle monitor and a bond reduction before prosecutors eventually dropped the charges after realizing there was no case to win.
Brewer is now suing the county sheriff’s office, Sanderson said.
This is where the story becomes larger than one bad background check. A false denial is already a serious problem, but a false denial that leads to jail time turns an administrative error into a life-altering event.
Sanderson Blames NICS And Recent Laws
Sanderson argued that Brewer’s case shows the danger of relying on NICS as if it is nearly flawless.
He said the FIX NICS Act pressured agencies and incentivized states to submit more records into the system. While the law did not expand who is prohibited from buying a firearm, Sanderson argued that it fed more information into a system he believes is poorly maintained.
According to Sanderson, the FBI publicly claims NICS is 99 percent accurate, but he said Gun Owners of America found information through a FOIA request showing that at least one in four appealed denials were wrongful.
He also cited research by Dr. John Lott, who has argued that false denials may be far more common than officials admit.
Sanderson said most people who are denied do not appeal, which means the true false denial rate could be much higher than the available appeal numbers show.
He also said that in 2023, only a tiny fraction of NICS denials resulted in convictions.
The larger point from Sanderson is that denials are often treated politically as proof that dangerous people were stopped. But if many of those denials are mistakes, then the system may be burdening lawful people more often than it is catching criminals.
A Serious Accusation With Real Consequences
Sanderson stressed that a NICS denial is not a small inconvenience.
When a person is denied, he said, that person is effectively being accused of being prohibited from owning a firearm. That can mean being labeled a felon, domestic abuser, fugitive, or some other category of prohibited person, depending on what the system claims.
For lawful gun owners, that is not merely embarrassing. It can bring legal danger, police attention, confiscation concerns, and the loss of a constitutional right.
Brewer’s case, as described by Sanderson, shows how quickly a false flag can move from a computer result to jail.
The scary part is not just that a database can be wrong. Every database can be wrong. The scary part is how much power the error carried once it entered the justice system.
If the government is going to use a background check system to deny rights and trigger law enforcement action, the burden should be on the government to make sure the information is correct before a person loses freedom.
GOA Points To A Data Bill In Congress
Sanderson said Gun Owners of America supports a bill from Rep. Thomas Massie called the NICS Data Reporting Act.
He described the measure as a first step toward exposing what GOA sees as the failures of the background check system.
According to Sanderson, the GOA-backed bill passed the House unanimously and would help show how often NICS denials actually result in prosecutions and convictions.
Sanderson also read from an op-ed by Dr. John Lott, who argued that the background check system produces false positives by confusing felons with non-felons.
Lott’s argument, as read by Sanderson, is that prosecutions are rare not because officials are soft on crime, but because many denials are not real criminal cases. He argued that prosecutors cannot realistically charge someone simply because he shares a similar name or birth date with a prohibited person.
Lott also said false positives disproportionately affect Black and Hispanic males because people are more likely to share similar names within racial groups, and because higher numbers of prohibited persons in those groups can lead to more mistaken matches.
That claim is one of the more serious parts of the GOA argument. If the system is wrong often, and if those errors fall hardest on people who may need protection the most, then the debate is not only about gun rights. It is also about fairness and due process.
A Case That Raises Bigger Questions
Sanderson said Brewer’s case is not unique and warned that the NICS system can falsely deny lawful Americans while producing few criminal convictions in return.
He argued that the system is a burden on the Second Amendment and that GOA wants to abolish it.
Critics of that position may argue that background checks are needed to stop prohibited people from buying guns. But Brewer’s case, as Sanderson tells it, raises a hard question: what happens when the system meant to stop criminals instead marks a lawful citizen as one?
For Brewer, the answer was 14 days in jail, two more weeks on an ankle monitor, and a legal fight to clear what he says should never have happened.
The government eventually dropped the case, according to Sanderson, but not before Brewer had already paid a price in time, stress, and lost freedom.
That is why this story matters beyond one Florida arrest. A right delayed by a paperwork error can become a right denied, and when that error leads to jail, the damage is no longer theoretical.
Sanderson’s message was blunt: when the background check system fails, the person who pays may not be the government employee who entered bad data or the agency that trusted it. It may be the ordinary gun owner standing in handcuffs, trying to explain that the computer got it wrong.
Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, John developed a love for the great outdoors early on. With years of experience as a wilderness guide, he’s navigated rugged terrains and unpredictable weather patterns. John is also an avid hunter and fisherman who believes in sustainable living. His focus on practical survival skills, from building shelters to purifying water, reflects his passion for preparedness. When he’s not out in the wild, you can find him sharing his knowledge through writing, hoping to inspire others to embrace self-reliance.
