There were over 1M opportunities for someone to buy a gun from a licensed dealer without a completed background check in 2020 and 2021, according to an FBI report released last month.
In all, 1,002,274 background checks — or 4.2 percent — took longer than three business days in 2020 and 2021, a higher share than any other period since at least 2014, according to data compiled by NBC News. After the third business day, federal law allows dealers to sell weapons while the background check is still pending, which potentially puts weapons in the hands of people who can’t legally own a gun because of mental illness or their criminal history.
Still, it’s impossible to know how many people who bought guns after an unfinished background check would have been denied had it been completed. That deadline, which gun control advocates call the “Charleston loophole,” is how a white supremacist bought the gun he used to kill nine Black worshipers at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015. The shooter had admitted to drug possession during a prior arrest, which made it illegal for him to buy or own a gun. But his background check was not completed after three days, so he was allowed to buy a gun on the fourth day.
The Rev. Sharon Risher, center, whose mother, Ethel Lance, was killed in the Charleston church shooting, is comforted during a House Democratic forum on a bill that would have expanded gun background checks in 2019.The National Rifle Association opposed extending the timeline for people under 21,that the new law “would be interpreted in a manner to prevent the lawful exercise of the Second Amendment right.
However, the FBI did say it often has to contact outside agencies to locate information that is missing from its databases, which rely on records submitted by tribal, state and local courts and law enforcement agencies. That can lead to delays, the bureau said.
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