FBI Failed to Complete Nearly 1M Gun Background Checks in 2020-2021

A recent FBI report reveals that 1,002,274 background checks — or 4.2 percent of the total — took longer than three business days in 2020 and 2021, a higher share than any other period since at least 2014, potentially putting weapons in the hands of people who can’t legally own a gun because of mental illness or their criminal history, reports NBC News.

The FBI ultimately completed about one-fourth of those delayed background checks and discovered that 11,564 people were able to buy guns in 2020 and 2021 before the examination showed that they should not have been allowed to do so. After the third business day, federal law allows dealers to sell weapons while the background check is still pending.

The FBI also never completed 734,604 checks from January 2020 through November 2021 because they took longer than 88 days — after which the bureau must stop its research and purge the unfinished checks from its system.

As a result, the FBI’s data on background checks is an undercount. It only includes reviews processed by the bureau; 19 states run some or all background checks. It also does not cover December 2021 because the FBI finalized the report before those numbers were available.

Meanwhile, a new NPR/Ipsos survey finds that the overwhelming majority of gun owners favor universal background checks, raising the minimum age to buy guns to 21 and so-called “red flag” laws to remove guns from potentially dangerous people.

However, they also don’t want to see an AR-15-style semi-automatic weapon ban, and doubt new gun-control measures would do anything to stop mass shootings. Republican gun owners in particular think passing new gun control laws is a slippery slope that will end  by taking all guns away.

This summary was prepared by TCR Associate Editor James Van Bramer