Fact-checking Trump, NRA claims on gun background checks

Sifting through the gun rhetoric since the mass shooting in a Florida high school Feb. 14, we noticed politicians and groups on all sides of the debate often turn to the same topic: background checks.

Federally licensed firearms dealers have been required to run background checks on gun buyers since 1994, when the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act took effect. Almost all of these searches are done through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), a database launched by the FBI in 1998 as part of the Brady law.

According to FBI data, more than 253 million background checks were conducted from Nov. 30, 1998, when the NICS launched, through the end of 2016. Nearly 27.5 million checks, or 11 percent of the historical total, were done in 2016 alone.

A separate report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics shows that more than 3 million, or 1.5 percent, of gun applications were denied between the Brady law’s effective date in 1994 and the end of 2015.

Source: washingtonpost