Current Background Checks Stop Very Few Firearm Purchases.

Percentage of denials hits low under Obama

From the article:

Federal background checks are denying gun purchasers under President Obama at about half the rate they did under President Clinton and also at a slower clip than during President George W. Bush's administration, according to data obtained by The Washington Times under the Freedom of Information Act.

The federal National Instant Criminal Background Check System is designed to weed out would-be gun buyers with criminal records or histories of mental health problems. Gun control advocates have pushed for the system to be expanded in the wake of mass shootings as a way to keep firearms out of the wrong hands.

But statistics provided to The Times show that almost everyone who applies under the system is approved and it hardly matters which party controls the White House.

In 1999 and 2000, the two full years during which the system was operational under Mr. Clinton, just 0.83 percent of applicants were denied. During Mr. Bush’s eight years in office, the denial rate was about 0.67 percent.

Under Mr. Obama, the denial rate has dropped to 0.46 percent — and was even lower in the six months after the December 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School that renewed the focus on the system.

The total number of denials is publicly available, but monthly totals obtained by The Times show rates varying from as high as 1 percent, in February 1999 to as low as 0.33 percent in January 2013.

All told, about 171,028,000 federal background checks were run — with about 1,024,000 denials — from Jan. 1, 1999, to June 30, 2013.

Thomas Baker, assistant professor of criminology at the Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University, said the denial rate in the early years of NICS likely was higher because some people didn’t realize they were legally barred from buying guns.

The NICS has a dozen categories of red flags, including convictions of certain crimes, status as a fugitive from justice or illegal immigrant, or a dishonorable discharge from the military.

Mr. Baker said a bigger factor is that political rhetoric in recent years has convinced many law-abiding citizens that they may need to buy guns now or never. As a result, purchases from federally licensed dealers under Mr. Obama, and thus the number of checks, have reached levels not seen during the Clinton or Bush administrations. Because the new buyers are law-abiding citizens who cannot be denied guns, the refusal rate has dipped.

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If you have Republicans in the WH sales are high because of laxity and if a Dem is in then sales are good because you can’trust them on this issue. Liberals heads must be exploding, I love it.

so....Because people are buying more guns this means that the background check isn't working because denials are lower in ratio?

rightttt.....

Ummmm, the article isn't claiming that the background checks aren't working.

Whoever wrote that needs to have their journalism credentials rescinded. You always refer to a President, past or present, as Mr.President. Therefore, President Clinton, President Obama, and President Bush.

So does this mean that the people who feel gun rights are very much more hampered and limited then they have ever been before are being manipulated by fears

So background checks are mostly working as intended. The fact that some crazies get guns isn't because of lax background checks or NICS, it's because either the person was never identified as having a mental illness or it was never properly reported.

Could it be because most of the people going to stores and filling out paperwork to legally buy guns aren't criminals? Most of the people who the background checks are meant to stop know not to even try. There are plenty of illegal ways to get guns, which require no background check. And those people probably have a better selection than your local store, too.

If Master_Live is now GS's resident news caster, he's certainly of the same quality of news person as would be on Fox News, MSNBC, CCN et. al. Reporting words and missing the point.

...or people owning weapons in a household where there are OTHER people there who should NOT be around guns.

John went and dropped 8 big ones on a Ruger .357 about a month ago and he had to fill out like 2 hours' worth of paperwork. They even said his was expedited since he was in law enforcement. He had to wait 10 days too. Waiting that long kinda takes the excitement out of buying a gun, it seems like. He asked if I want to go shoot it with him. Not sure about that one, lol.

Or that, or something else. Either way, though, background checks seem to be working as intended.

They do use "President" in the first reference to each, and "Mr" thereafter. I believe that's actually a fairly common practice (the NYT and WSJ do it, for example).

I would imagine the people who wouldn't pass background checks, probably aren't going to be buying firearms legally

There are some people who could get a gun without going through a background check list. That is getting a gun from the black market.

Those numbers are so weird to me...I'm 29 years old, from Portugal and I have never met anyone who owned a gun (or at least they didn't mention it, maybe somebody had theirs under the bed =P)

As has already been mentioned by several posters in this thread, the people that are most likely to be denied the right to own a gun because they'll fail the background check know better and would acquire a firearm in some other way that certainly does not require any checks or official paperwork.

Obviously the right thing to do is to just give everyone a gun and hope the "good guys" prevail.