National Instant Criminal Background Check System

By law, upon successfully passing the background check, the buyer's details are to be discarded and a record on NICS of the firearm purchase is not to be made.

A prospective buyer is required to complete ATF Form 4473, after which an FFL seller initiates a NICS background check by phone or computer.

[4] Coordinated efforts to create a national background check system did not materialize until after the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan in March 1981.

When signed into law in November of that year, the Brady Act included a GCA amendment that created the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).

At first, the law applied only to handgun sales, and there was a waiting period (maximum of five days) to accommodate dealers in states that did not already have background check systems in place.

In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled against the five-day waiting period, but by 1998 the NICS was up and running, administered by the FBI, and applied to all firearms purchases from FFL dealers, including long guns.

[8] Authorized local, state, tribal and federal agencies can update NICS Index data via the NCIC front end, or by electronic batch files.

Another chief reason deny decisions are overturned on appeal pertain to criminal history records that do not contain current and accurate information ...

However, because the NICS is required to purge all identifying information regarding proceed transactions within 24 hours of notification to the FFL, in many instances, the process must be repeated when the same transferee attempts subsequent firearm purchases and is again matched to the same prohibiting record.

[21] The National Rifle Association said that the failure to review the appeals was a "gross disregard for those illegitimately denied their Second Amendment rights".

[22] Dylann Roof's arrest and admission that he was in possession of Suboxone without a prescription a month prior to his purchasing a firearm would have disqualified him as a prohibited person under the Gun Control Act of 1968.

[24] On August 30, 2019, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the survivors and families of the deceased can sue the federal government.

[25] In the wake of the Sutherland Springs church shooting, in which the gunman, 26-year-old Devin Patrick Kelley of nearby New Braunfels killed 26 and injured 20 others, the Fix NICS Act of 2017 was introduced in the 115th United States Congress.

Kelley was prohibited by law from purchasing or possessing firearms and ammunition due to a domestic violence conviction in a court-martial while in the United States Air Force.