Hundreds of thousands of FBI gun background checks go unfinished every year, creating a purchasing loophole

Missed FBI deadlines may have made it easier to purchase guns, Roll Call reports.

Roll Call obtained previously unpublished data, which is not included in the FBI's annual public report on gun background checks, that showed the FBI has left hundreds of thousands of gun background checks unfinished for years, despite an internal 2015 report that flagged the problem and suggested solutions. The incomplete checks result from an 88-day deadline after which the FBI must purge the checks from its computers, even if they aren't done. Last year, for example, the agency processed 8.2 million checks, but 201,323 were purged.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.