FBI Database Is Still Down, Preventing Gun Buyer Background Checks

A nationwide halt in firearms sales entered its third day today as FBI employees worked to fix an internal software problem in the bureau’s criminal history database that halted instant background checks of gun buyers.

The FBI’s Interstate Identification Index, a database containing criminal histories of 36 million people, stopped working late Thursday afternoon, the bureau said Friday. This computer failure stopped gun sales because it prevented completion of background checks that the Brady law requires for buyers.

Gun dealers hoped for a quick fix because Saturday is their busiest day. But FBI spokesman Paul Bresson said bureau and contractor employees thought it would take until Saturday evening or this morning to get the system working again.

“It was an internal database problem, not the result of a hacking or external attack,” Bresson said.

With the Million Mom March scheduled in Washington and 70 other cities today to demand more gun controls and expanded background checks, both federal officials and gun dealers expressed concern that some people would think the two events were linked or the background check failure was deliberate.

Federal officials rejected either idea. “The mere suggestion that we would orchestrate such a thing is totally outrageous,” Bresson said.

Without background check approvals, gun dealers said that since Thursday afternoon they have been forced to tell their customers to wait for their guns until the system comes back up and the checks can be completed. It was not known how many sales were affected.

The computer failure made it impossible for the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, to check the criminal histories for felony convictions that bar people from buying guns. Also brought down was the FBI’s automated fingerprint system.

Although gun store owners in only about half the states file their background check inquiries directly with the FBI, the failure affected checks nationwide. In states where gun dealers place background check requests with a state police agency, that agency checks the FBI’s criminal histories by computer in addition to its own records before approving or disapproving the sale.

“We can’t release any guns to our customers until it’s fixed,” said Art Harris, owner of The Gentleman Hunter in Bethesda, Md. “We haven’t lost any deals yet, but Saturday is our biggest day.”

“I suppose some gun buyers are angry over the delay, but our customers have been very understanding,” Harris said.

When the system is working, 72% of gun purchases are approved within 30 seconds, the Justice Department says. And 95% of buyers get an approval or a disapproval within two hours of their purchase application.

In its first 13 months of operation, the NICS system completed more than 10 million background checks. Only 5% required more than two hours to complete the background check.

“We had four prospective sales Friday, but we can’t deliver the guns because we can’t get approvals,” said Tommy Thacker, manager of Loudoun Guns in Leesburg, Va. “We just tell them we’ll call them when the system is up.”