Background check system blocked more than 300,000 illegal firearm sales in 2020
According to FBI data obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests made by Everytown for Gun Safety, the background check system blocked over 300,000 illegal firearm sales in 2020 — 42% of those to people with felony convictions. This represents the highest number of annual denials ever and almost double the nearly 169,000 denials reported by the FBI in 2019. To date, the background check system has now blocked over 4 million illegal firearm sales since 1994.
This new data, which includes both denials from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) as well as for states that conduct point-of-contact sales such as California or Florida, shows that the surge in firearm sales in 2020 was also accompanied with a surge of prohibited purchasers trying to buy guns: the denial rate in 2020 was 31% higher than the denial rate in 2019. Per the FBI responseletters accompanying the data, these numbers likely represent an undercount due to incomplete data received by the FBI from states.