Lots of Black Friday Gun Sales: FBI was Performing 3 Background Checks per Second
While I had a great turnout at JoshuaMark5.com for Black Friday (and we’re continuing a sale through the month of December), it appears that gun stores were providing Americans with what they really want, guns. Black Friday not only witnessed the regular sheeple out in full force, fighting each other over all sorts of shiny trinkets, but also had the Federal Bureau of Investigations performing what is expected to be a record setting number of background checks.
Those numbers of background checks were close to three times what the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) handles on average per day and so the agency brought in 100 extra employees to help with the extra load.
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FBI spokesman Stephen Fischer said, “Traditionally, Black Friday is one of our busiest days for transaction volume.”
Consider that in many states, such as my home State of South Carolina, concealed carry permit holders don’t have to go through an FBI background check every time they purchase a gun.
CNN reports:
On average, more than 500 gun background checks a day fail because of incomplete information required for a decision, according to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which is responsible for checks on firearm purchases from federally licensed shops.
Officials estimate that about 3,000, or 2%, of the more than 144,000 Black Friday background checks will not be completed because of insufficient information from records such as court documents.
Employees of the background check agency, who work every day but Christmas, will work through the weekend to vet Friday’s purchases.
As of 2 p.m. Friday, the agency had processed more than 94,000 transactions, on pace to surpass last year’s 144,758, Fischer said
“We are averaging three checks per second,” he said. “The challenge is to have staff keep up with this volume. We do that by limiting personal leave, asking employees to work extra shifts and reutilizing former … employees to serve in NICS during this busy period.”
FBI Manager Kimberly Del Greco told CNN that these background checks save lives and protect people from harm while ensuring a “timely transfer of firearms to eligible gun buyers.”
The claim about saving lives and protecting people is really unfounded, especially in light of the involvement of the Justice Department, FBI and ATF in Operation Fast and Furious, which resulted in the deaths of at least two federal agents and hundreds of Mexican citizens. At least one Vietnam veteran I know would also disagree with the timely transfer of firearms also. I’m sure there are many more like him.
This brings us to one of the limitations on the federal government. They have been given no authority to infringe upon the people’s right to keep and bear arms. Thus, since they have no authority to infringe on it via legislation, they should not be involved in these kinds of background checks in the first place. After all, if one gets a thumbs down on the background check, they cannot purchase a gun from a gun store.
In January 2013, following the Sandy Hook incident, the Obama administration put forth 23 new unlawful executive actions in order to increase more power over gun owners. At that time, they were pushing for universal background checks on guns. However, what was most telling were comments that came out of a meeting that took place with Vice President Joe Biden, who headed up a special Obama task force to see how far they could go without being stopped concerning more gun legislation, and Jim Baker of the National Rifle Association.
Following the meeting, Baker told the Daily Caller that Biden told him, “regarding the lack of prosecutions on lying on Form 4473s, we simply don’t have the time or manpower to prosecute everybody who lies on a form, that checks a wrong box, that answers a question inaccurately.”
Why is that so important? According to the Bureaus Federal Firearms Regulations Reference Guide, anyone submitting false information on ATF Form 4473 commits a felony punishable by up to ten years in prison.
In a previous article, I pointed out how the federal government doesn’t even follow through with prosecution in most of the cases where someone lies in an attempt to get a gun. Therefore, one would have to ask what the actual purpose of background checks are and why have pretended legislation about an ATF form if it’s not going to be enforced.
So, while I’m happy that more Americans are arming themselves, which always appears to lead to falling crime rates, I think we still need to press forward in ridding ourselves of any and all government infringement of the right to keep and bear arms.
