children or have not been to control themselves that you don;t shoot someone because they said or did something you didn't like or they don't agree with religious beliefs or your reproductive stance or they got doog poo on your lawn.

Only one, and that one single utility has been completely ignored for 20 years. The one utility is in the denied requests. These are people who are legally barred from owning or possessing firearms getting on a telephone and callung up the FBI to tell them, "Hey Mr. FBI Director, it's me! A prohibited felon/domestic abuser/mentally unstable person! I am currently standing at this address, in this city trying to illegally purchase and possess a firearm! I just signed a federal document under penalty of perjury and lied".....tens of thousands of times per year.....many every day....yet the FBI does absolutely not one single thing in 95% of these cases.....less than 1% are ever charged....

Background checks will never change anything without arresting those breaking the law.

and how many are the result of errors.

If the error rate is too high, the resources devoted to apprehending each denial would not be well spent, and may even result in civil liability for improper arrest and incarceration.

I'm also curious about the conviction rate of those prosecuted for illegally attempting to purchase a firearm. If convictions are difficult to procure, and sentences minimal, I similarly could understand the desire not to expend resources on strict enforcement.

No...only around 50% of all approvals which are later found to be in error are evwr retrieved....no, it is a shameful failure of this and wvery other president starting with Clinton to not enforce the law...

If they are fucking up that many there is no way to defend the system and it is a complete wasteof time.

When I tried to buy a 100 year old Mosin Nagant rifle.... Funny thing was that a few weeks before I purchased and breezed thru when I bought a semi auto egyptian AK Clone.

I LOL'ed about it. In a few days, I was "miraculously cleared" and was able to take my $50 rifle home.

Was there a reason stated for the denial? Curious what happens on a denial, are the police or ATF notified on a denial?

Mostly a wrong or misspelled name, incorrect or illegible address, a store clerk that read the 4473 wrong, relatively minor things.

Most of them pass on the 2nd try with corrections. That's why the Brady claim of "Saving 2 million lives", based on initial NICS denials is pretty much BS.

The prosecution rate is dismal. Don't know about other regions, but in the entire Midwest there were a grand total of 27 prosecutions in 2014. Don't know the conviction rate.

The prosecution rate has dropped sharply for the last 5 years for some reason.