Presale Handgun Checks, the Brady Interim Period, 1994-98

• NCJ Number: 175034
• Author(s): D. A. Manson; D. K. Gilliard; G. Lauver
• Date Published: June 1999
• Length: 11 pages
• Agencies: BJS
• Publication Type: Statistics

Annotation

This report provides a national estimate of handgun purchase applications, number rejected and reasons for rejection during the interim period before the permanent provisions of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act went into effect.

Abstract

Provides a national estimate of handgun purchase applications, the number rejected, and the reasons for rejection during the interim period before the permanent provisions of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act went into effect. These data were collected by the Regional Justice Information Service (REJIS) of St. Louis, Missouri and focus on the presale handgun checks from March 1, 1994 to November 29, 1998, the interim period. During this time, an estimated 12,740,000 applications for handgun purchases resulted in 312,000 rejections through background checks. From January thru November 1998, about 2,384,000 background checks of the potential handgun buyers prevented an estimated 70,000 purchases. For all of 1998 including December 1998, the first month of the permanent provisions of the Brady Act, the number of handgun application rejections totaled an estimated 78,000.