Background Checks Deny Guns To More Than 100,000 Handgun Control Group’s Study Shows 3% Of Buyers Being Denied Right To Buy Weapons

Handguns were kept out of the hands of 102,822 people the past two years because of the Brady law, which requires a background check before a sale, a handgun control group says.

Previous studies have underestimated the impact of the law because they did not include states that have set up their own background checks since the law was enacted, says Sarah Brady, chairwoman of the group who is expected to address the Democratic National Convention today.

The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, implemented in February 1994, requires a background check and a waiting period of up to five days if the check cannot be performed instantly.

The law was named after Sarah Brady’s husband, James Brady, President Reagan’s press secretary who was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt on the president.

National Rifle Association spokesman Tom Wyld says he views the study’s conclusions with skepticism.

Many buyers are denied guns because they have been misidentified as felons or because they haven’t paid overdue parking tickets, he said.

“Too many people are denied for the wrong reason,” Wyld said. “We don’t believe that a person who has an unpaid traffic ticket should be denied the fundamental right of self-defense.”

The NRA supports instant checks, he said. Felons break the law by simply attempting to purchase a weapon, and five-day waiting periods give them time to flee, he said.

The study, which was released by the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, estimates the number of retail handgun purchase attempts that have been stopped because background checks revealed that the prospective buyers are convicted felons, have been found by a court to be mentally defective or are subject to a restraining order.

When the law took effect, 32 states had not passed legislation requiring a background check and had to institute a waiting period.

In estimating the number of denials for all 32 states, the study uses results from nine of the states that have statewide reporting systems.

In February, President Clinton released a federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms study of 30 law enforcement agencies that reported that more than 15,500 people had been denied guns under the Brady law between March 1994 and January 1995, or 3.5 percent of the people who had applied.

Extrapolating the figures from its unscientific study, the administration argues that some 40,000 applications were turned away nationwide.

“What the (new study) results show very clearly is that the denial rate is staying very constant at 3 percent,” said Bob Walker, a spokesman for the handgun control group.

“Having more than 100,000 denials is a very significant number.”