Reply #24: I would suggest

[one-eyed fat man]

that we arrest people who are committing felonies. It is a crime for someone who knows they are a "prohibited person" to attempt to buy a gun. Of course, as Janet Reno testified decades ago, the law is merely symbolic, it was never intended they actually arrest people who fail a NICS check no matter what kind of deranged mass-murderer, escaped convict or criminal they are.

Charles Manson could escape San Quentin, walk into the nearest gun store, try to buy a gun using his real name and social security number and when the store calls the FBI in Martinsburg, WV all the FBI will say, "Deny the sale."

The FBI will not call the local cops or San Quentin and tell them Manson is in the gun store right now. They will not tell the clerk why the sale is denied. They certainly don't tell the store an escaped convict is standing there, please stall him, police are on their way.

The odds of any felon being arrested for failing a Brady check are only slightly longer than winning the Powerball lottery.

It is possible that someone might have given up on their quest to buy a gun after they had been turned down as a result of a NICS check, but for most of the disqualifications you would pretty much already know. Maybe a bank robber with Alzheimer's would fail to remember a felony conviction and be foiled because he forgot why he was buying a gun in the first place.

It is a toothless law that accomplishes little beyond employing a cadre of clerks in West Virginia to answer calls from FFLs, mildly inconvenience people who are not felons, and placate vapid idiots.