This is a case of enforcement being the weak link of a law.
A report has revealed that the FBI never completes hundreds of gun background checks each year. Why? A deadline requires it to purge them from its computers, despite a report that raised alarms about the practice in 2015.
That breakdown in the system allowed Dylann Roof to buy a gun and kill nine churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina. The rule in question requires background checks not completed after 88 days to be purged for the computer system. The 88 day lapse is information that is not included in the agency’s annual public report on gun background checks.
All told, the FBI did not complete over 1.1 million background checks from 2014 through July 2019. Laws to extend the deadline past 88 days have so far failed to get through Congress. The FBI isn't commenting.
Source:Roll Call