NICS is the acronym for the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Thanks to the 1994 Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, all gun stores have to run NICS checks on prospective purchasers, searching for a criminal record that would prohibit the sale. It’s a clear infringement on the Second Amendment (and the Fourth) but the NRA considered it the lesser or many evils and, well, there you go. Or not. As Nick reported, the Fibbies’ system crashed from an overload of traffic during last week’s Black Friday firearms feeding frenzy. The National Shooting Sports Foundation can now put a number to the pain: 154,873 NICS requests. That’s the highest one-day total e-va, and doesn’t include the gun stores that couldn’t get through and postponed their requests. Memo from the firearms industry: thank you President Obama.