If only America’s gun owners had someone on their side who was skilled at the negotiating process.
[G]un control advocates don’t refer to [the FBI 3-day background check limit] as a “compromise” anymore. Today, this provision is known as the “Charleston loophole” because the FBI failed to process the 2015 Charleston, South Carolina, church shooter’s background check before the 72-hour clock expired.
Right now, Democrats are demanding that the Republican-controlled Senate go into emergency session to pass the Enhanced Background Checks Act of 2019 (H.R.1112). This bill would undo the 72-hour compromise and extend it to give the FBI 10 business days to perform an “instant” background check. If someone wants to appeal a rejection, the FBI would have another 10 business days to process the appeal. This would allow the government to take 20-21 business days before giving a final determination on a background check that is supposed to be instantaneous.
When you fill out a Form 4473 to start a background check, that application is only valid for 30 calendar days. If you haven’t taken a gun home within 30 days of filling it out, you must go through the process again so the FBI can make sure you haven’t committed a crime in the meantime. In any given year, somewhere between seven and nine months have 21 or fewer business days. This means that if the FBI has 20-21 business days to give a final answer, the government would suddenly have the power to run out the clock on millions of gun purchases every year.
Twenty-five years ago, Republicans told us we had no choice but to give up our rights, but the “compromise” was that in the worst-case scenario, we would only have to wait three days to buy a gun. Today, we are being ordered to “compromise” again and allow the government to take up to a month to give us permission to buy a gun. This is what a slippery slope looks like.
– Max McGuire in Why Does ‘Compromise’ Always Mean Gun Control Wins?