January 9, 2026

Sen. Blumenthal’s ‘Background Check Completion Act’ Is a Backdoor Delay-Until-Denied Scheme

By Larry Keane

Introduced by U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.),  S.3458, titled the Background Check Completion Act of 2025 (BCCA), is being sold with a simple, catchy bumper-sticker promise: “No check, no gun.” In reality, it’s simply political theater and has the potential to create unnecessary hurdles for law-abiding Americans while doing nothing to improve public safety.

The bill, featuring a who’s-who of gun control co-sponsors like Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), would prohibit federally licensed firearm retailers from completing a firearm transfer to the prospective buyer until the FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) verification returns an approval. This would be a dramatic change that would repeal the long-standing three-business-day Brady Bill safeguard Congress included to prevent government delay from becoming government denial.

That’s not a “fix” to background checks. It’s a policy choice to convert bureaucratic backlog, incomplete records and agency non-responsiveness into a de facto infinite waiting period with no meaningful end point.

What The Bill Actually Does

Under current federal law, when an FBI background check cannot be immediately resolved, NICS may issue a delay. At that point, Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs), or firearm retailers, may choose to lawfully transfer the firearm after three full business days have passed (which is five calendar days or longer if there is a weekend or a holiday). That’s not the case with the overwhelming majority of background checks.

The law currently allows, but does not require, firearm retailers to transfer the firearm after three business days if nothing comes back to deny the transfer. That’s the safety feature that keeps the government from denying a legal firearm transfer through bureaucratic red tape.

The BCCA would scrap that delay period by putting background checks into an unending cycle by striking the relevant clause in federal statute, effectively requiring a completed check before a transfer can be finalized with a “proceed” response in all cases.

The bill also includes a heavy technical change, removing the recently enacted bipartisan compromise statutory language, which these Senators who were in office during the bill’s passage voted for, that caps the enhanced under-21 background check timeline at “no case more than 10 business days.” If Congress is going to demand “completion” as the prerequisite to exercising a fundamental Constitutional right, eliminating clear time limits is the opposite of accountability.

Sen. Blumenthal and proponents of the proposal rely on the myth of the “Charleston loophole,” but the hard data shows a system that overwhelmingly works and, when it delays, resolves quickly.

Ignoring Facts

In 2019, 89.44 percent of checks were completed immediately, just over 10 percent were initially delayed and 98 percent of delayed transactions were resolved — most within the first three business days. Under current law, the Brady Act includes a Due Process backstop: after three full business days, a firearm retailer may legally transfer the firearm if NICS still has not issued a final answer, unless state law prohibits the transfer. The FBI likewise explains that if it can’t make a determination within three business days, the dealer may transfer the firearm (subject to state law).

Those cases that remain unresolved are a fraction of all transfers. Just 0.7 percent of delayed checks are never resolved and only a minuscule 0.01 percent of transfers resulted in a retrieval referral because the purchaser turned out to be prohibited.

Those numbers are not evidence of a system “riddled with loopholes.” They’re evidence that lawmakers should focus on improving record quality, completeness and speed — not punishing millions of lawful purchasers because government agencies failed to deliver timely information.

Unconstitutional, Unethical and Absurd

In a press release, Sen. Blumenthal states, “In 2024, 2,758 guns were sold to people who legally shouldn’t have access to firearms because dealers were not required to wait for completed background checks.”

But firearms transferred after the three-business-day period by a firearm retailer are not shown to be more likely to end up with criminals and Department of Justice (DOJ) data indicates criminals rarely obtain firearms from licensed retailers in the first place. The BCCA would punish the most regulated, most traceable, most lawful channel (firearm retailer sales) while ignoring the pathways criminals actually exploit.

And while the bill claims to “complete” background checks, it does nothing to complete missing records, fix agency reporting failures, add records of prohibited individuals or adequately staff the system. It simply forces citizens to wait until the government gets around to it.

So when government systems fail to keep timely, accurate records, the BCCA will be there to punish only the people following the law, leaving them little recourse. The FBI’s own guidance states that a purchaser may challenge a denied transaction but may not challenge a delayed one. An indefinite delay with no meaningful remedy isn’t “public safety.” It’s bureaucratic prior restraint.

Real Solutions

A system that allows the government to delay the exercise of a Constitutional right indefinitely functions as delay of the right. As they say, “A right delayed is a right denied.” If the government can “slow walk” approvals, it can effectively halt lawful commerce and lawful acquisitions statewide or nationwide with the stroke of an administrative pen.

If lawmakers want fewer delays and fewer erroneous transfers, the answer is obvious: improve the quality, completeness and timeliness of the records NICS relies on so more checks are resolved immediately. That is exactly where NSSF points policymakers — improving data quality and increasing the speed and rate of immediate determinations. This is why NSSF supported the bipartisan Fix NICS Act (Public Law No: 115-141) and the NICS Improvement Act (Public Law No: 110-180) that actually help to improve the NICS background check system.

The Background Check Completion Act is an unconstitutional approach with a catchy tag line wrapped in “common sense” packaging. It would unethically place the burden of government inefficiency on responsible citizens rather than completing the difficult task of making NICS data complete, timely and accurate.

A right delayed by design is a right denied by design.

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