Public Information Office
Criminal Identification
"During the month of November 2008 there were more requests for background checks on gun purchases than any other November since the Brady Bill was passed in 1994 for handguns and 1998 to add long guns. December of 2005 and 2006 are the only two months with totals higher than November 2008.
-- A record number of background checks (13,298) were processed during the month of November 2008. This is in comparison to 8,796 during November 2007, an increase of 51%.
-- Persons who have valid Concealed Firearm Permits (CFP) are exempt from the full background check when purchasing, but BCI does keep these statistics. Only the validity of the CFP is checked. During November 2008 there were 7,610 CFP validity checks done compared to 3,981 checks in November 2007, an increase of 91%.
-- On November 28, 2008 (the day after Thanksgiving) there were 1,756 full background checks processed, this is the highest one-day total ever. This is in comparison to November 22, 2007 (the day after Thanksgiving) when 1,123 requests were processed, an increase of 56%.
The same number of BCI staff were working on the day after Thanksgiving in 2007 and in 2008. Throughout the 2008 year, Brady staff has been working with the biggest users to encourage use of the web system for the background checks. Cabela's, Sportsman's, Big 5, and Cal Ranch used this system throughout the day on Black Friday. There were 594 of the 1,756 background checks made via the web. Web checks were processed much faster than the conventional 'call-in' checks."