In 1993, Congress passed the Brady Handgun Violence Protection Act, which created a national background-check system and a list of people forbidden to own a gun: felons, the mentally ill, persons who committed a domestic-violence misdemeanor, drug addicts and the dishonorably discharged.
Might a rational background check system include maybe being not-so-instant, even if it means that some people might have to wait a few days before purchasing a weapon?
Tom Coburn pushed and then backed away from an amendment to block the Department of Veteran Affairs from automatically entering the names of veterans deemed "mentally incompetent" to handle their finances from having their names entered into a national background check system, thereby blocking them from gun ownership.