Face it, our entire "record" system is a shambles. Have you had a credit report done lately???? I used to run a credit bureau back in the stone age...we were many times more precise with paper and pen.
My husband loves to bird hunt, this particular year Browning had come out with a new shotgun with a gold trigger, so I decided to buy one for his Christmas. Then I decided to buy two because I felt another family member would love to have one also. So I did, I bought two of them. A little time went by and I got a call from the F.B.I. An agent was asking me about the serial numbers things like that. When I said that I would have to call him back when my husband got home because I wasn't sure where he kept his paper work on the gun, the agent freaked a little bit.
He thought he had been talking to the store where I bought the guns, and didn't realize he was talking to the gun buyer. Someone had mistakenly switched phone numbers on the form between my number and the store number.
He was really angry about it. So when you say that these background checks usually stay in state, it makes me wonder. Is it the F.B.I. that checks your criminal background, because, if not, then perhaps I was flagged for buying two guns at one time. It would seem to me if your "friend" had been checked through the F.B.I. then his felonies would surely have shown up, if it's not normal to run the checks through the F.B.I., then why was the F.B.I. checking on my purchase?