Individuals who are prohibited from purchasing firearms for any reason (mental health, criminal convictions, etc.) are rarely investigated or prosecuted when they do try to buy a weapon, a federal study has determined. According to a report published by the the Government Accountability Office on Sept. 5: In fiscal year 2017, "approximately 25.6 million firearm-related background checks were processed through the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), and about 181,000 (about 1 percent) of the attempted purchases were denied because the background check revealed that the individual was prohibited from possessing a firearm under federal...