Colorado Spends Millions to Perform 7 Percent of Expected Gun Background Checks

Amidst much debate, and the
ultimate recall of two gun-controlling state senators (and

resignation of a third), Colorado lawmakers inflicted tighter
gun laws on their suffering constituents last year. Among those
laws was a requirement
that all private transfers of firearms go through a background
check of the sort already imposed on commercial transactions.
Lawmakers estimated that 420,000 background checks would pass
through the system over the first two years, and allocated $3
million for the cause.

As it turns out, the background check shop is in place, but
there aren’t so many customers for the new bureaucracy. According
to the
Associated Press:

Democrats pushed the proposal into law last year as part of a
package of gun restrictions meant to improve safety after
devastating mass shootings. Lawmakers drafting the background check
requirement, aimed at keeping firearms away from those with a
criminal history, relied on information from a non-partisan
research arm of the Legislature that predicted about 420,000 new
reviews over the first two years. Accordingly, they budgeted about
$3 million to the agency that conducts the checks to handle the
anticipated surge of work.

But after a year of operating under the new system, Colorado
Bureau of Investigations officials have performed only about 13,600
reviews considered a result of the new law — about 7 percent of the
estimated first year total.

That 13,600 figure also includes gun show sales, which were
already required and not part of the expected flood of checks on
private transfers.

So…Savings, right? Maybe not. The new agency had to be created
after all. It hasn’t filled all of its authorized positions, since
there’s not much to do, but it’s not clear how much of the
allocated money is just sitting around waiting to be diverted to
some other…umm…worthy expenditure.

Are Colorado residents just not that wild about guns? Maybe
there was never much of a need for private background checks after
all. Lawmakers’ estimate was based on a National Institute of
Justice guesstimate that 40 percent of gun transfers are between
private parties. Nobody knows whether that’s even close to
accurate.

Or maybe in a state that
prohibits gun registration, people knew there was no possible
way for officials to track the movement of their firearms. So
they’re just ignoring the stupid law.