More than 185,000 background checks required for gun purchases were processed on Black Friday, setting a new record on the day famous for some of the largest retail sales in the country.
The National Instant Criminal Background Check System, commonly referred to as NICS, processed 185,345 background requests the day after Thanksgiving, according to a report from USA Today.
USA Today reported this is a 5-percent increase from Black Friday last year, when the NICS processed 175,754 requests. Previously, the record for the largest number of background checks processed in a single day since November 1998 was in the aftermath of the December 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.
The spike in background checks coincided with a deadly gun attack at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Robert Lewis Dear, 57, killed a police officer and two civilians, including an Iraq War veteran.
The background system, which relies on voluntary data turnover from the states in addition to federal information, screens potential firearms buyers for a variety of restrictions such as felony and/or domestic violence convictions, someone adjudicated as mentally ill or a dishonorable discharge, among others.
