Tennessee Background Check Outage Leaves Gun Buyers in Limbo

When “instant” background check systems are running like they’re supposed to, they generally don’t cause much of an inconvenience or issue for gun buyers or sellers. But when staffing levels drop or software starts glitching, the ability to purchase and possess a gun can come to a screeching halt. 

That’s been the case in Tennessee for several days thanks to an outage with the state’s instant check system. Retail gun purchases are essentially on hold for the moment, and both buyers and sellers are feeling the impact. 

The firearm purchase login page for Tennessee FlexCheck, which is the system used across the Volunteer State, displayed an error message reading, “We are currently unable to run background checks. We are working quickly to resolve it. Please check your emails for more information and updates.” 

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, which helps oversee the system, told 6 News’ sister station, WKRN, that the agency had been troubleshooting an outage. The TBI said that the outage was related to a “planned system change” from the agency’s vendor, which was outside of the organization’s control.

The vendor told the TBI they were working as quickly as possible to resolve the issue.

Phillip Arrington, who owns Goodlettsville Gun Shop and has been in the business for about 30 years, told WKRN that the store had experienced about five or six outages so far this year — each lasting more than 24 hours — with other shorter outages throughout the year as well.

This outage has lasted for about three days.

“It’s getting to a point where we can’t tell customers, ‘Yeah, we’ll get your background check! It’s an instant check!” Arrington told WKRN. “It’s no longer an instant check because there is no pattern to when it’s going to be reliable.”

If this were happening in a blue state I’d be suspicious that these delays were intentional. I’m willing to give the TBI the benefit of the doubt here, but even if the outage is unintentional it’s still entirely unacceptable. 

No firearms could be sold in the state of Tennessee due to the outage, Arrington said, nor could firearms be taken in on consignment or any pawned. Some customers have been unhappy and even angry as a result of the outage.

“We’ve lost quite a bit [of money], but nothing compared to what some of the bigger stores have lost,” Arrington added. “…We have nothing to tell our customers. It basically stops everything we’re doing. There’s no sense in advertising because we can’t sell anything.”

A right delayed is a right denied, and for the past several days thousands of Tennesseans have been denied their ability to acquire a firearm. The inadvertent waiting period imposed by the technical issues needs to be addressed by both TBI and the state legislature. I wish lawmakers could just suspend the background check requirement when the system goes down for, say, more than 12 hours, but that would run afoul of federal law. I don’t know how easy it would be to use the NICS system as a backup when FlexCheck outages take place, but something needs to be done so that would-be gun owners can exercise their right to keep a firearm in a timely manner and gun sellers can operate their business without having to worry about being bankrupted by government bureaucracy and inefficiency.