No More Three-Day Loophole: New Bill Requires Full Background Check Before Any Gun Sale

The newly proposed Background Check Completion Act of 2025 is straightforward: it requires a completed background check before any licensed firearm dealer can transfer a gun. This bill is aimed squarely at eliminating the infamous "default proceed" loophole that currently exists in federal law.

The End of the Three-Day Timer

Right now, if you go to buy a gun from a licensed dealer, the FBI (or state equivalent) runs your background check through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). The system is supposed to flag prohibited purchasers—like convicted felons or those subject to domestic violence restraining orders—before the sale goes through. However, under current law, if NICS hasn't finished its review within three business days, the dealer has the option to proceed with the sale anyway. This is the "default proceed" provision, and it means that thousands of guns have been transferred to people who were later found to be prohibited purchasers.

This new bill, outlined in SEC. 2. Completion of background checks, scraps that three-day rule entirely. Going forward, the transfer cannot happen until the check is fully completed. Think of it like waiting for a critical document to be signed off by compliance—you can't start the job until the signature is actually there, not just because three days passed.

What This Means for Buyers and Dealers

For the average, lawful gun purchaser, this change is mostly about timing. If your check clears immediately, nothing changes. But if the system is slow, you will now have to wait until the check is definitively finished, even if that takes longer than three days. For dealers, this eliminates the guesswork and risk associated with deciding whether to transfer a firearm to someone whose check is still pending. They lose the ability to use the three-day window to complete a sale, which might slow down their inventory movement but ensures every sale is fully vetted.

Crucially, the bill also removes a clause in the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act that set a 10-business-day maximum delay for background checks. This is the part that might cause some headaches. By removing the three-day loophole, the bill strengthens the system, but by removing the 10-day cap, it removes a safeguard against indefinite administrative delays. If the NICS system ever suffers a major slowdown or backlog, a legal purchaser could potentially face a very long, open-ended wait time with no federal time limit forcing the system to resolve the check. While the goal is to make sure every check is done, the practical challenge is ensuring the system can handle the load without creating indefinite holds for lawful transfers.