NPR

20 Years On, The Background Check System Continues To Miss Dangerous Gun Buyers

Mere months before the shooting at Columbine High School, the federal government established a background check system to screen gun buyers but shootings haven't waned.

Twenty years ago, a pair of students killed a teacher and a dozen of their classmates a high school in Littleton, Colo. The shooters at Columbine High School used semiautomatic weapons and sawed-off shotguns in the attack before turning the guns on themselves.

Just a few months before that shooting, the FBI launched the National Instant Background Check System to try and prevent dangerous individuals from purchasing guns.

And in the two decades since, the federal government says it has conducted more than hundreds of

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