The National Instant Criminal Background Check System has been an established and aggressive plan to help improve the safety of the general public, cut down on crime, and keeps guns, weapons, and explosive materials out of the hands of those with the high risk potential to use them inappropriately. Thanks to the FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check guns have been kept out of dangerous hands and thus it is believed that thousands of crimes have been thwarted before they even began.

Some would make the argument that the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) encourages weapons on the street making their way into the hands of those who are determined to commit crimes without the convenience of being able to check the gun's registration. This is some pretty intense conjecture considering that more than 75% of those who are on the rejection list are on there for mental instability and are not able to procure an illegal weapon on the street. Therefore, it is much more likely that the program is a crime prevention plan that helps keep guns out of the hands of those who intend to use them for crime, and these are usually deadly crimes.

Do programs like the National Instant Background Check violate our right to bear arms? It is an interesting argument that many have tried to take on, without success of course. The right to bear arms is a right that can be violated by one's own actions. Rights are not certain when there is just cause to refuse a right, as the courts have agreed upon. There are very simple requirements that must be met in order to exercise one's right to bear arms. There are many people that feel that taking away amendment rights based on mental stability is a violation of amendment rights. This is in fact a number of attorneys have taken on through the court system and the courts have upheld the terms of the FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check.

The state of Virginia has been a leader in providing criminal records and mental health records to the program in an attempt to become proactive in the fight against illegal weaponry acquisition. Individuals can be denied for a number of reasons. The names of individuals are submitted to the Nation Instant background Check System upon being sentenced to a crime, including probation, upon being committed to a mental health facility by a court, and upon being a known member of a gang or criminal affiliation.

While there will always be a certain amount of controversy surrounding the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) despite the fact that it has been proven to work. There will always be individuals that make it to the denial list without sufficient cause, although those numbers are very small and can generally be proven in court. There are no foolproof systems but the NICS system is about as foolproof as it can get under the current checks and balances of rights and public safety considerations.