NICS Gun Check Figures Surpass any April in History Last month was the highest April in terms of federal background checks for gun transfers since the system was established over two decades ago. The unadjusted data of 3,485,016 checks conducted through the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System for April 2021 is a 21.1 percent jump from the unadjusted FBI NICS figure of 2,878,176 in April 2020. When the data is filtered by the National Shooting Sports Foundation to remove figures for gun permit checks by states which use NICS for that purpose, the number of checks stands at 1,694,118, which is a slim increase of about 1 percent compared to the April 2020 NSSF-adjusted NICS figure of 1,678,223. While that sounds uninspiring, keep in mind that last April was by far a record for the program, meaning that even a small increase beyond that is significant when compared to past buying patterns.