[Rick Lee]

I'll make the wild guess that those triple digit arrests were mostly in VA. VA was and is particularly hardcore on this stuff with a five year mandatory minimum on gun crimes and no parole for anything. I don't know if they're still doing it, but in the old days in VA, if you were denied via a NICS check, they store didn't just tell you no, they locked the doors and waited for the state police to come and get you for even attempting to purchase. They probably relaxed this due to the number of false denials. Sure, once in a while, a real idiot with felony convicitons and/or outstanding warrants would try to buy a gun in a store and fill out the NICS paperwork. But those were probably a very tiny percentage.

I know that if I were NICS-ineligible, I'd have no problem getting guns through other means and I'm a complete non-criminal. The real criminal minds out there don't bother with the silly gun laws the rest of us law-abiding folks have to deal with.