"National gun-buying background check system crashes"

This is a real and important cost of the system. Could you imagine running any business where you would randomly have to shut it down at different times? The frequent random crashes during the Clinton administration stopped after Clinton left office, but they still occur from time to time.

The FBI says its computer system that quickly screens gun buyers' backgrounds for criminal activity has crashed several times over the past two days.

An FBI spokesman says a technical glitch had the system on the blink for up to a half-hour yesterday and today, potentially allowing buyers to purchase firearms without being screened. He says the problem is being worked on and called it "a performance issue that we've never encountered before."

The FBI says it gets between 30 and 50,000 requests for background checks on a daily basis and usually can process them within 30 minutes.