Gun Background Check Wait Times Remain Long In Colorado

DENVER (CBS4) - The prospect of tighter gun laws has gun sales soaring and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation remains flooded with requests for background checks on buyers.

On a normal day a background check would take about 15 minutes, but the CBI is so backed up it's been taking as much as eight days.

CBI spokesperson Susan Medina says their processors have been overwhelmed.

"When you look at a traditional day, a week, a month, a year; they come in in the morning, they work all day, and they go home at night, and the queue is at zero," Medina said.

But as of Thursday afternoon they had 11,400 waiting to be processed. They've extended hours, brought in extra resources, but can't keep up with the demand. It's created a long wait time for gun buyers.

"So what we're looking at is a time period that used to be minutes, has extended to days, and we're just at about eight days right now," Medina said.

Medina says the task is daunting, but with extra resources and resilience, things will get back to normal.

"Customer service is a top priority. They want those queue times to be just minutes instead of stretching into days," she said. "So our ultimate goal, we're going to get back there, it is going to take us a bit of time."

How much time? That's anyone's guess. Colorado isn't alone, however. Many parts of the country are seeing the same thing happening with background checks. The CBI is asking people for patience as they catch up.