The budget is relevant. It's relevant every time that you want to spend money.
Every time that government takes tax more tax money for projects, the government is proclaiming that individuals do not know how to spend their money correctly and efficiently, and that the government agencies can do so better. For large infrastructure projects, that is true, of course, but not for projects that will only directly affect a small portion of the population. You have to address the needs of the many, before you address the needs of a few individuals. A study that can be done without the government's involvement should be done without the government's involvement.
The whole "it's not much money thing" is what has us spending a deficit amount each year. Pork barrel spending, projects that only benefit a few select individuals, etc, should not fall under the federal budget without extreme scrutiny prior to approval, and we don't see that level of accountability with Congress.
The current background check system is setup for FFL dealers - not for mass checks from many individuals. Do you realize the size of the databases needed to handle that many private gun sales? Do you understand what it takes just to setup the environment for a project like that? I do - I design enterprise applications that deal with large numbers of customers. As for going to LEOs and having them do it, how do you plan to have LEOs do their current jobs, as they are pretty overworked in many areas lately, and you are talking about giving them a LOT more work. You would need to have every law enforcement agency hire a lot more officers just to handle this work. Don't believe it? Well, here are the numbers to consider.
The figures show that there have been 16,808,538 applications in 2012 just up to the end of November - I don't have December numbers. Remember, these are just the applicants at FFL dealers - not private sales. The background check system that FFL dealers use has received 156,577,260 applications since 1998, up to Nov of 2012. Of those, rejections based upon "convicted of a crime" is responsible for 58.65% of the 976,255 denials under the FFL dealer background check system. Georgia alone had 386,562 applications between Jan 2012 and Nov 2012.
We will need either a robust automated background check system open to the public's use, or a lot more officers. Either will cost a lot of money - and that money has to come from somewhere - its not free.
And as to if it would work? The City of New York commissioned an investigation of Internet gun sales. The report said on 10 websites, it found over 25,000 weapons for sale. The report said that over 60 percent of sellers allowed a purchase to move forward even when the alleged buyer said he didn’t believe he would pass a background check. Sellers who used Craigslist were most likely to violate the law, the report said.
Read more: Number Of Guns Sold In US Each Year - Business Insider
Now, I'm going to assume that you've been influenced by Bloomberg, Obama, and Biden's comments that 40% of gun purchases are private sales, as that seems to be the talking point out of the Democratic Party right now. Well, get ready .... it's not accurate, and is a completely made up number. Both Biden and Obama admitted that they didn't know.
Read up and learn the truth: FactCheck.org : Guns Acquired Without Background Checks
The truth is that we don't know how many private sales there are, and nothing you can do will force everyone to do a background check for a private sale. These guns are not listed in a national database, so you have no way to crosscheck to see if the person selling them should be, or the person buying them should be. Unless you pass a new Amendment repealing the Second Amendment, you will always have the issue that we currently have.
Passing a law just to pass a law is poor judgment on legislation.