The Brady handgun control law imposed a five-day waiting period on handgun sales to allow for background checks. GAO's self-initiated review of the first full year of the Brady bill's implementation discusses (1) how often the five-day waiting period and background checks resulted in denying criminals and other ineligible persons the opportunity to buy handguns from federally licensed dealers; (2) the extent to which such denials resulted in the arrest and the prosecution of convicted felons and other ineligible purchasers who falsely completed the handgun purchase application form; and (3) the effects of the various legal challenges to the Brady bill. Although GAO found that 4.3 percent of purchase applications were denied during the law's first year, these results are not projectable to the universe of denials nationwide because standard and common criteria were not used to make denials.