Gun-control advocates tend to react to shootings — especially mass shootings — with impulse and emotion. In their haste to demand that government do something, anything, no matter how ineffective, they tend to call for solutions that are either unresponsive to the problem or already demonstrated failures.

Take universal background checks as an example. Although these could probably be legislated in a way that respects gun owners’ privacy and the Second Amendment , there is no evidence that any significant amount of crime is committed using the very small minority of guns whose sale would be affected — i.e., intrastate purchases in the 31 states that do not already require a background check. We are not aware of even one mass shooting committed with such a gun, and we doubt that many such guns are used in common crimes either. In short, universal background checks are an attainable but not very useful idea. They wouldn’t prevent much violence.

As another example, take prohibitions on the sale of so-called “assault weapons.” Although there is a campaign underway lately to rewrite history and pretend that the assault weapons ban of the 1990s was effective in preventing shootings, its failure has been statistically demonstrated, and it was universally acknowledged at the time Congress allowed it to expire. Moreover, gun violence has rapidly declined in the time since.

None of this means that all legislation related to gun ownership has to be either ineffective or unconstitutional. There are glaring holes to be patched in the nation’s gun market, if people are only willing to take off their ideological blinders and tend to more practical matters. One key is to focus on who is allowed to purchase guns and not on which guns they are allowed to purchase . Another is to enforce existing laws, because they are poorly enforced and we know for a fact that people have died as a result.

For example, as we have repeatedly noted in this space, the instant background check system for gun buyers — known as the National Instant Criminal Background Check System or NICS — has long been a dumpster fire. Its records are woefully incomplete, and the bureaucrats who run it are either overworked or incompetent or both.

It is documented that between bureaucratic mistakes and inconsistent state and federal agency reporting requirements, several mass shooters have passed background checks and purchased weapons when they should have been flagged and prevented from buying them. As we have previously noted, literally dozens of people killed in mass shootings this century might be alive today if NICS only worked the way it was intended in identifying the mentally ill and criminals who attempt illegally to purchase guns.

For that reason, it is heartening that lawmakers were actually able to do something meaningful and useful about illegal gun sales last year without gutting the Second Amendment. Last March, as part of its annual spending bill, Congress passed the Fix NICS Act, which is designed to do just what it says. The law requires federal agencies to develop detailed plans and supply the necessary records about restricted buyers. It also provides funding and incentives for states to keep and bring their records up to date as well.

Last week, Attorney General William Barr submitted the first semiannual report under the law, and it shows that the efforts are already paying off. The states — the ones governed by both Democrats and Republicans — have proven eager and willing to comply. Genuine cooperation is occurring, and we will probably never know how many lives are saved.

More than 6 million new records have been added to the three databases against which NICS searches, meaning they now contain 6.2% more data. And the share of searches that return truly “instant” results has increased to over 90%: an important milestone because gun purchases must be allowed if the government fails to conduct the searches in a timely manner.

Perhaps most importantly, the number of “Firearm Retrieval Referrals” — instances where the government must go back and take a gun away that was mistakenly sold because someone mistakenly passed a background check — has declined by more than 1,200 per year, down about half from where they were five years ago.