Firearms Reported Lost and Stolen

From the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

The report gives an overview, for calendar year 2012, of the lost and stolen gun file entries in the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), and of the lost and stolen firearm reports submitted by Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) to ATF. This report will be updated and published annually.
Lost and stolen firearms pose a substantial threat to public safety and to law enforcement. Those that steal firearms commit violent crimes with stolen guns, transfer stolen firearms to others who commit crimes, and create an unregulated secondary market for firearms, including a market for those who are prohibited by law from possessing a gun. Moreover, thieves and illicit traffickers often obliterate the serial numbers of stolen firearms so that if a stolen firearm is later recovered by law enforcement, it cannot identified as stolen or traced to the original purchaser. Lost firearms pose a similar threat. Like stolen firearms, they are most often bought and sold in an unregulated secondary market where law enforcement is unable to trace transactions. As a result, when a lost or stolen gun is later recovered from a crime scene, tracing (which only identifies the original manufacturer, the licensed dealer who sold the firearm, and the original purchaser) will not provide a direct link to the perpetrator of the crime

Background Checks for Firearm Transfers, 2010

From the Bureau of Justice Statistics:

Over 118 million applications for firearm transfers or permits were subject to background checks from the inception of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993 on March 1, 1994, through December 31, 2010. During this time period, about 2.1 million applications, or 1.8%, were denied. In 2010, 1.5% of the 10.4 million applications for firearm transfers or permits were denied by the FBI (approximately 73,000) or by state and local agencies (approximately
80,000). The denial rate for applications checked by the FBI (1.2%) was lower than the rate for checks by
state and local agencies.