WASHINGTON (CNN) -- An estimated 69,000 handgun sales were blocked in 1997 by pre-sale background checks, the Justice Department said Sunday.

The rejections represent about 2.7 percent of the nearly 2.6 million applications for handgun purchases.

President Clinton said in a statement that the checks were proof that the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act is working.

"By keeping guns out of the hands of criminals -- and putting more police in our communities -- we have helped the crime rate to its lowest point in a generation," Clinton said.

Clinton said the Brady law must be extended to violent juveniles to bar them from owning guns for life.

"I call on Congress once again to pass this needed, common-sense legislation," he said.

According to the department's Bureau of Justice Statistics, 62 percent of the rejections were based on applicants' felony convictions or indictments.

Eleven percent of the rejections were based on domestic violence misdemeanors or protection orders, and about 6 percent were because the applicant was a fugitive from justice.

The Supreme Court in June 1997 struck down a provision in the Brady law that required local sheriffs to conduct the background checks.

Since the court's decision, many law enforcement agencies have voluntarily continued to conduct the checks. The estimates were based on a sampling of the chief law enforcement officers whose agencies conduct the checks.

Through December 1997, an estimated 242,000 potential handgun purchases were stopped out of 10 million applications since the Brady law went into effect in February 1994.

The estimated handgun purchase rejections prior to last year were 70,000 in 1996; 41,000 in 1995; and 62,000 for the 10 month period in 1994 that the Brady law was in effect.

In 1997, about 3.7 million inquiries came into the FBI's National Crime Information Center about the records of people who wanted to purchase or carry firearms.

Beginning in November 1998, pre-sale checks will be required for all firearms -- not just handguns -- purchased from federally licensed dealers.

The law is named for James Brady, a former White House press secretary who was wounded in the 1981 assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan.

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