Suspect Dylann Roof was arrested in February on a felony narcotics charge that would have caused him to fail a background check.
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“The bottom line is clear”, Comey said. West Columbia is located in Lexington County, as is a small sliver of the city of Columbia-though records referenced by the examiner didn’t list Columbia as being part of Lexington County.
Roof’s ability to purchase the gun has been a focus for investigators since the June 17 attack.
John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, pointed to the three-day waiting period provision of the background check law as a “deadly flaw in the system”. “We wish we could turn back time”, he added. “We chafe at them because time and time again, like in Charleston, they completely fail to prevent bad people from getting their hands on guns”.
Roof went on the murder nine people at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston.
Roof had admitted to possessing a controlled substance weeks before the church shooting, which should have triggered an FBI denial of his application.
The Columbia police department’s report of the arrest stated that Mr. Roof admitted he was in possession of drugs. Roof had previously acknowledged drug possession, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Due to a technical issue, Roof’s record only showed the charge, and not the admission of guilt.
“This rips all of our hearts out”, Comey told reporters, according to CNN. Once that window closed without a clear answer, the gun dealer used its legal discretion to complete the transaction.
“She’s obviously heartbroken and struggling, as you might imagine”, Mr. Comey said. “South Carolina has some of the weakest gun laws and slowest reporting in the nation”. Harry Reid (D-NV) have called for “expanded background checks” in response to Roof’s attack. “I just want to keep moving away from it as an individual, as a community and a country”.
This photo after Dylann Roof’s June arrest was not his first mugshot. Those conducting the background check did not have access to that police report.
He was arrested and booked into the Richland County jail the next day.
The background check is not foolproof. And when the feds take longer than three days to disqualify someone, retailers are allowed to go ahead and sell that person a gun regardless, under what’s known as “default proceedings”. “But he could have gotten it other ways”.
The development emerged as South Carolina removed the Confederate flag from its statehouse on Friday.
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FBI officials have been meeting with families of the massacre victims to explain the oversight that allowed the white supremacist to obtain a gun. But Comey said that Roof’s subsequent admission of the drug crime would have triggered an automatic rejection of his gun purchase if the information had been properly recorded in background-check databases.
