Let's start by placing the blame squarely on the shoulders of the murderer of nine innocent people, Dylann Roof. He and he alone killed those people. That said, it had been reported that his parents may have given him the gun - something many questioned as to how you give someone like Roof a gun considering his criminal past. That report turned out false but today the FBI has conceded that Roof should have not been able to buy the gun under the current laws and that is was the FBI that dropped the ball.
The FBI said Friday that the man accused of killing nine African American parishioners at a historically black church in Charleston should not have been able to purchase a gun.
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Seems that under the Federal law, the FBI has a 3 day widow to deny the application once a flag has been raised. In the case of Roof, he went to purchase the gun on April 11th - the FBI told the store not to process the sale because more investigating was needed. Because the FBI did not follow up and access the records in the stipulated time frame, Roof was able to return to the store and purchase the gun. It was stated that some stores will not sell until they hear back from the FBI regardless of the time frame (such as Walmart) but because they are under no obligation to do so, some stores will sell after the 3 day period.
"This case rips all of our hearts out, but the thought that an error on our part is connected to a gun this person used to slaughter these people is very painful to us," said Comey.
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This really is inexcusable. It is being labeled as a loophole - it's not a loophole - it's a failure to follow up. If the FBI request that more time is needed - then the law should be addressed but I'm not seeing that as the excuse here.
This is a sad failure of Government.