The gunman charged in the Charleston, South Carolina, church massacre should not been allowed to purchase the weapon used in the attack, FBI Director James Comey said Friday as he outlined a series of “heartbreaking” missed opportunities and inaccurate paperwork that allowed the transaction to take place. The problems stemmed from an arrest of Dylann Roof in South Carolina weeks before the shooting. During that arrest, police say he admitted to possessing illegal drugs. Under federal rules, that admission alone should have been enough to disqualify him from an April gun purchase even though he wasn’t convicted of the charge.
We wish we could turn back time, because from this vantage point, everything seems obvious. But we cannot.
FBI Director James Comey
Pushes for gun control legislation have followed some recent mass shootings. Following the 2012 school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, President Barack Obama launched an aggressive gun control push, but his efforts largely failed in Congress. Obama’s first statement after the Charleston church massacre tackled the difficulty of passing legislation that would change gun laws. Appearing somber as well as frustrated, the president said that day that he has had to make statements on mass shootings too many times. Despite not having all the facts, it was clear that innocent people had been killed because someone had no trouble getting a gun, he said.
It is in our power to do something about it. I say that recognizing the politics in this town foreclose a lot of those avenues right now. But it would be wrong for us not to acknowledge it.
President Barack Obama