How Mass Murderers Got Their Guns

The New York Times documented how criminal histories and mental health issues failed to prevent 8 of the gunmen in 14 recent mass shootings from getting guns.

JULY 23, 2015
Using a .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol bought from a pawnshop, John R. Houser killed two people and wounded nine others at a movie theater in Lafayette, La.

Mr. Houser bought the weapon in Alabama. Officials said it had been purchased legally, though he had been denied a concealed weapons permit earlier, and despite concerns among family members that he was violent and mentally ill…

JUNE 17, 2015
Dylann Roof, 21, killed nine people with a .45-caliber Glock pistol at a historic black church in Charleston, S.C.

He purchased a gun from a store in West Columbia, S.C. Mr. Roof should have been barred from buying a gun because he had admitted to possessing drugs, but the F.B.I. examiner conducting the required background check failed to obtain the police report from the February incident…

OCT. 24, 2014
Jaylen Ray Fryberg, 15, used his father’s Beretta pistol to shoot and kill four students in his high school’s cafeteria in Marysville, Wash.

Mr. Fryberg applied to buy the Beretta from a gun shop on the Indian reservation where he lived with Jaylen. A background check failed to come up with [a] protection order because it was never entered into the system…

SEPT. 16, 2013
Aaron Alexis, 34, used a Remington shotgun to kill 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard.

A MONTH BEFORE THE SHOOTING
He twice sought treatment from the Department of Veterans Affairs for psychiatric issues. He told police in Rhode Island that people were pursuing him and sending vibrations through the walls of his hotel.

He was stopped from buying an assault rifle at a Virginia gun store, but was allowed to buy a shotgun. He passed local and state background checks…

Adam Lanza, 20, shot and killed his mother in their home, then killed 26 people, mostly children, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., using a Bushmaster XM-15 rifle and a .22-caliber Savage Mark II rifle.

He was “completely untreated in the years before the shooting” for psychiatric and physical ailments like anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder, a state report found…

APRIL 3, 2009
Jiverly Wong, 41, fired at least 98 shots from two handguns, a Beretta 92 FS 9-millimeter pistol and a Beretta PX4 Storm pistol, inside a civic association in Binghamton, N.Y., where he had taken an English class. He killed 13 former classmates and association employees.

MARCH 2008
Mr. Wong bought the first gun, the Beretta 92, at a store in Johnson City, N.Y. He passed a background check.
MARCH 2009
Mr. Wong bought the second gun from the same store, but his background check was not approved immediately. He received the gun under a federal rule that allows a gun to be sold if the background check system does not return a decision in three business days.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.