POLITICSState House

South Carolina Gun Control Group Takes Aim At ‘Charleston Loophole’

But should the government’s mistake adversely impact Second Amendment rights?

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A coalition of national gun control groups is pushing for more stringent firearm restrictions in South Carolina in anticipation of the tenth anniversary of one of the nation’s most notorious mass shootings.

According to an advisory from Everytown, Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action, leaders of these groups will join with local officials next week to demand the closing of the “Charleston loophole.”

The “Charleston loophole” is how avowed white supremacist Dylann Storm Roof was able to obtain the firearm he used to murder nine black parishioners at Mother Emanuel AME church in downtown Charleston on June 17, 2015.

Roof was sentenced to death at the federal level following the mass shooting. He is one of three condemned killers former president Joe Biden declined to pardon during his sweeping commutation of federal death sentences last month.

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Prior to the massacre, Roof’s February 2015 arrest on drug charges – first obtained by this media outlet – should have prevented him from purchasing the .45 caliber semi-automatic Glock he used in the shooting.  Unfortunately, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) – which administers the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) – couldn’t obtain the record of Roof’s arrest within a three-day window after April 11, 2015, when he first attempted to purchase the firearm.

Accordingly, Roof was able to legally purchase the weapon when he returned to the same West Columbia, S.C. gun store on April 14, 2015 (federal law permits stores to sell weapons if the FBI doesn’t explicitly bar them from doing so after a three-day period).

“The government system broke down,” I noted in a 2015 post on this subject.

Still… should law-abiding gun owners (or would-be gun owners) be penalized because the FBI dropped the ball in the Roof case? FITSNews has previously editorialized that they shouldn’t

“What happens the next time the FBI drops the ball? And then decides to shift the blame by christening a new ‘loophole?'” I noted in 2021. “Will the feds then extend the waiting period indefinitely?”

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Biden made closing the loophole one of his top priorities, in keeping with his promise to lead “the strongest gun safety administration in American history.”

The Palmetto State hasn’t acquiesced, however.

According to Everytown – which has been behind a host of extra-legal attempted gun grabs at the municipal level in South Carolina – 22 states have “closed or limited” the loophole, “giving law enforcement more time to investigate complicated criminal histories of prospective gun buyers like the shooter in Charleston.”

Everytown’s event next week will be held at 10:00 a.m. EST on Tuesday (January 28, 2025) at Mother Emanuel.

Count on FITSNews to keep tabs on the status of Second Amendment legislation in the Palmetto State – and to continue championing South Carolinians’ gun rights at every turn. Of course, also count on us to always extend our open microphone to those with different or dissenting views.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …

Will Folks on phone
Will Folks (Brett Flashnick)

Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.

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2 comments

Observer (the real one) January 23, 2025 at 7:57 pm

“What happens the next time the FBI drops the ball? And then decides to shift the blame by christening a new ‘loophole?’” I noted in 2021. “Will the feds then extend the waiting period indefinitely?”

This is how these gun grabber organizations play it. In any endeavor of mankind, terrible tragedies and mishaps WILL occur. If the national highway speed limit were reduced to 5 MPH, people would still find ways to kill each other and their fellow motorists, along the road. Remember how we were told that The Brady Bill would be the end-all – be-all of gun laws that would keep guns out of the hands of bad people? Some of us saw how false that was. We got that wonderful Brady Law and tragedies still occur. The crud Dylann Roof slipped through the cracks and these Moms Demand idiots want more. They always do. Give them more and I promise there will still be tragedies and of course, they want even more.

So glad we got rid of some of the idiots in our Legislature who would be inclined to follow this; like Penry Gustafson, Sandy Senn, Gerald Malloy, and others.

Reply
jbl1a January 24, 2025 at 12:11 pm

Nailed it Observer. There is no loophole. The failure is in the govt and their process to do the job. As usual they take no blame

Reply

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