Comey said Roof’s transaction began when he went to a gun store in West Columbia, S.C., on April 11. The dealer submitted his biographical information to NICS, which handles background checks for gun purchases for about 30 states, including South Carolina.
Under the law, the FBI has three business days to deny or approve a purchase. But if a decision is not made during that time frame, the law permits the dealer to complete the sale.
On April 13, a veteran FBI examiner who routinely handled 15 or more cases per day pulled up Roof’s request. Checking his criminal record, she saw the narcotics arrest by the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department. She faxed a request for information to the sheriff’s office and county prosecutor. But officials at the sheriff’s office told her they were not handling the case and referred her to the Columbia Police Department.
Her effort, however, was tripped up by a geographic irregularity.
Only a small part of the city of Columbia is located in Lexington County, with most in neighboring Richland County. The FBI’s system did not account for that jurisdictional split, and the examiner unwittingly contacted only the West Columbia Police Department, which reported no record of Roof’s arrest.
“It’s not clear why that happened,” Comey said of the gap in the FBI’s database, “but it made a big difference.”
Had the examiner been able to see the Columbia police report that Roof had admitted to possession of a drug, or had prosecutors told her of its existence, “that transaction would have been denied,” Comey said.
On April 16, after the three-day waiting period had lapsed with no adverse ruling from the FBI, Roof got his gun — a .45-caliber Glock pistol. There is no requirement for the dealer to notify the bureau when it has sold a gun, bureau officials said.
Comey said he had spoken to the examiner and described her as “heartbroken,” but he said she had followed proper procedures. He said one of the questions under review is whether to treat “delayed pending” checks differently.
In 2014, the FBI handled 8.2 million gun checks, and 228,000, or about 2.8 percent, remained as “delayed pending” for longer than three days, officials said.