Charleston Mass Shooting Victims Can Sue The U.S. Government Over Failed Background Check Procedures
The Charleston mass shooting victims that were inside Mother Emanuel AME Church at the time should be allowed to sue the federal government for failing to enforce national background checks on gun purchases, an court ruled on Friday.
NBC News reports:
A lower court had dismissed the case, which was filed by survivors and the family members of victims of the attack on Mother Emanuel AME Church, carried out by Dylann Roof on June 17, 2015.
The federal government wrongly cited law protecting individual federal employees from civil action as its reason to dismiss the lawsuit, the court ruled.
Plaintiffs said that if federal guidelines had been properly enforced, Roof should not have been able to purchase the gun he used to kill nine people and wound three others.
According to the plaintiffs on the case, Roof had a drug offense from February 2015 and this should have made him unable to buy the murder weapon under federal statutes.
The 25-year white supremacist, was found guilty of all charges in December 2016 and sentenced to death. He is being housed at the high-security U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Hopefully the victims and family of the victims find peace and receive complete justice.
