The United States continues to face an epidemic of gun violence exemplified by incidents like the summer 2015 mass shooting at Charleston, South Carolina’s Mother Emanuel AME Church that left nine people dead at a white supremacist’s hands. As this week draws to a close, survivors of that shooting along with victim’s families have been handed a substantive victory via the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that they’re allowed to proceed with a lawsuit against the federal government. They’re alleging that the federal government fundamentally failed to properly discharge its responsibilities via the federal background check system that allowed the Charleston attacker to obtain a weapon.
The group’s lead attorney William Wilkins insisted on Friday:
‘The families are one step closer to closure. What this case said was that the government by law is tasked with developing and implementing and maintaining a system that identifies individuals who by law are not entitled to possess a weapon … every case is tied to the facts, but this case says that the government is not immune from discharging its responsibilities.’
A lower court had ruled that the federal government was immune from the lawsuit the families attempted to bring, but that’s now been thrown out — for now. The argument had originally been made on the basis of provisions in the the Federal Tort Claims Act and the Brady Act, which deals specifically with gun violence and — contrary to the government’s assertions — does not exempt the feds from responsibility in mass shooting situations.
There’s still a chance for the Justice Department to ask the appeals court to reconsider their ruling, as there is for them to seek to push it to the U.S. Supreme Court. As this case proceeds, the attacker Dylann Roof himself is appealing his death sentence before the same circuit court of appeals, although that doesn’t mean his case is being heard by the same judges, considering the large number who participate.
As has already emerged, Roof should have been disqualified from the purchase of a gun due to a prior arrest on drug charges. Even in the absence of a criminal conviction, if the individual admitted to possession of a controlled substance, they’re supposed to be barred — but Roof wasn’t, thanks in large part to a delay in federal authorities actually completing the background check. If those authorities delay long enough, gun sellers are allowed to proceed with the purchase, even if the check is still pending.
Although the Trump administration was not in power at the time of the Charleston shooting, they have their own stake in plenty of gun violence issues.
Following repeated mass shootings everywhere from a Florida high school to a Pittsburgh synagogue to an El Paso Walmart, they have failed to enact systematic reform beyond showy steps like banning bump stocks, which amplify the capabilities of semi-automatic weapons. There’s been talk about implementing something like a universal background check requirement for gun purchases, which a majority of the public supports — but Republicans in Congress still haven’t moved. The Democratic majority House passed a universal background check law months ago.
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