FBI says that Dylann Roof should never have been able to purchase the gun he used to murder nine people in South Carolina.

Courtesy of NBC News: 

The FBI said Friday that the man accused of killing nine African American parishioners at a historically black church in Charleston should not have been able to purchase a gun. 

Officials said a background check failure allowed Dylann Roof to illegally purchase a .45-caliber Glock handgun on April 11, eight days after he turned 21, at Shooter's Choice in West Columbia, South Carolina . Roof had previously acknowledged drug possession, according to the FBI. 

Law enforcement officials had previously said the transaction was entirely legal, despite his pending drug charge. The weapon was purchased at the gun store which is 25 miles from his home. 

FBI director James B. Comey called that assessment "a mistake in a matter of heartbreaking importance".

It is important to note that if Roof's admission that he was in possession of illegal drugs had been forwarded to the FBI then federally mandated background checks would have discovered it and kept Roof from getting his hands on the gun that he used to murder nine innocent people in their own church.

In other words background checks DO work.

(There were earlier reports from Roof's uncle that he received the gun used in these attacks as a gift, but that was a false statement.)

Of course the argument will now be made that there are other ways of getting a gun that do not require background checks, such as gun shows for instance, but all that proves is that we need stricter gun control laws that cover any and all purchases of firearms.

The fact is that Dylann Roof was able to kill those people, on that day, with that weapon, because there was information not given to the FBI that would have prevented it.

Everything else is conjecture.