Aurora Police Chief Kristen Ziman speaks to reporters after deadly shooting. (Screen snip, YouTube, ABC News)
By Dave Workman
Senior Editor
While anti-gunners quickly pounced to exploit last month’s workplace shooting in Aurora, Illinois to demand more gun control laws, the facts of the case emerged quickly enough to show that authorities in that state dropped the proverbial ball by not making sure Gary Martin had turned in his pistol when the state police warned him to five years ago.
Initially, a background check failed to catch Martin when he applied for, and received, a Firearm Owner’s Identification (FOID) Card early in 2014, so he was legally able to purchase the pistol he used five years later. But when he applied for an Illinois concealed carry permit, which included being fingerprinted, he was quickly identified, his FOID card was revoked, his permit application was denied and he was ordered by the state police to surrender the pistol.
But he didn’t.
So, when the Chicago Sun-Times editorialized that more gun control laws are necessary, it became a rather weak argument.
That didn’t stop gun control groups as far away as Washington State from trying to press their anti-rights agenda, however.
But a report from ABC affiliate WLS in Chicago revealed that the state police didn’t follow up, and apparently rarely do when they revoke an FOID card. It underscores a point the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms has been making for years: Bad guys don’t obey gun laws.
Martin was convicted in Mississippi more than 20 years ago for stabbing an ex-girlfriend. He reportedly lied on his FOID card application by denying that he had been convicted of a felony.
Martin, who was killed in an exchange of gunfire with police, reportedly served less than three years for the Mississippi attack, in which he also reportedly beat his victim with a baseball bat.
