Rifle was bought legally at gun shop
The suspect in a Florida school shooting bought the AR-15-style rifle used in the attack legally a year ago, authorities said Thursday.
Nikolas Cruz, 19, is charged with murdering 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where he had been expelled for fighting, according to authorities.
Cruz lawfully bought the semiautomatic rifle last February, according to Peter Forcelli, special agent in charge of the Miami office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The gun, a Smith & Wesson M&P 15 .223, was purchased at Sunrise Tactical Supply, according to the Associated Press. Federal law allows people 18 and older to legally purchase long guns, including this kind of assault weapon. Having no criminal record, Cruz cleared an instant background check via the FBI criminal database.
If somebody is adjudicated mentally defective or has been committed to a mental institution, he or she is prohibited from possessing a firearm under federal law.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott said at a news conference Thursday that he would discuss with the legislature next week increasing funding for mental health services and keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill.
“If somebody is mentally ill, they can’t have access to a gun,” Scott said.
Melisa McNeill, Cruz’s public defender, described him in his initial court appearance Thursday as a “broken child” who suffered brain-development problems and depression.
From 1998 to 2014, the FBI rejected
16,669 potential gun buyers because a background check found a mental health adjudication, about 1.4% of the roughly 1.2 million background checks that resulted in a denial.
Mental health entered the debate after the Virginia Tech shooting in
2007. The gunman in that case had been treated at a Virginia hospital on the grounds that he might be a danger to himself or others. He was nonetheless able to pass a background check. After that, a lot of states moved to supply the FBI and their own background check databases with records about people with mental illness.
Rob Lasky, FBI special agent in charge of the Miami division, said his agency received a tip in September about a comment made on a YouTube video that said, “I’m going to be a professional school shooter.”
The FBI reviewed databases and couldn’t track down who made the statement, he said. “We do not know if it’s the same person,” Lasky said. “We’re looking at it again.”
The shooter was equipped with a gas mask, smoke grenades and magazines of ammunition Wednesday.
“An AR-15 is not for hunting, it’s for killing,” Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said on the Senate floor Thursday.
After Cruz’s mother died Nov. 1, he moved in with a friend’s family around Thanksgiving, the family’s lawyer, Jim Lewis, told the AP. The family was aware of the rifle and made Cruz keep it locked in a cabinet, but he had a key, Lewis said.
Photos posted in an Instagram account linked to Cruz show a half-dozen weapons displayed on a mattress and a box of ammunition.