NEW: Texas shooter failed 2014 background check due to a 'mental health issue'
ODESSA, Texas — The gunman in a West Texas rampage that left seven dead obtained his AR-style rifle through a private sale, allowing him to evade a federal background check that blocked him from getting a gun in 2014 due to a"mental health issue," a law enforcement official told The Associated Press.
Ator had tried purchasing a firearm in January 2014 but was denied, the Texas Department of Public Safety said in a statement Tuesday. The agency said it was precluded by law from disclosing why, but the law enforcement official told the AP it was due to a"mental health issue." FBI special agent Christopher Combs said Ator"was on a long spiral of going down" and had been fired from his oil services job the morning of the shooting, and that he called 911 both before and after the rampage began. Online court records show Ator was arrested in 2001 for a misdemeanor offense that would not have prevented him from legally purchasing firearms in Texas.
In 2018, more than 26 million background checks were conducted. Of those, fewer than 100,000 were denied with the vast majority of those rejected because the person was found to have a criminal past that made them ineligible. Far fewer just over 6,000 were because the person had been involuntarily committed.
Gun-control advocates argue that the lack of a background check is making it too easy for the wrong people to skirt the background check system and get a gun. For example, on one well-known internet site for firearms sales, there were classified listings in recent days for about 1,700 long guns in Texas alone.
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