Activists with South Carolina chapters of Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action, stood on the Statehouse steps Thursday, March 13, 2025, calling on legislators to close the “Charleston loophole” for gun background checks nearly a decade after the Mother Emanuel shooting. (Photo by Jessica Holdman/SC Daily Gazette)
COLUMBIA — Nearly a decade ago, a “loophole” in the federal gun law made it possible for an avowed white supremacist with a history of drug use to buy a pistol despite a drug arrest that should have blocked the purchase.
Two months later, he used that pistol to kill nine members of the Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston gathered for a Bible study the evening of June 17, 2015.
The tragedy still haunts the family of Rep. Hamilton Grant, D-Columbia, whose wife’s grandfather, the Rev. Daniel Simmons Sr., was among the victims.
Grant joined the roughly 50 activists from the South Carolina chapter of Moms Demand Action and the Beaufort High School chapter of Students Demand Action on the south steps of the Statehouse on Thursday to call for the passage of state legislation to close the so-called “Charleston loophole.”
He held high the Bible that Simmons had with him that night.
“For 10 years, we’ve heard from past and present elected officials from this state on how much they are praying for us, how much they admire our strength and courage to forgive someone who wasn’t sorry,” Grant said.
“And while I have no doubt that all those kind words and prayers were sincere, I am often conflicted when they are not backed with action.”
The ‘loophole’
Under federal law, the FBI has three business days to complete a background check for a person seeking to buy a firearm from a licensed dealer. If the background check takes longer, for whatever reason, the dealer has the right to continue with the sale.
It was reporting errors and jurisdictional confusion that kept an FBI investigator from getting the necessary information on the Mother Emanuel shooter that would have prevented him from buying the gun, according to a 2015 statement by then FBI Director James Comey.
Columbia police had arrested the shooter on felony drug charges a month before he entered a West Columbia gun shop to purchase the .45-caliber pistol. Had reports directed the investigator to the correct police department, she would have learned the shooter admitted to having drugs on him when he was arrested, disqualifying him for the gun purchase.
In 2017, a federal jury in Charleston sentenced Dylann Roof to death for the slaying after convicting him on 33 counts for federal hate crimes and firearms charges. He is among just three inmates left on federal death row after President Joe Biden pardoned 37 other prisoners in December.
According to FBI data, there were 271,359 background checks in 2015 that went uncompleted within the allotted three-day window, allowing sales to go forward without a finished check. That’s 3% of all federal checks run that year. The Mother Emanuel shooter was one of them.
Since then, the FBI has recorded a total of 2.9 million uncompleted background checks through 2023, the latest available data.
Historically, 70-80% of those uncompleted checks lingered for 90 days and were purged from the federal system, meaning federal law enforcement never learned if a gun was sold to someone prohibited from owning it.
For 2023 in South Carolina, there were 9,072 uncompleted checks. In at least 71 of those instances, the FBI later learned a gun was sold to an unauthorized buyer.
‘A history of not acting’
Legislators talked of changing state laws in the immediate aftermath of the Mother Emanuel tragedy. Former Sen. Marlon Kimpson, D-Charleston, pledged to block any pro-gun bill until the Senate held a hearing on legislation extending the time period for completing background checks.
In 2016, he succeeded, blocking a bill on concealed weapon permits until the Senate’s former judiciary chairman pledged to hold a hearing. Kimpson’s bill reached the Senate floor in 2018 but never got a vote. He reintroduced the bill in 2019 and got a hearing, but the legislation never made it out of committee.
In Congress, U.S. Rep. James Clyburn has repeatedly sponsored legislation that would give the FBI up to 20 days to complete a background check. The U.S. House passed the bill in 2019 and in 2021, but neither received a vote on the U.S. Senate floor.
Now, Democratic state Sen. Deon Tedder, who sits in Kimpson’s former seat, has taken up the mantle and filed legislation. As has Rep. J.A. Moore, D-North Charleston, whose sister was killed in the Mother Emanuel shooting.
“I want to remind everyone here that there is a real, genuine impact behind making sure a background check is complete before proceeding with the gun sale. It’s not just a tagline,” said Beaufort High School junior Piper Kennedy.
“It could have saved the nine lives that were taken at Mother Emanuel church,” she continued. “But instead of focusing on solutions that we know prevent gun violence, this Legislature is (doing) just the opposite.”
Kennedy said she has grown up practicing active shooter drills at school and “knowing that a normal day could end in bloodshed.”
In 2022, those drills became more real after a spate of hoax calls to schools around the state had students in lock down afraid there was a school shooter roaming the halls.
In addition to the loophole bill, the activists called for funding of community violence intervention programs and laws to criminally charge gun owners who do not securely store firearms.
“We want to be able to go outside and walk our dog. We want to be able to sit on our porch. We want to even be able to go to sleep at night without hearing gunshots,” said Trevon Fordham, who runs the city of Columbia’s violent crime prevention office. “And while that may sound like something from a movie for some folks, it is the reality for a lot of folks we talk to because of gun violence.”
Grant commended House budget writers for allocating money in their budget plan to pay for police officers in every public school in the state. But the activists were not under any illusion that legislators were likely to take up other measures.
Instead, legislators have expanded gun access, passing a law last March that made it legal to carry handguns without a permit, said Patty Tuttle, a volunteer with Moms Demand Action in South Carolina.
“They have a history of not acting on this and it’s inexcusable,” she said.
