Authorities must prosecute gun buyers who lie during background checks

The man involved in a shootout last month with Kansas City police — a felon and a murder suspect — recently passed a federal background check to buy a gun.

That fact should disturb every American concerned with gun violence. It should particularly worry Kansas Citians, who are fighting a wave of shootings, and the city’s police, who are on the front lines of that battle.

Whatever loopholes exist in the background check system must be closed, to the extent possible, and quickly.

Marlin Mack Jr. died after a gunbattle with Kansas City police on July 15. He was a “person of interest” in the murder of Sharath Koppu, a UMKC student who was killed at a restaurant near 54th and Prospect in early July.

Three officers were hurt in the exchange of gunfire.

Mack had a long criminal history. He was a convicted felon, which should have prohibited him from buying a firearm from a licensed dealer. Yet the FBI says Mack was able to buy a gun from an Independence store by lying about his background.

“He gave his ID, we entered it into the computer and they said proceed,” the store’s manager said. “He passed in under two minutes.”

That’s an astonishing fact. It suggests the National Instant Criminal Background Check System — NICS, for short — can be easily defeated by simply lying at the point of sale.

In July, the FBI processed more than 1.8 million background checks through NICS. Mack’s gun purchase appears to be one of them.

Further investigation should reveal any links between the gun Mack bought and the one used to fire at police. It should also provide better clues as to where the ball was dropped in the purchase.

But we can add it to the list of NICS failures that Congress must review next year. It also suggests authorities must do more to prosecute people who lie before buying a gun.

In 2016, the Justice Department’s inspector general said federal prosecutors, over an eight-year period, declined to file charges against half the people who appear to have lied on their background checks.

That’s not acceptable. Prosecutors must pursue more standalone cases of lying to send a clear message to would-be Marlin Macks.

This March, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions told federal prosecutors to aggressively pursue people who lie on federal background checks.

“We must vigilantly protect the integrity of the background check system through appropriate prosecution of those who attempt to circumvent the law,” Sessions wrote.

That seems obvious. It’s unclear whether federal prosecutors here have followed Sessions’ directive.

We urge investigators to determine where the failure came in the gun purchase by a known felon. If someone broke the law, he or she should be prosecuted.

Then Congress can decide whether the NICS process needs an upgrade to help prevent more shootings and death.