A background check should have stopped the Aurora, Illinois, shooter from buying a gun

The man who fatally shot five people and wounded six more in Aurora, Illinois, on Friday was armed with a handgun he should not have been able to purchase, local authorities have revealed.

The shooter, identified as Gary Martin, had been arrested in Aurora six times for "traffic and domestic battery-related issues," said Aurora Police Chief Kristen Ziman, and he was convicted of aggravated assault in Mississippi in 1995. That felony conviction should have been detected by the background check Martin underwent to purchase his gun. It was not.

Though a second background check for Martin's concealed carry permit application did alert to his record, he already had the weapon in his possession by that point.

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Martin was killed Friday in an exchange of gunfire with police. He was going to be fired from his workplace, the manufacturing plant where he made his attack, though Zimon said Saturday police are not sure whether he knew he would be let go when he brought his handgun to his job Friday morning. "[W]e can surmise that he was speculative about what was going to happen as evidenced by him arming himself with a firearm," she said.

The identities of the five people Martin killed have been released; all were fellow workers at the plant. Of the six police officers wounded, three remain hospitalized, but all are in stable condition.