South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) said on Sunday that she did not support increasing waiting periods to allow federal officials ample time to conduct background checks even though flaws in the current law allowed Charleston shooter Dylann Roof to purchase a gun.
The FBI said on Friday that Roof had not been eligible to purchase the gun used to kill nine people at a church in Charleston because he had admitted to drug possession. But because the FBI was not able to verify Roof's record with local law enforcement agencies within a three day period, the gun shop used it's legal discretion to sell the weapon to the shooter.
"Do you think the background check should be expanded, instead of a three day period, maybe longer?" NBC host Chuck Todd asked Haley during an interview on Sunday.
Haley insisted that she was "literally sick" to her stomach when she received the news that Roof was able to purchase a firearm because of a failed background check.
"When the feds say they are going to do something, we take them at their word that it's going to get done," the South Carolina Republican opined. "And the fact that it didn't get done is terrible. And it's one more thing that these families are going to have to go through that they don't deserve to have to go through."
"I think we need to look at the fact that it's not about time," she continued. "It's about technology. You know, this is something, when someone has a charge filed against them, it should go into a database and it should be shown immediately to anyone that's looking at it."
"So, I would be more interested in what went wrong. What sort of -- why are they dealing with paperwork and not dealing with technology that they wouldn't have had this."
