Dylann Roof
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Survivors and family members of nine people killed in a racist attack at a South Carolina church are asking a federal appeals court to reinstate their lawsuit.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is scheduled to hear arguments Tuesday in a lawsuit filed against the federal government over a faulty background check that allowed Dylann Roof to buy the gun he used in the 2015 shooting.
A judge dismissed the lawsuit last year, but sharply criticized the government for what he called its “abysmally poor policy choices” on how it runs the national database for firearm background checks.
The FBI has acknowledged that a 2015 drug charge should have prevented Roof from buying the gun.
Roof was sentenced to death in the massacre at Charleston’s Emanuel AME Church.
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