Illinois police say they knew Gary Martin illegally owned a handgun years before he used it to murder five people Friday at his workplace in suburban Chicago.
Authorities revealed Saturday that a state ban on violent felons owning guns failed to prevent Martin, 45, from possessing the gun he used to murder colleagues at the Aurora, Ill., manufacturing plant that employed him for 15 years.
Martin bought the .40-caliber Smith & Wesson used in the shooting from a local dealer in 2014, five days after applying to do so. He then applied for a concealed carry permit, and a more thorough background check conducted by the Illinois State Police found he had an aggravated assault conviction in Mississippi in the 1990s.
The conviction meant Martin was not legally allowed to own the gun that he had purchased.
Typically, a gun owner would be notified in a letter from state police that they need to surrender their gun, the Chicago Tribune reports, but it’s unclear if Martin ever received a mailing.
“Those are the unanswered questions,” Aurora Police Chief Kristen Ziman said Saturday.
Martin died in a shootout with police.
Although Illinois has some of the nation’s strictest gun laws, a gun control advocate said the revelation points to shortcomings in enforcement.
“It’s an honor system. There’s no real teeth in it, there’s no reasonable expectation that the cops are going to show up at your door,” said Mark Jones, senior policy adviser for the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence.
