Six months before a Saudi gunman opened fire at the Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida last week, the FBI warned about the loophole he used to obtain a gun.
In May, the FBI issued a report, titled “Federal Hunting License Exception Could Be Exploited by Extremists or Criminal Actors Seeking to Obtain Firearms for Violent Attacks,” warning “participating organizations” that receive briefings on relevant issues about the loophole, according to Yahoo News.
In it, the bureau encouraged businesses to be aware that “extremists and other criminal actors could exploit the federal statutory exception that allows non-immigrant visa holders” who normally cannot purchase firearms or ammunition to legally buy them “with a valid hunting license or permit.”
The warning also pointed out that foreign “terrorist organizations, including ISIS, have encouraged Westerners to exploit perceived gaps in gun laws to conduct mass casualty shooting attacks in their home countries,” and that those holding foreign national visa “could use this hunting license exception to obtain firearms to commit violence in the Homeland.”
21-year-old Mohammed Alshamrani, a second lieutenant in the Royal Saudi Air Force, killed three sailors and wounded eight more at Naval Air Station Pensacola, where he was training, on Friday before he was shot dead by police. He legally purchased the gun, a 9mm Glock model 45 handgun, through a hunting license loophole. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives later confirmed it was a “legal sale.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is now pushing to change exceptions that could allow someone such as Alshamrani to legally purchase firearms.
“That’s a federal loophole he took advantage of,” DeSantis said. “I’m a big supporter of the Second Amendment, but the Second Amendment is so that we the American people can keep and bear arms. It does not apply to Saudi Arabians … He had no constitutional right to do that, for sure.”
