as I mentioned before, the FBI may very well be the reason behind all of this.
it looks like he may have gotten weapons training from them...
anyway, I do not believe BGC's should even exist. they do not work. private property should be just that, private, and not regulated in any way.
lets take this Orlando situation a little further and assume the BGC stopped him from purchasing THAT rifle, at that time.
he is intent on MURDER, do you really think he will just change his mind, because hes unable to purchase that rifle LEGALLY? people like that will get whatever weapon they want, by whatever means necessary. a silly background check will not stop them.
I don't disagree with you that they don't seem to work. But they COULD, if utilized properly. If all they say for the clerk is 'proceed, deny, delay', then yeah, they're pretty pointless. Especially if being investigated TWICE for terrorism is not even enough to get you on the 'delay' list. Regardless of if the FBI 'trained him' or not.
But IF they had a semi-detailed readout for the clerk to make a personalized informed decision, that could change A LOT. If it said 'proceed', but continued to list anything that could possibly be an issue (although not enough for the automated BGC to flag a 'deny') the clerk could make an educated decision and exercise his own right to deny service.
As I stated, this is already expected of 16 year olds working part time at your local gas station/ grocery store selling alcohol. Make educated guesses based on visual cues and instinct. That 16 year old could very well save several lives by denying service, even if the guy is 45 with a valid ID and 'technically legit'.
So IF the BGC said 'Proceed', but ALSO said '2 ongoing FBI investigations in relation to suspected terrorism', things might have been very different. He may have been denied service.
The links I posted earlier said that the initial store that denied service tried to get the FBI involved, but the FBI took their sweet time and by then the security tapes had been written over so they had no proof.
Sure, he probably would have eventually gotten the guns elsewhere (illegally), but if he's flagged several stores all over town with 'denial of service' and the FBI would have actually listened on time to the initial store's alert call, he could have been nabbed and jailed before anything happened.
If you have a police officer who goes rogue, he's taken as a threat. An FBI weapons trained 'agent' who goes rogue should be taken as a very serious threat. If there are reports that he's attempted to purchase assault armor and massive quantities of ammunition and that he's acting in an irrational and scary manner, that should be taken very seriously and acted on very quickly. The simple fact that they trained him (if that is true) means that they know what he's capable of, and that they should take him all that much more seriously.
Agreed, though, BGCs don't work well if being a known mother ****ing terrorist ISN'T reason enough to deny a gun purchase. It looks like the FBI and their system(s) are the main failures here. They need to take these kinds of threats seriously, and the 'statute of qualifications' for BGCs needs to be rethought.