Suspect in fatal shooting was barred from owning guns — here‘s how he might have gotten one

[MUSIC PLAYING] CATHY WURZER: Our top story, we are continuing to learn more about what led to the fatal shooting of those three first responders in Burnsville over the weekend and the injury of another. Court records show the suspect, Shannon Gooden, had been legally barred from owning guns since he was convicted of felony assault in 2008. In 2020, he asked a judge to reinstate his right to have guns, but that petition was denied.

Minnesota ranks in the top third of states according to the strength of its gun laws. That's according to the gun control advocacy group, Everytown for Gun Safety. Now we still don't know how Gooden would have acquired the gun that police say he used in Sunday's shooting. Jennifer Mascia is a senior news writer and founding staff member of The Trace, which is a nonprofit news outlet focused on gun violence in this country. Jennifer, welcome to the program.

JENNIFER MASCIA: Thanks for having me. I'm sorry, it's under these circumstances.

CATHY WURZER: Yes, absolutely. It's possible that one part of this investigation could be how Gooden acquired the gun that he's believed to have used Sunday, given this lifetime ban he was under. What are the ways that people who are legally blocked from gun ownership still get them?

JENNIFER MASCIA: So even in a state like Minnesota, which does have some pretty strong gun laws, it's important to remember, every gun in the wrong hands starts off as a legal sale. So gun companies ship guns to wholesalers, who then ship them to federally licensed dealers, who sell them to the public. Only federally licensed dealers are required to run background checks. So under-- and that's under federal law.

But individual gun owners are not required to run background checks. So one of the primary ways that guns end up in the wrong hands is private sales, because you're only penalized for it if you get caught. So he could have bought a gun from a neighbor at a yard sale, via someone he met online, sites like Armslist, classified listing sites. None of them are legally required to run background checks.

Another way is theft. Thousands upon thousands of guns are stolen every year, many of them from unlocked cars. Only 13 states require gun owners to report stolen guns. And Minnesota, unfortunately, is not one of them. And the third way is straw purchasing, when someone walks into a gun store knowing that they're buying a gun for someone who's not allowed to own them. So there is a lot of holes in our laws. And there's a lot of leakage into the black market from those holes.

CATHY WURZER: I'm also wondering, some people could also lie about their prohibited status, right? How easy is it to slip through the cracks if the background check process fails to flag them?

JENNIFER MASCIA: Usually, the background check process is pretty good. But there's a lot of things that a background check doesn't check for. And it doesn't check for-- well, it doesn't check your social media pages. If you have far-right extremist views and you're spouting violence, it's not enough to fail you if you get a background check. If you've been involuntarily committed to a mental health facility, you're banned from guns but not if you voluntarily committed yourself. So that's another hole in our laws. And there's several instances like that.

CATHY WURZER: What are states and the federal government doing to try to close some of these gaps that you mentioned?

JENNIFER MASCIA: So in terms of straw purchasing, and this was a big development. In 2022, the bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which was the first federal gun reform law to pass in nearly 30 years, it actually created offenses for gun trafficking and straw purchasing. There-- before that, there were no federal crimes specifically for that. And in the first year, a hundred people alone were arrested for those offenses.

And in terms of ghost guns, which is another way that somebody can get guns without a background check, those are privately made firearms from 3D printing machines or guns with serial numbers scraped off, an executive order in 2021, President Biden directed the Department of Justice to issue regulations. They did. And they took effect last August. Ghost gun kits, which are parts of a ghost gun that can be assembled into a gun without a serial number, are required now to have serial numbers. And in addition, 13 states and DC have passed laws that regulate some aspect of this.

So what we have is a patchwork. We're trying to get at the problem. But unless there's comprehensive federal legislation on a lot of this, it's hard to enforce. And you can go to states with weak gun laws and get guns without background checks very easily as we've seen.

CATHY WURZER: So I wonder, in the past, we've done stories here in Minnesota. Various local law enforcement agencies have held gun buyback programs. Does that do anything to tamp down on some of the illegal guns out there? Are they effective.

JENNIFER MASCIA: Gun buyback programs are usually-- I mean, I know there are no questions asked. They're usually well-meaning legal gun owners who do everything by the book and they-- or their guns that are no longer operational. We're talking a couple of a hundred, maybe a thousand guns at a decently attended buyback. There are 450 million guns that have been produced in this country since 1899. And some estimates from the gun industry say that we have 475 million that are still in circulation.

That's a lot of guns. And this is what happens when you try to regulate guns. When there are already so many out there, you're going to have a lot of porous areas where guns can slip through.

CATHY WURZER: So circling back to some of the things that-- some of the laws already out there, I mean, European countries have mechanisms, where authorities can keep tabs on gun owners. We don't. And I know that's kind of distasteful to a lot of Americans who are in favor of gun rights. I'm wondering, how do we determine whether some of these interventions are working?

JENNIFER MASCIA: Well, there is-- I know in Europe, you have a system where-- and this is foreign to a lot of Americans. We're not used to-- you issue a license for a gun. And the authorities do keep tabs on gun owners. They will visit your home in some countries to make sure that you're properly securing your guns.

Here if-- even in the states that have the strongest laws, like California, and again Minnesota has very strong laws, you only have to renew a permit to own or carry every few years. It's not you check in every year, the authorities make sure that you're still mentally stable or you're not in crisis or you haven't sold that gun.

One way that states can combat some of this is through Red Flag laws. And Minnesota does have one of those, too, where a police officer or a family member can petition a judge to temporarily remove firearms if someone's in crisis. It is not a criminal action, it's a civil procedure. It does not prevent you from owning guns in the future. It's just a temporary fix to get past a crisis.

However, it's only as good as its enforcement. It depends on education of law enforcement and of the public to tell the public what they can do, what tools they have.

CATHY WURZER: Right. And in this particular-- and of course, we should say Minnesota's new Red Flag law just recently went into effect. It wouldn't necessarily apply here to this case, because this person was already barred from legal gun ownership, but I suppose maybe his partner could have seen he had guns and possibly alerted authorities. I mean, who knows, right?

So by the way, are these Red flag laws effective in preventing intimate partner homicides? What do you-- what do we know about that? Just curious.

JENNIFER MASCIA: They are. A lot of-- we see domestic murder suicides, an average of two a day in this country. And they're almost all gun-related those are suicides and those murder suicides. So researchers have found that Red Flag laws are actually effective at reducing suicide. So it might address.

And domestic violence, homicide with a gun or assault is an impulsive act. It's very easy to kill someone with a gun. And in a heated moment, people are reaching for guns. And this happens during arguments with friends as well. Things that should be fistfights are now shootouts. And so the Red Flag law can, when someone is in crisis and suicidal, can also be useful at preventing some domestic homicides.

CATHY WURZER: Because you cover gun violence in this country as a reporter, what will you be looking for when it comes to this Minnesota case here in the next weeks and months to come?

JENNIFER MASCIA: I'm very curious how he got this gun. I'm curious if it was a gap in the system, which, again, Minnesota has some pretty strong gun laws, so it might not be that. It could be, did he get a gun from out of state? Did a friend give him a gun? What is the policy that could have prevented this or addressed this? And did Minnesota authorities or did anybody fail? Where was the misstep? And if there wasn't a misstep, where's the hole in the system where better policies can address this.

I'm really going to be curious. And it all comes back to how did this person get the guns. And I think a lot of Americans don't realize how weak our gun access is in this country.

CATHY WURZER: "I appreciate your time, Jennifer. Thank you so much.

JENNIFER MASCIA: Thank you for having me.

CATHY WURZER: Jennifer Mascia is a senior news writer, also founding staff member of the nonprofit news outlet, The Trace, which covers gun violence in this country.