Online gun sales exploit major loophole in background checks

Federal law barred Jody Lee Hunt from ever owning a gun. But when he wanted to buy one, it wasn’t hard: He found a seller on Facebook.

Hunt was a felon who had spent time in prison for abducting a girlfriend. But in 2014, he used the handgun he found online to kill his ex-girlfriend, a rival business owner, two others and himself in West Virginia.

Millions of people in the U.S. are prohibited from owning firearms under federal law. They include felons like Hunt as well as fugitives, people adjudicated to be mentally ill, those dishonorably discharged from the military, and also convicted domestic abusers or others subject to domestic violence restraining orders.

But federal gun laws contain a major loophole: Transactions between private sellers and buyers do not require a background check.

The result: About 1 in 5 gun buys is conducted with no background check, according to Brady, a gun violence prevention group.