The ex-convict accused of shooting at the White House was stopped from buying a pistol a month earlier when a gun dealer ran a background check on him.
No such check was required when he bought the rifle he allegedly used at the White House."The law did what it was intended to do in terms of preventing Francisco Duran from purchasing a handgun on Sept. 30," said Jim Borowski, head of the state bureau of investigation's crime information center.
The bureau runs checks on prospective handgun buyers in compliance with the Brady handgun control law passed in February.
The owner of High Country Wholesale Firearms, James Wear, said Wednesday that Duran tried to buy the pistol Sept. 30, about two weeks after buying the semiautomatic rifle seized in the Oct. 29 incident at the White House.
On his handgun application, as on his earlier application to buy a rifle, Duran did not mention his assault conviction, Wear said.