FBI chief says Roof shouldn't have been able to buy gun

In an extraordinary acknowledgement of cascading bureaucratic failures, FBI Director James Comey said Friday that Dylann Roof should not have been able to purchase the gun police say he used in the June 17 Charleston, S.C., massacre.

Comey said an arrest record detailing Roof's March 1 drug arrest by the Columbia, S.C., Police Department was not included in materials reviewed by the FBI's National Instant Check System, which performs criminal background investigations on gun purchasers in 30 states. The contents of the record, the FBI director said, would have prohibited...