ISIS sympathizer Omar Mateen purchased the weapons he used in his rampage from a Florida gun shop owned by a retired NYPD detective.
“An evil person came in here and legally purchased two firearms from us,” said ex-cop Edward Henson, who owns the St. Lucie Shooting Center in Port St. Lucie, on Monday.
“If he hadn’t purchased them from us, I’m sure he would have gotten them from another local gun store in the area,” Henson said of Mateen, who killed 49 people at a gay club in Orlando on Sunday.
Mateen recently bought the two guns — a Sig Sauer MCX rifle and a Glock 17 pistol — about a week a part, according to Henson and law-enforcement sources.
Henson said the killer held “multiple security licenses” and passed a required background check.
When asked about Henson allegedly asking to buy military-grade armor, Henson said, “We’ve never sold body armor, and we don’t currently sell body armor.
Henson closed up his shop Monday so that ATF officials could conduct an annual compliance review, he said.
“We just found out that we are in full compliance with all the ATF rules and regulations,” he told reporters.
Henson has been outspoken about gun rights in the past, telling NBC News in 2012 that guns make people safer.
“If you have educated people, well-trained people with a firearm, it may eliminate some of these bad guys,” he said.
Henson boasts about his time as a city cop on his shop’s Web site, noting that he “has 20 years of combined service with the New York City Housing Authority Police and the NYPD, and was
assigned to the Detective Bureau for 16 of those 20 years.
A law-enforcement source said Henson is known to be a “clean dealer.” But a federal source said that isn’t always the case in Florida, calling the state “an all-access pass to the terror essentials: assault weapons and more.
“You don’t need any background check to get he gun so long as you have some cash,” the source said, noting that Florida gun permits are given out by the Department of Agriculture.
Meanwhile, Democrats responded to the Sunday morning bloodbath by calling for stricter gun laws, especially for those with suspected ties to terrorism.
“The one thing that is very, very concerning is that Mr. Mateen was able to buy two weapons in early June even though he posed a threat, a terrorist threat, a potential terrorist threat to the
United States,” New York Sen. Charles Schumer said during a press conference.
“There is legislation that we have proposed, led by Senator Feinstein that says if you are on a terrorist watchlist, if you are a no-fly list, or if the FBI believes you might be a terrorist
threat if you had a gun, that you cannot purchase a gun.”
Additional reporting by Daniel Halper
Here’s why Mateen was able to buy a gun, even though he was a known Islamic extremist: