Roxborough shooter bought the ammo despite his felony record— and state law allowed it

Yaaseen Bivins walked right into a South Philadelphia gun store final month with a wad of money and a mission to purchase bullets.

Bivins, 21, requested an worker of Philadelphia Training Academy for 2 containers, or 100 rounds, of .40-caliber ammunition and a velocity loader, a tool that attaches to a gun to make it load and hearth quicker, in response to court docket information.

Because Bivins is a felon, it’s unlawful for him to purchase ammunition. But Pennsylvania doesn’t regulate the sale or buy of bullets. Unlike in the buy of firearms, background checks will not be required for individuals to purchase ammunition. There isn’t any system in place to stop prohibited patrons from doing so.

So Bivins paid $132.84 in money and walked out of the gun store, bullets in hand, and drove off.

Four days later, police mentioned, Bivins loaded these bullets right into a gun, and, alongside 4 others, opened hearth on a bunch of youngsters heading to their highschool locker room after a soccer scrimmage. Nicolas Elizalde, 14, was killed. Four different teenagers had been injured, together with a 17-year-old who was shot 9 instances.

Bivins was charged with homicide and associated crimes this week after police recovered the receipt from the ammunition buy in a automobile linked to the capturing. Bivins additionally faces federal fees of possession of ammunition by a felon after an investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

» READ MORE: Nicolas Elizalde, 14, laid to relaxation with a kindness he wasn’t afforded in demise

The capturing exterior Roxborough High upended the group, and left residents and metropolis and state leaders asking the place, if not in school and sporting occasions, the metropolis’s youngsters might be secure.

And the new particulars of how police related Bivins to the crime, outlined in federal court docket paperwork filed this week, has dropped at gentle how simple it will be for a felon to purchase bullets.

“When a convicted felon can walk into a ‘reputable gun shop’ and buy ammunition and go kill somebody, there’s something wrong with that setup,” Mayor Jim Kenney mentioned Wednesday, calling this the newest instance of Pennsylvania’s “wide-open” gun legal guidelines, which he says are failing Philadelphians.

The proprietor of Philadelphia Training Academy couldn’t be reached for remark.

The store did nothing unlawful by making the sale. Pennsylvania doesn’t regulate ammunition sale, and it’s not an outlier on this. There isn’t any federal law that requires a background verify to purchase ammo, and solely a small group of states — California, New Jersey, Illinois, New York, and Connecticut — have legal guidelines that require it.

In truth, it’s a comparatively new problem being checked out by legislators, mentioned Christian Heyne, vice chairman of coverage for Brady, a gun-control group.

“We’re seeing more and more states start to ask the same questions,” Heyne mentioned. “It’s a gap.”

“We should be running background checks on ammunition, to give one more opportunity to prevent a shooting,” he mentioned.

He known as it a “new and important policy” that might be “the future of gun violence prevention policies and public safety models.”

Last 12 months, Pennsylvania State Rep. Brian Sims, a Philadelphia Democrat, launched a invoice that will have required background checks for ammunition purchases the identical means most firearms require them. But as soon as the invoice was referred to the Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee, it was by no means dropped at a vote and died.

There have been unsuccessful efforts to control ammunition gross sales on the nationwide degree as nicely. The Ammunition Background Check Act, in any other case generally known as Jaime’s Law — in reminiscence of Jaime Guttenberg, one among the 17 victims in the 2018 capturing at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida — handed the House final 12 months however has languished in the Senate.

Gun-rights advocates oppose the law, saying it limits the rights of law-abiding gun homeowners and wouldn’t cease criminals.

“The fallacy is that the criminals will somehow obey the law. It’s not going to work,” mentioned Val Finnell, Pennsylvania director for Gun Owners of America. “They will always find a way to circumvent it. The only people in the end it affects is law-abiding citizens.”

Finnell mentioned any invoice in Pennsylvania that proposes background checks on ammunition or in any other case limits firearms “will not see the light of day.”

“We will fight them until they’re defeated,” he mentioned. “Every step of the way. No compromise.”

Heyne, of the Brady group, mentioned, “That’s not how we create laws in this country.

“Just because somebody can drive drunk,” he mentioned, “doesn’t excuse our legislature from passing laws that give law enforcement the ability to fight back and ensure those individuals are penalized, and that we are dissuading others from getting behind the wheel while intoxicated.”

Amy Hunter, spokesperson for the National Rifle Association, questioned why, after Bivins was convicted of a felony two years in the past, he was “freely roaming the streets of Philadelphia to commit more violent crimes.”

“If the laws were properly enforced on criminals, the likelihood of incidents like this occurring would be greatly diminished,” she mentioned in a press release.

Bivins was convicted of aggravated assault, unlawful racing, and inflicting a vehicular demise whereas unlicensed after he struck a pregnant lady, killing her unborn baby, whereas driving drunk and road racing in 2020. But that crime didn’t stop him from buying the means to commit one other, court docket information present.

He now stands accused of homicide. This week, police additionally arrested Zyhied Jones, 17. Two different teenagers police say performed a job in the capturing — Dayron Burney-Thorne, 16, and Troy Fletcher, 15 — stay fugitives.

Police say the shooters ambushed the 5 teenagers as they walked to their locker room after a scrimmage. They fled in a light-weight inexperienced Ford Explorer. The subsequent day, police discovered that automobile — which had been carjacked in July in Chester — deserted in Southwest Philadelphia.

Detectives used surveillance video to piece collectively the actions of the shooters earlier than the crime. They discovered that about an hour earlier than the capturing, 5 males drove to North Philadelphia in a Chevy Impala, then obtained into the Ford Explorer and headed to Roxborough.

When police recovered the Impala, they discovered two crumpled-up receipts from the Philadelphia Training Academy inside. Bivins’ title was printed clearly at the prime.