Authorities in Illinois say they are investigating how this mass shooter slipped through the cracks — a rather cruel euphemism considering the tragic outcome. But the events should serve as yet another reminder of the weaknesses of U.S. gun laws and the too-often-shoddy way they are enforced.

“Some disgruntled person walked in and had access to a firearm that he shouldn’t have had access to” was the account of the Aurora, Ill., police chief following Gary Martin’s rampage after he was told he was being fired. Mr. Martin’s conviction in Mississippi for assaulting his girlfriend should have prevented him from receiving clearance in 2014 to buy a gun. The record was overlooked. Then, five days after Mr. Martin applied for a concealed carry permit, his conviction was discovered and his Firearms Owner’s Identification Card was revoked. While Illinois law allows authorities to confiscate guns from people suspected of illegally owning guns, nothing was done. For five years.

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This is not the first time that poor enforcement of existing gun laws has resulted in tragedy. The man who killed 26 people at a Texas church in 2017 passed a background check despite a military conviction for domestic violence. The killer of nine people at a historic black church in South Carolina in 2015 was able to buy a weapon because a paperwork error and a delayed background check didn’t result in timely disclosure of a disqualifying drug arrest. And the man who last year killed four people at a Waffle House in Tennessee used an assault weapon that had been seized by police after he was arrested near the White House; police gave the gun to his father for safekeeping, and he returned it to his son.

The number of people barred from owning guns but who own them anyway may reach into the millions, according to a report by the New York Times that detailed the failings of the current system. Only eight states have laws requiring people barred from gun ownership to actually give them up, and some of them merely allow but do not require police to seek a court order for confiscation. Having a law but not enforcing it makes no sense — especially when the lives of innocent Americans are at stake.