talks aimed at curbing iran s nuclear program. developing now, the fbi is investigating what some say is a stunning failure that allowed the charleston church shooter to buy a gun and kill nine people. it s ordered a 30-day review but this after the fbi director acknowledged that accused shooter dylann roof was able to get the .45 caliber handgun allegedly used in that massacre because of deadly mistakes who should have been a routine background check. let s go to our national correspondent sunlen serfaty to sort this you. reporter: this is a krax what the fbi has said previously in the past that the background check on dylann roof was done properly. now the fbi director revealing this bombshell of an error on their part. a mistake he says makes them all sick that it happened. reporter: the man who confessed to gunning down nine people inside a south carolina church should never have been
able to buy the 45 caliber gun used in the slaughter. that admission coming from fbi director james comy who told reporters his bureau made a mistake during dylann roof s background check and he says that rips all of our hearts out. according to law enforcement days after the shooting agents on the ground new something was amiss and suspected that roof s arrest record should have prohibited the gun purchase. it just shows how a bureaucratic mistake can cost human life. reporter: they didn t discover roof had previously admitted to illegally possessing drugs when he was arrested in late february. that information would have prevented roof from passing the background check. there s a regulation that says if he was a drug user, he shouldn t have got a gun and there was a abundant information for the fbi to have had that information. had they had it, no gun sale and possibly no shooting here.
reporter: the director says the fbi examiner failed to make contact with the columbia, south carolina, police department which arrested roof on that felony drug charge, in part, because of a clerical error that listed the wrong police department in the online court system. after three days of waiting for the background check, the south carolina department gun shop used his discretion to sell roof the gun even though his status was still tending. grassley stayed in a statement, quote, it s disastrous that this bureaucratic mistake prevented existing laws from working and blocking an illegal gun sale. but one of the victim s family had the following. i was surprised they weren t very thorough, but i know people make mistakes. reporter: fbi officials met with some of the families of the victims this week to try to explain to them in person the