Retraction: Aaron Alexis Wasn't Blocked by State Law Forbidding Sale of AR-15
When I linked that NYT piece I wondered if they were going for the spin that Serious You Guys gun laws prevented an AR-15 from getting into this guy's hands.

Well, it turns out they sort of just made up the predicate fact in the first place. Out-of-state buyers can buy an AR-15 (they need additional forms of ID but there is no ban on it) and Aaron Alexis, having never been formally dinged by the system, passed a background check.

Apparently he just didn't want an AR-15....

Gun Control’s Dead End
...Indeed, in preparing for his spree, Aaron Alexis quite literally followed Joe Biden’s advice: He went out and bought an uncontroversial shotgun from a reputable, licensed dealer and subjected himself successfully to a federal background check. So routine was this purchase, it should be noted, that it could have been made legally in England or in France....

...None of the usual political language applies here. Alexis, who killed twelve people, did not buy a weapon “from a friend” or “over the Internet” or in the “parking lot of a gun show”; he did not have a “high capacity” magazine from which to “spray” bullets around; he did not buy a “military style” “assault weapon” — nor even use one; he did not deploy “armor-piercing bullets.” Instead, he bought a shotgun, which almost nobody is openly suggesting should be banned or controlled. Politicians and public figures who call for new laws in the wake of this shooting will thus need nailing to the wall with a simple and reliable question: “What exactly do you propose doing, and how specifically would it have changed what happened at the Navy Yard?” When I have asked this question of non-journalists on Twitter, I have received a common — refreshingly honest — answer: “A gun ban.”...