U.S. & World News

MADISON, Wis. (CBS News) ― The owner of a Green Bay-based Internet gun store told The Associated Press on Thursday that one of the weapons used in the Virginia Tech shooting was purchased from his Web site.

A Walther .22-caliber handgun picked up by Cho Seung-Hui at a Virginia pawnbroker was purchased from the Green Bay-based Web site www.thegunsource.com, the store's owner Eric Thompson said.

"I just feel absolutely terrible that this tragedy even happened in the first place," Thompson told the AP on Thursday. "I have three children in the first place, and it's just an absolute tragedy."

Cho bought the pistol with a credit card for $267 on Feb. 2 and picked it up one week later, as CBS News previously reported, at JND Pawnbrokers in near the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, VA.

Thompson said he had no idea his business was involved with the shooting until he was contacted Tuesday by telephone by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He was interviewed in person by ATF agents on Wednesday, he said.

Sherry Duval, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives regional office in St. Paul, Minn., said she couldn't comment on the gun. Federal law prohibits the ATF from sharing information on gun traces with anyone other than the law enforcement agencies requesting them, she said.

Cho is believed to have killed 32 people in Monday's attack on the Virginia Tech campus before he committed suicide.

"It quite possibly is the worst nightmare," Thompson said. "We follow all laws and regulations to make certain these things don't happen. It's unfortunate a madman like that can do something like this."

Joe Dowdy, owner of the Blacksburg, Va., store where Cho picked up the gun, JND Pawnbrokers, has said it was purchased from an out-of-state dealer.

Thompson said Cho bought the gun with his credit card. He bought nothing else and had not previously been a customer, Thompson said. The gun, listed as a top seller on the site, was in stock, Thompson said.

Cho requested that it be mailed to the Virginia pawn shop.

"It's the customer's responsibility to let us know where they want the gun shipped because typically the receiving dealer has to do some paperwork," Thompson said.

Once the required paperwork was completed, the gun was mailed from Green Bay to Virginia on Feb. 5, Thompson said. Records show it arrived Feb. 8, and Dowdy said Cho picked it up Feb. 9 at the store located just off the Virginia Tech campus.

Virginia State Police have insisted that the purchases of the Walter and the other weapon, a a Glock 19 9mm handgun, were legal. Cho bought the second gun from a Roanoke gun store in March.

Cho was required to fill out a form from the ATF to acquire the weapons.

He sent two e-mails the day he made the purchase from the Internet-only business, Thompson said. Cho bought the gun at 1:41 p.m., then sent an e-mail an hour later saying he wanted to be sure the dealer faxed a copy of its license to the seller and did not mail it, Thompson said.

"To my understanding, he wanted the gun rather quickly," Thompson said.

His records do not show when Cho decided what store he wanted the gun mailed to, but Thompson said he assumes it was selected at the time of purchase.

In the second e-mail, sent at 8:52 p.m. that day, Cho asked what year the gun had been assembled. Such inquiries are common, Thompson said.

That was the last communication he had with Cho.

Duval said dealers and hand gun purchasers have to be in the same state, but two gun companies in different states that hold federal firearms licenses can transfer guns.

Both dealers have federal firearms licenses, she said.

Thompson, 34, started his business, TGSCOM Inc., in 1999. About 30 percent of his sales is firearms, with accessories accounting for the rest, he said.

Despite his connection to the most violent shooting rampage in U.S. history, Thompson said he does not intend to get out of the handgun business.

"There's so many laws on the books right now, all we can do is follow the laws and make sure we comply with all states and federal regulations to try and make sure things like this never happen," Thompson said. "This madman just happened to chose this type of a weapon right now. My heart goes out to the victims and their families."

Thompson's Web site linked Thursday to a site where donations could be made for the victims' families. Thompson said he has donated, but declined to say how much.

More than a month after securing the first gun, Cho bought his 9-mm Glock semi-automatic pistol in person at Roanoke Firearms, paying $571 with a credit card. Virginia state law limits handgun purchases to one every 30 days.

In both instances, Cho passed a federally-mandated background check conducted for Virginia gun dealers by the state police. Cho filled out paperwork for the instant check for the Walther at the Blacksburg pawn shop, waiting only ten minutes to be cleared, according to the shop's owner.

On Thursday, the Brady Center To Prevent Gun Violence charged that given Cho's history of mental illness and existing federal law, neither of the weapons should have made it into his hands.

"If the current law on the books had been effectively administered and followed, this individual would not have been able to guy these guns," said Paul Hemke, the center's' president.

The only evaluation among the Cho court papers declared the college student depressed but not suicidal. "His insight and judgment are normal," wrote Dr. Ray Crowe, who concluded 16 months ago Cho was not a danger to himself or others and did not require hospitalization.

Virginia State Police said consequently Cho was not prohibited from buying a gun, according to state laws, because he was never committed to a mental health facility.

The Brady Center suggested the 2005 court judgment should have blocked Cho from ever owning a gun, because federal law prohibits the selling a gun to anyone who has been adjudicated "mental defective" or ever involuntary committed to a mental institution.

"Somebody in the Virginia apparatus made a mistake in interpreting federal law and with tragic consequences," said Brady's legal director, Dennis Henigan.

The FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) manual states in all caps: "ONCE A PERSON IS DISQUALIFIED ... HE/SHE IS PROHIBITED FOR LIFE!"

The FBI seemed to defend the Virginia Thursday describing it as "the leading state in reporting mental defective entries for the NICS index," having submitted more than 80,000 mental health records since the database's launch in 1998. Currently only 22 states submit mental health records to NICS.

Legislation being prepared by New York Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy would require all states to track individuals with mental adjudication records and disqualify them from owning guns. McCarthy's husband was killed and her son seriously wounded in a mass shooting on a Long Island commuter train.

(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)