Benjamin Nathaniel Smith bought the guns he used in his racist shooting spree from an illegal street dealer after he was turned away by a gun shop that did the required background check, this according to investigators yesterday. The background check showed that an ex-girlfriend of Smith’s had taken out a protective order against him because of abuse. Gun control activists said the case demonstrates the inadequacy of the nation’s gun laws, while the gun lobby said the problem is law enforcement. Smith was killed during a struggle with police Sunday night after a series of drive-by shootings of Jews, Blacks and Asians in Illinois and Indiana that left two people dead and nine wounded. A year ago, Smith was made a brother of the World Church of the Creator, an avowedly white supremacist group based in East Peoria, Illinois. Its leader, Matt Hale, has been denied a law license by the Illinois Bar because of his racist preachings. Smith apparently found acceptance in the group, whose members greet each other with the acronym, RaHoWa, which stands for “racial holy war.” Smith’s habit of littering the Indiana University campus in Bloomington with racist leaflets had become notorious at the school of about 30,000 students which Smith attended in 1998 before dropping out. He had been a criminal justice major.