More info on Texas shooter Devin P. Kelley

Police walk near the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. New York Times

More information has been released on Texas shooter Devin P. Kelley. New York Times. In 2012, Kelley was charged and convicted for assault. Kelley was abusive to his first wife and hit his stepson so hard that he fractured his skull. The conviction for assault and his discharge should have been enough to keep him from owning firearms, but the Air Force did not pass on this information to the FBI. Kelley was also abusive to animals and was charged and pleaded guilty to an animal cruelty charge after he hit a puppy in the head several times. Kelley's personal beliefs also estranged him from his friends. He was a radical atheist to the point where his friends were driven away. It is unclear of those beliefs contributed to the plot and cops think that it might have been due to a domestic dispute with his 2nd wife. 

My Comment:

There has been some other information released as well. It seems as though Kelley actually did commit suicide. But it has also been revealed that he was shot three times and only the last fatal shot to the head was done by him. He had also been hit in the chest and leg by the civilian who shot back. My guess is that he knew that he wasn't going to escape and may have been dying anyways, so he took the easy way out. 

The men that stopped Kelley, Stephen Willford and Johnnie Langendorff, had done media interviews. I posted the interview with Langendorff on my last post, but the New York Daily News has more information about Willford. Wilford is a plumber, a former NRA instructor, and a damn hero, along with Langendorff, who helped chase down Kelley after he fled. Had those two heroes not been there, the already sickening death toll would have been even higher. They represent the best of what America and Texas has to offer. 

The most disturbing revelation is that Kelley was able to purchase firearms. Though I am obviously in favor of law abiding citizens buying whatever guns they want, the fact of the matter was that Kelley was not law abiding. His assault conviction and subsequent bad conduct discharge should have completely forbidden him from owning firearms. Felony convictions for domestic attacks are supposed to keep you from buying firearms. That's not controversial at all.

But somehow he was able to. Why? Because the Air Force never bothered to inform the NICS. Kelley's conviction was never put into the system. So when Kelley purchased guns, he wasn't stopped. Once again, a mass shooter passed a background check. For once though, it might have helped things, but he still probably would have been able to get guns or used a different method of attack if he had failed his background checks like he should have. 

I am hoping that there are some consequences for the Air Force. Someone screwed up here and screwed up badly. Either someone didn't do their job or their is a problem with the NICS system when it comes to military convictions. Either way someone's head should roll for this and steps should be taken to prevent this from happening again. I have little faith in the background check system anyways, but we also shouldn't tolerate it when it fails because of incompetence. 

As far as the motive, we have a lot more clues about Kelley's motive than we do for the Las Vegas shooter, Stephen Paddock. Local officials have been saying that the motive might be domestic in nature since his estranged wife went to that church. She wasn't there at the time, but she might have been the target of the attack. 

Kelley's radical atheism is a possible motive as well. My pet theory is that the church was, quite wisely, trying to get his estranged wife to stay away from Kelley and, as a radical atheist, Kelley did not like that at all. He may have been striking back at a religion he blamed for his marriage falling apart. Since he already hated religion it probably wasn't a long trip to thinking they deserved to die. This is just my pet theory, but I would be very surprised that Kelley's radical atheism didn't at least contribute to this attack.