Sutherland Springs, TX church shooting

The Texas Department of Public Safety now believes he was targeting his in-laws, and a spokesman says his anger at them is the only motive they've been able to discern.

Of course, this will change the right wing's narrative not in the slightest.

And just what "narrative" is that exactly?

California, Texas, and the other 48 states are required by Federal Law to use the same National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). It's run by the FBI and the BATFE. You fill out Form 4473 and it's manually called into a live human operator. The operator then compares the answers with what they have in the database. The operator then issues an approval number or a denial number, which is recorded on Form 4473 and must be maintained per BATFE regulations, or they can issue a hold for further clarification. For instance, I always face a hold when I'm buying a firearm because some Puerto Rican gun runner used a name and DOB similar to mine as an alias once so they have to go through some extra steps to make sure it's me and not him.

The problem is that NICS is only as good as the information that's fed into it. If he was prosecuted for Assault, and not Domestic Violence, then the USAF was under no obligation to report the DV conviction to the FBI or BATFE, so it wasn't in NICS. Without the DV conviction, he's not prohibited from possessing a firearm.

This is a case where the Federal authorities either failed to charge properly, for whatever reason, or failed to report if they did charge properly. Don't go blaming this on anything else because you'll simply be wrong.

I thought that was an orchestral ballet...

(I’m actually a big Stravinsky fan.)

How is it "ironic" ed629?

I don't throw around racist terms like Tererun has in the past.

For @Skrain Dukat and anyone else who wants to pretend this was a leftist you will probably find this guy is a right wing Texas boy despite being an atheist. It would seem the only reason he was not a church person was even they didn't want him considering he abused animals, dated the pastor's 13 year old daughter, cracked his own kid's skull, stalked said girlfriend, and could not make it in the air force. He does not seem to be a man bun wearing hipster pacifist, feminist, gay loving leftie. Remember large portions of the alt right have abandoned the church despite remaining right wing.

You mean you don’t know?

[looks left & right, then whispers] His ass is Heinrich Himmler, but his face is Elizabeth Warren.

"The Pentagon's Inspector General also launch an investigation to review the Air Force's handling of the records, according to spokesman Mark Wright"

Being retired military (including but not limited to four years Air Force active duty & two years AF ready reserve) I will translate spokesman Mart Wight's statement for you laymen:

"we aren't going to do jack shit. Not one finger will be lifted to cooperate beyond the most basic lip service, glad handing and tap dancing.
Our default excuse for our lack of honesty and transparency will be the standard privacy and operational security concerns that are totally beside the point.
Thank you - good luck & god-speed in your futile investigation into our inept administration procedures."

Reportedly this guys 14 year old sister in law was also among the dead.

Driving home this evening, which is an hour ling process, I was listening to the radio (AM640 out of L.A.) and they were saying the Air Force screwed up. Supposedly the charge he spent a year in jail on should have barred him from owning a gun, it was air force policy to report such charges to the FBI, but some how no one forwarded the right paperwork.

so a leg & a torso shot the shooter in addition to an armed citizen & the shooter himself. Interesting!

Yes. I posted a link to three hours ago.

Talk about a small world: I just found out that a friend of mine has been friends for a couple of decades with the civilian who shot the murderer.

Hearing about the 18 month old really hit me hard. I have a two year old daughter and the thought of someone shooting her just horrifies me. There should be a special place in hell for this guy.

See posts 58, 70, 147, and large chunks of Twitter.

You have to admit that's impressive. A leg at least has toes to work with, but for a torso to operate a trigger, you pretty much have to have a prehensile nipple thing going on.

You don't wanna know how a torso fires a gun.

Ah yes, another smiley to hide behind from Anna.

The charge he went to prison for a year for meant, under Federal law, he could not purchase a fire arm, period. The problem now seems someone in the Air Force did not forward that information to the FBI.

He also shot and killed his 14 year old sister in law who was at the church.

Dude, Anna didn't even respond to you. Look, she has unfairly called me a few nasty things but she is largely a good person. Try to confine yourself to what she has actually said.

It's what she doesn't say, uses neg rep instead that speaks volumes.

How to Stop Violence
Mentally ill people aren’t killers. Angry people are.

You go armed citizen!

Yet it is a failure and did not stop him. Not having a gun would have stopped him.

Yeah it did stop him. He came outside the church for some reason, met armed resistance and instead of going back into the church to finish the job he turned tail and ran.

So yes he was stopped.

It doesn't matter that the neighbor didn't kill him outright. It doesn't even matter if the idiot took his own life.

The fact remains that the neighbor prevented anymore deaths.

It is a ballet, but these days it's mainly played as an orchestral suite.