Here we go again... (Texas church mass shooting)

[slingshot]

Age range was 18 months to 77 years old according to the news conference just now.  Guess the pregnant woman's child didn't count.  Just had to say it.

I was impressed with the news conference today.  They kept to the point and ended it when they were ready without a lot of questions.

[KD5NRH]

Age range was 18 months to 77 years old according to the news conference just now.  Guess the pregnant woman's child didn't count.  Just had to say it.

Which is interesting since that makes for another capital murder in TX.  (any child under 6, including unborn)

Not that it really matters, since it's a little late to convict now.

One station now saying the mother in law had received threatening texts.  Too bad nobody followed up, noticed the guy posting gun pics on FB and realized that alone was enough to lock him up for years.  The whole thing could have been prevented.

[Hawkmoon]

Check the layout of the sanctuary on their YouTube channel; it's such a tactical nightmare you'd have to be insanely fast and accurate to have much of a chance with a handgun against a rifle coming in from behind you with no cover, little concealment and nowhere to run to.

He walked up the main aisle and then shot his way back out. I don't care how good he was -- in a room with 50 people in it, seated on two sides of a main aisle so you're always flanked, if there had been even two people there with handguns they would have had a chance to stop him.

[slingshot]

This is true IF you are carrying a firearm unless you're one of the first to get executed.  I don't carry in church even if I'm allowed to.

[agricola]

Right now the MSM is leaning toward "self-inflicted" for the killing wound. I will be really curious as to what the investigation finally shows, because that will really change the narrative one way or the other on the "gun control" narrative. Also I wonder if there could be more than one wound, possibly hit by the citizen, then killed himself later.

I wonder how many people might shoot themselves in the head while driving versus stopping (or crashing) first and then doing so because they figure they have no escape. Not that the shooter was rational, but a rational person, I think, wouldn't consider shooting themselves while they're moving and possibly have a chance for escape. That's usually a, "no place else to go" thing.

You can't underestimate the impact of him realizing exactly what it is he has actually done when discussing this bloke shooting himself in the head.  

[T.O.M.]

Interesting crap heard around here...very lib reporter in the hallway of the courthouse.  Spouting about how this country has been at war for 15 years, with hundreds of soldiers coming back.  IN her words, many of those soldiers probably found that they liked killing, and never lost the taste for it.  So, again her words, we should prohibit veterans from owning firearms unless they get an approved psychological evaluation.

 

Oh, and I'm hearing pure speculation, with no known basis, that the "good guy with a gun" executed the shooter in his car.  Therefore, no "good guy" with a gun here.

 

[Ben]

You can't underestimate the impact of him realizing exactly what it is he has actually done when discussing this bloke shooting himself in the head.  

True enough. It's always possible that some semblance of sanity and, "What have I done?" may have poked through long enough for him to end himself.

[KD5NRH]

He walked up the main aisle and then shot his way back out. I don't care how good he was -- in a room with 50 people in it, seated on two sides of a main aisle so you're always flanked, if there had been even two people there with handguns they would have had a chance to stop him.

Haven't seen anything showing his path inside the sanctuary, but it's all visible from the door, and the back of any church pew I've ever sat in would do nothing against rifle rounds; sweeping the room from the doorway would be all that's needed to wipe out the entire room.



That's a fairly small room; wading into the middle would only make sense as a mop up tactic after anyone still upright was taken out.

[KD5NRH]

Interesting crap heard around here...very lib reporter in the hallway of the courthouse.  Spouting about how this country has been at war for 15 years, with hundreds of soldiers coming back.  IN her words, many of those soldiers probably found that they liked killing, and never lost the taste for it.

Erm...how many USAF enlisted have ever killed anyone in combat?

[Hawkmoon]

This is true IF you are carrying a firearm unless you're one of the first to get executed.  I don't carry in church even if I'm allowed to.

I do ...

[Hawkmoon]

Interesting crap heard around here...very lib reporter in the hallway of the courthouse.  Spouting about how this country has been at war for 15 years, with hundreds of soldiers coming back.  IN her words, many of those soldiers probably found that they liked killing, and never lost the taste for it.  So, again her words, we should prohibit veterans from owning firearms unless they get an approved psychological evaluation.

I doubt Air Force supply clerks who never leave CONUS get much opportunity to develop a love for killing.

Oh, and I'm hearing pure speculation, with no known basis, that the "good guy with a gun" executed the shooter in his car.  Therefore, no "good guy" with a gun here.

That is a possibility. The driver of the pursuit truck says the neighbor with the rifle didn't fire any shots after the shooter's SUV stopped. And the sheriff's office is saying that the head wound appears to have been self-inflicted.

My guess is that we'll never know. This is rural Texas. If they do find ballistic evidence that it was the "good" Samaritan who killed the shooter, I very much doubt they'll make it public or prosecute. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

[MechAg94]

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/11/06/texas-church-shooter-passed-background-check-gun/
Saying the guy passed a background check when buying the rifle. 

Kelley used an AR-15 style rifle and according to CNN, a law enforcement official indicates “Kelley purchased the Ruger…rifle he used in the shooting from an Academy Sports & Outdoors store in San Antonio.” The observed that Kelley “didn’t have a disqualifying criminal history when he filled out the background check paperwork at the store.”

[Perd Hapley]

"They," notably Wesley Crusher, have once again hauled out the "prayer is stoopid!" thing. I guess we'll have to start responding with a meme about how "having a national conversation about guns" doesn't stop these events, either. Or gun laws. Or celebrity do-something!! videos.


Oh, this one's kind of funny. (Would be really funny, in other circumstances.)

https://twitchy.com/dougp-3137/2017/11/06/pathetic-response-gov-cuomos-prayer-alternative-after-texas-church-shooting-sends-heads-to-desks/

[Hawkmoon]

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/11/06/texas-church-shooter-passed-background-check-gun/
Saying the guy passed a background check when buying the rifle. 

Except that he had spent a year in military confinement for a domestic violence conviction. He lied on the 4473, and I'm going to guess that the Air Force didn't submit the information to NICS. So ... our wonderful system failed. But let's not fix the system so the existing laws work -- let's just pass more laws that nobody will enforce. THAT ought'a do it, by gosh!

[KD5NRH]

Oh, and I'm hearing pure speculation, with no known basis, that the "good guy with a gun" executed the shooter in his car.  Therefore, no "good guy" with a gun here.

BS: guy just shot up a church, didn't exit the car on demand, and you don't have time to search him or his car for weapons.  No way anyone in their right mind would call that an "execution" unless they found him unconscious but clearly still alive and put a couple more in him from muzzle contact.

[T.O.M.]

BS: guy just shot up a church, didn't exit the car on demand, and you don't have time to search him or his car for weapons.  No way anyone in their right mind would call that an "execution" unless they found him unconscious but clearly still alive and put a couple more in him from muzzle contact.

Oh, don't get me wrong, please.  What I'm hearing is from the more liberal people floating around here, and it appears to me to be an effort to negate the acts of the "good guy with a gun" side of the story.  I"m hearing the same people say that the neighbor responding didn't save anyone, so his having a gun did no good...except that he fired on the bad guy, made him leave the area, and essentially ended the shooting spree.  I'd say he (and his gun) did some good.  And if he happened to inflict a fatal injury on the bad guy...oh well.

[zxcvbob]

Oh, don't get me wrong, please.  What I'm hearing is from the more liberal people floating around here, and it appears to me to be an effort to negate the acts of the "good guy with a gun" side of the story.  I"m hearing the same people say that the neighbor responding didn't save anyone, so his having a gun did no good...except that he fired on the bad guy, made him leave the area, and essentially ended the shooting spree.  I'd say he (and his gun) did some good.  And if he happened to inflict a fatal injury on the bad guy...oh well.

If there's any doubt at all whose bullet killed the guy (and maybe if there is no doubt) IMHO the police will say the fatal shot was self-inflicted to protect the Good Samaritan's conscience and so the Bad Guy's family doesn't get any ideas about filing a wrongful death lawsuit.

[T.O.M.]

http://nbc4i.com/2017/11/06/man-hailed-a-hero-after-chasing-down-texas-church-shooter/

Here's video of an interview with the driver.  He indicates that no shots were fired during the chase of after the bad guy crashed.

[slingshot]

If there's any doubt at all whose bullet killed the guy (and maybe if there is no doubt) IMHO the police will say the fatal shot was self-inflicted to protect the Good Samaritan's conscience and so the Bad Guy's family doesn't get any ideas about filing a wrongful death lawsuit.

Not a bad reason to keep the final death detail close.  The armed neighbor had a very serious impact on the crime being committed even if Kelley didn't die from his wound.  I read that Kelley phoned his Dad and said he didn't think he was going to "make it"..... and he was referring to the neighbor inflicted wound at that point.

[Hawkmoon]

It has now come out that one of the victims was the shooter's grandmother-in-law. His mother-in-law didn't attend service on Sunday, but he had been sending her threatening text messages.

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2017/11/06/18-month-old-among-texas-church-shooting-victims/

I think we're closing in on a motive ... but if he was intent on getting back at his wife's family (and, perhaps, his wife), why try to murder an entire church congregation? Except, of course, that they were Christians, and he apparently had developed a hatred of Christianity. So maybe for him it was like one stop shopping. Take out the wife's family, and kill a bunch of Christians while he was at it.

[dogmush]

I think to a certain extant it's become the fashionable "go out in a blaze of glory" thing to do a mass killing.

If a certain subset of crazies has gotten to the point where they are going to take out a loved one (or three) and themselves, they pad the body count for the media hits.

No telling if he had plans to survive this or wanted to go find the missing ex-wife, though.  Sometimes crazy is just crazy.

[KD5NRH]

It has now come out that one of the victims was the shooter's grandmother-in-law. His mother-in-law didn't attend service on Sunday, but he had been sending her threatening text messages.

So; threats from a guy that the wife and likely MiL knew to be in possession of a firearm after a DV conviction.  Did they not take it seriously enough to pass that on to LE, or did LE drop the ball on a dead simple arrest and 10 year sentence that would have prevented this whole mess?

[KD5NRH]

Y'know, the entertainment value of liberals is endless.

They can't decide whether the shooter stopped because he was out of ammo (and not because of the armed good guy) or somehow kept such a perfect count that he knew he only had the one round left for his suicide.

[Perd Hapley]

I think we're closing in on a motive ... but if he was intent on getting back at his wife's family (and, perhaps, his wife), why try to murder an entire church congregation? Except, of course, that they were Christians, and he apparently had developed a hatred of Christianity. So maybe for him it was like one stop shopping. Take out the wife's family, and kill a bunch of Christians while he was at it.

He may have believed that the people at the church were influencing his wife against him. And he may have been correct.

And as others have said, he wanted to get his face and name on every news broadcast for a week. 

[T.O.M.]

Y'know, the entertainment value of liberals is endless.

They can't decide whether the shooter stopped because he was out of ammo (and not because of the armed good guy) or somehow kept such a perfect count that he knew he only had the one round left for his suicide.

Then there's the "the good guy didn't stop it from happening, but a gun ban would have" argument...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/policy-and-politics/2017/11/6/16612014/sutherland-springs-shooting-good-guy-gun

By the way, I looked. Anyone know what the good guy used? (kind of hoping it was am AT type rifle, but a lever gun would be more poetic in Texas.)