Devin Patrick Kelley should not have been able to purchase a weapon. He was convicted of domestic abuse for assaulting his wife and child and served 12 months in prison, was reduced in rank and given a bad conduct discharge. That was enough to disqualify him from owning a weapon.
Federal law bans those who have been convicted of certain crimes from ever possessing firearms. Included in those crimes are all felonies and misdemeanor domestic violence offenses. (The law also prohibits those subject to domestic violence restraining orders from having a gun.) (18 U.S.C. § 922(g) (2013).)
He is also reported to have been denied a permit to carry.
It is reported that he purchased the weapon from an Academy Sports & Outdoors store in San Antonio and that he lied on the background form:
When Kelley filled out the background check paperwork at the store, he checked the box to indicate he didn’t have disqualifying criminal history, the official said. He listed an address in Colorado Springs, Colorado when he bought the rifle, the official said.
Academy Sports and Outdoors has a Federal Firearms License (FFL) and should have run Kelley through the NICS system. It is highly unlikely that they failed to do this, which brings us to the question of who dropped the ball. Did the Air Force add Kelley to the NICS database and if not, why not?
The current laws on the books should have prevented Kelley from securing a weapon.
They did not and we need to learn why.
UPDATE
The military failed to send the information to the FBI. That is how he got past the NICS background check. More gun laws won’t help squat if the laws aren’t properly administered.
See author page
The laws on the books need to be enforced, that still will not stop all these situations. Criminals with murderous intents will find a way, trucks, explosives, knives, poison ect ect ect
Dylan Roof was able to buy the weapon he used to kill 9 because federal employees simply failed to do their job. Looks like the same issue here.
The left wants us to depend on the federal government to keep us safe and that does not exclusively mean scrambling SWAT teams to save us from active shooters. All those “sensible gun restrictions” have to be actively enforced for them to do any good.
The Demac-RATS will just use this as a excuse for more gun control laws gun confiscation as demanded by the Demac-RATS Bloomberg and his Everytown for Gun Safety and Mothers Demand Action as well as Hollyweed and their Demand a Plan and the Useless Nations
We are all to ignore that a plumber stopped the killer, where would he have gone next, the Catholic church, the Lutheran church there were still about 650 good people in that little town more 5 year olds, more elderly. A plumber, not an FBI or CIA not even a Green Beret, just an armed citizen willing to protect his little town.
Lets not forget there are families and friends hurting, hearts breaking tears flowing non stop, because someone didnt follow through and register a domestic abuser and felon. It wasnt the gun, it was the one that pulled the trigger Devin Kelley may he find no peace until he feels every ounce of pain he has caused.
denied purchase or a pistol, was a deputy sheriff at the time. excuse was that some “wires got messed up” WOW carry one on duty and can not purchase. I took 24 hrs. in some states, there is a 3-5 day “cooling offer period” which is useless. so how did John Wick come by his arsenal?
@Bill… Deplorable Me:
The “federal employees” in question turn out to be the U.S. Air Force.
The Air Force says it failed to follow procedures, allowing Texas church shooter to obtain firearms
@Greg: I don’t think that makes it any better for the 26 dead. However, the point is that there is no “loophole” here through which Kelley should have gotten the guns; bureaucratic incompetence is to blame, just as with the case of Roof.
@Greg: Every branch should examine procedures, was it some paper pusher at the pentagon? Texas denied him a concealed permit, but the feds not getting their information to the feds let him pass on that call to the FBI. No new laws needed just enforce the ones we have. Obama had a tweet about this, yet it was his admin that failed, someone should clue him in.
his tweet
May God also grant all of us the wisdom to ask what concrete steps we can take to reduce the violence and weaponry in our midst.
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) November 6, 2017
@kitt: Kind of reinforces the reliability of the CHL background checks, huh? THEY found his tarnished past.
@Bill… Deplorable Me, #7:
Well, yeah, there’s the so-called “gun show loophole,” which is big enough to drive a family minivan through. The fact that it wasn’t behind this case doesn’t mean it isn’t still there.
There’s a serious problem in America. 307 mass shootings, so far this year. Maybe we should just accept the fact that we’re not smart enough to do anything about it.
@Greg: Can You explain the mysterious loophole?
@kitt, #11:
What’s the mystery? Private, secondary sales of firearms are exempt from the requirement for purchaser background checks. That’s the loophole in question.
@Greg: So used guns sold by a FFL dealer dont require a background check at a gunshow? Or is it the ad in the paper some guy decides his hunting days are over. Or is it Dad handing his rifle down to his son?
http://thefederalist.com/2015/10/07/7-gun-control-myths-that-just-wont-die/
@Greg:
The imagination can do strange things, can’t it? There IS no “gun show loophole”. None.
What does that have to do with gun shows? When has this “loophole” you dream of ever resulted in violent crimes?
Maybe the left can cease with all their violent rhetoric, violent images and violent acts. Without the left promoting violence and providing the dim of wit imaginary excuses to do a “public service” (as you so succinctly put employing Russians to invent dirt on Trump) and kill Republicans, perhaps we would see the problem as more manageable with REAL solutions.
@Bill… Deplorable Me, #14:
There most certainly IS a loophole.
What term or phrase do you prefer to use to cover the fact that private, secondary firearm sales are specifically exempted from the national background check requirement?
That exemption is the basis for the countless unregulated private firearm transactions that occur at gun shows all across the nation on any given weekend. Hence the “gun show loophole” label by which they’re most commonly known. A seller could be selling to anybody, having no clue at all what the history of the buyer might be. This is a fact.
@Greg: So maybe the FBI should set up a table and do free background checks, no paperwork required just valid ID.
@Greg: Looks like you’ve never been to a gun show.
@Greg:
No. That’s no loophole. That is an individual that is not a FFA dealer selling, trading or gifting a gun. That’s all, it happens rarely and has yet to be associated with a violent crime.
A responsible gun owner is not going to sell a gun to a stranger or someone with known background issues for, if he does and the gun is used in a crime, who do you think gets to feel the wrath of the law? Now, straw buyers and peddlers are a different story and THEY will not respect any law or regulation you want passed. How do you address that? Hint: passing a law that prevents me from making a gift of a shotgun to my grandson is NOT addressing the problem.
@Bill… Deplorable Me: Like Obamacare wasnt a plan to go full Government only healthcare the end game of “sensible gun laws” is confiscation of all firearms, they so admire Australia for disarming their citizens. Our only solution to that is no more gun laws. If there is a problem at gun shows figure out a way to solve it but no more laws. Please carefully enforce the laws that have been passed. The government could help by not being gun runners to dangerous drug cartels and terrorists.
I have seen units overlook domestic violence in favor of keeping up their numbers, first hand. This needs to stop. Regardless of the “worth” of an individual during a deployment, it needs to be dealt with properly and swiftly.
He got dishonorably discharged in 2014, under Obama.
Obama had packed the military with career placeholders who had no interest in doing a job.
A paper-pusher didn’t do his/her job of entering his crimes into the FBI database.
So, when he wanted to buy guns, he simply lied.
Even with a check of databases to see if he was OK, he came back clean because of a lazy military worker base.
He cracked a baby’s head apart!
But negligence allowed him to later by weapons!
He killed that child’s grandmother at the church that day.
@Mully:
You’re stating the obvious.
Since 1980 145 churches have been attacked 185 people died, including 36 children, just up until 2005.
https://www.christiantoday.com/article/are.american.churches.under.attack/117862.htm
Perhaps its time we ran out of cheeks.
@Nanny G: Granny wasnt there, she did not attend that day, but they will label the whole thing a domestic, despite his atheist rantings that lost him facebook “friends” The media will not accept screen prints that were taken before his account was taken down to hide his real motives.
@Mully, #17:
Looks like you provided no rationale supporting such a conclusion.
You may be carrying around a liberal stereotype in your head. It’s possible that the liberal stereotype has never attended a gun show. The liberal stereotype probably doesn’t have a firearm hanging over a doorway less than 6 feet away, nor have a cousin’s son who shot and killed himself after a domestic dispute last week. Nor live in Indiana, where you have a choice of gun shows most any weekend. I seldom go, but I’ve been. Stereotypes don’t actually exist.
@Greg:
Sometimes theres a tiny bit of sense that falls out of your head. I still double dog dare you to read 1 book written by Mark Levin, that is unless you are frightened of being truly educated by a constitutional expert.