'Mass shooting' reported at small town church in Texas

[STEED]

A gunman opened fire at a church in Texas during Sunday services, resulting in multiple reported casualties.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41880511

[Gerald]

Hy...Thats mine thing...:doh::03:

[Onkel Neal]

A local citizen "grabbed his rifle and began shooting" at the suspect, before the gunman fled in a car.

The citizen pursued the suspect, who drove off the the road and crashed his car at the Guadalupe County line. Police found the suspect dead in his car, but it is unclear if he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound or from returned fire from the citizen, Mr Martin added.

Hell yeah, these punks only want places with zero resistance. Fight back and they run like rabbits.

I wish they media would keep his name private, these nuts feed off of the publicty. The world is full of crazy people.

[GoldenRivet]

I have received my Texas Handgun license just days ago, i carry my firearm everywhere I am legally allowed to do so.

If i ever die in a mass shooting, i guarantee you my pistol will be empty and ill be surrounded by brass casings. If not... i was hit first and never saw it coming.

as the world is today... i dont know why more men who love their families FAIL to carry a gun.

[STEED]

At least 26 people have been killed after a gunman opened fire at a church during Sunday services, officials say. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41880511

Another gutless piece of which I can not say here lets loose killing. :nope:

[STEED]

I wish they media would keep his name private, these nuts feed off of the publicty. The world is full of crazy people.

I agree.

[Skybird]

Very archaic feelings over here.

I cannot help it, the world goes nuts more and more it seems, just the fashion in which it does, changes with different countries you look at.

[August]

It looks like the attack was stopped by two neighbors who engaged the shooter causing him to drop his gun and flee.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5052815/Hero-tackled-armed-shooter-left-church.html

Two heroic locals have been praised for stopping the worst mass shooting in Texas which left at least 27 dead.
Devin Patrick Kelley, 26, was leaving First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs after he opened fire on parishioners during mass when a local man grabbed his rifle.
Texas Department of Public Safety Regional Director Freeman Martin said that the neighbor, who has not yet been named, had 'grabbed his rifle and engaged the suspect.'
Martin said that during the gunfight, Kelley dropped his Ruger assault rifle and got back in his SUV to flee the scene.

[Jimbuna]

The only positive I take from this is the fact that the shooter is dead and won't be murdering anyone ever again.

[Mr Quatro]

Looks like it was premeditaed to me: http://time.com/5010772/texas-sutherland-springs-church-shooting/

Kelley, described as white, male and in his 20s, was seen around 11:20 a.m. at a gas station in Sutherland Springs. He crossed the street to First Baptist Church, and began firing from outside after exiting his vehicle

Kelley (the shooter), who was dressed in black “tactical type gear,” as the gunman left the scene

Multiple weapons were found inside Kelley’s vehicle.

[Dowly]

The Air Force says it failed to follow procedures, allowing Texas church shooter to obtain firearms (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/11/06/the-air-force-says-it-failed-to-follow-procedures-allowing-texas-church-shooter-to-obtain-firearms/?hpid=hp_hp-banner-main_texasmilitary-650pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory)

The Air Force says it failed to follow policies for alerting federal law enforcement about Devin P. Kelley’s violent past, enabling the former service member, who killed at least 26 churchgoers Sunday in Sutherland Springs, Tex., to obtain firearms before the shooting rampage.

:roll:

[eddie]

They were commenting on the news tonight that we can become numb to these type of shootings. I don't know how you can, especially when the youngest killed was only around a year old. The 14 year old daughter of the Pastor was killed, a pregnant women, and around 4 or 5 kids from one family are dead. You would have to be numb for your whole life not to be moved when you realize how many kids lost their lives. I just can't comprehend why something like this happens. So unreal.

[Commander Wallace]

They were commenting on the news tonight that we can become numb to these type of shootings. I don't know how you can, especially when the youngest killed was only around a year old. The 14 year old daughter of the Pastor was killed, a pregnant women, and around 4 or 5 kids from one family are dead. You would have to be numb for your whole life not to be moved when you realize how many kids lost their lives. I just can't comprehend why something like this happens. So unreal.


Comments like these and the others say it all that I don't need to or could add to. The only thing that goes through my mind is what would motivate someone to do something like this ? Why would anyone even contemplate doing something like this or the Vegas shooting or the horrible incident at Sandy Hook Elementary among many others ?

Does everyone feel this is a mental health Issue, gun control or a combination of both ? Certainly, the Air Force dropped the ball on this one not reporting his propensity to violent acts.

Being that the shooter entered the congregation from behind, as reported, does anyone feel that being armed might have helped ?

I think considering how frequent things like this are occurring, and unless everyone comes together to act, this may be the new norm which is scary to contemplate.

[Skybird]

They were commenting on the news tonight that we can become numb to these type of shootings. I don't know how you can,
Individual psychology, and mass psychology. Yes, you can - and will become numb, to any kind of repetitive stimulus. Becasue it formsa a pattern. Paradoxically, you can even learn to miss it when it goes away suddenly.

And the American society could not become but already is numb to the amount of violence around, and shooting events. Violence is part of its culture, I would say. And you see it being omnipresent in its cultural manifestations as well. Maybe a mentality that formed due to the heritage of the settlers and their fight for survival, and the wild West, but also another conception and understandingf of the term "freedom" as in European Nannystan.

All things have two sides.

[Skybird]

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/2/16399418/us-gun-violence-statistics-maps-charts

http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/

4% of the global population own 42% of global firearms. Over 52 thisuand shooting incidents this year so far. 307 of that were socalled mass shootings.

That is more than one mass shooting per day.

There is a problem regarding the dominant role of violence in this culture - asnd the fixiation of public percpetion on both the act of and fear of violence, and the reporting of results from it.

While there is a strong causal link between the suicide-by-firearm rate and the availability of firearms (which is pretty much self-explanatory and true not truew just for the Us, but other countries like swiotzerland as well where private hpuseholds find it relatively easy to keep firearms), I refuse the simplicity of a way of thinking that tries to transport this link to the general, non-suicide-related problem as well. To me, psycholoigcal and mentlaity factors, culture factors, sociological factors all come together here.

[propbeanie]

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/2/16399418/us-gun-violence-statistics-maps-charts

http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/

4% of the global population own 42% of global firearms. Over 52 thisuand shooting incidents this year so far. 307 of that were socalled mass shootings.

That is more than one mass shooting per day.

There is a problem regarding the dominant role of violence in this culture - asnd the fixiation of public percpetion on both the act of and fear of violence, and the reporting of results from it.

While there is a strong causal link between the suicide-by-firearm rate and the availability of firearms (which is pretty much self-explanatory and true not truew just for the Us, but other countries like swiotzerland as well where private hpuseholds find it relatively easy to keep firearms), I refuse the simplicity of a way of thinking that tries to transport this link to the general, non-suicide-related problem as well. To me, psycholoigcal and mentlaity factors, culture factors, sociological factors all come together here.
I have no comprehension of "statistics", and don't much care. I do however, know what I've experienced in over 60 years of life, and it really is not much different from when I was a kid, other than more wanna do harm to others than before, and that some mentality and desire for notoriety is there. The thing of it with "firearms" and their being a tool to kill, is the folks without them (or who shun them) then use other methods. Definitely usually more difficult to commit a crime of the magnitude most of those type want, but it is still possible to do - Witness driving a vehicle down a bicycle path, or flying an airplane into a building. As for suicide - sheesh - I used to work for the railroad in the US, and the number of times folks decided that stepping out in front of a moving train was the way to die is beyond comprehension... They not only impact themselves, but their families, the emergency responders and ~ALL~ the railroad employees, who then sit back and wonder if there wasn't something different that they could have done, take stock of the situation, and then then have to just shrug their shoulders, and hope that they can somehow get the image out of their mind... there is no understanding the hell in some peoples' brains.

[Skybird]

While I fully accept the right of an individual to make a final decision on killing itself, I have nothing but disdain for people choosing methods that impact heavily in other people's life as well. What you describe about suicide by using trains in the US, is true for Germany as well. And I utmost dispise it. However, as a former psychologist and somebody who kind of specialised in traumatization as well, I also know what hell some people have inside their heads, preventing them to act reasonably anymore.

Its a ####### mess. State legislation does not make it any easier. Quite the opposite.

[Onkel Neal]

I haven't been keeping up with this too well (work is a mutha right now) but am I correct that there was a failure by the government to follow the gun control laws and procedures, allowing this nut to purchase a firearm when the current gun laws would have stopped him?

[Commander Wallace]

I haven't been keeping up with this too well (work is a mutha right now) but am I correct that there was a failure by the government to follow the gun control laws and procedures, allowing this nut to purchase a firearm when the current gun laws would have stopped him?


My understanding was that he had assaulted his wife and infant son while in the air force and had been incarcerated. The Air Force has acknowledged that they failed to notify the local, state and federal authorities to that fact and as a result, he was able to obtain the weapons he used in his rampage.

[August]

I haven't been keeping up with this too well (work is a mutha right now) but am I correct that there was a failure by the government to follow the gun control laws and procedures, allowing this nut to purchase a firearm when the current gun laws would have stopped him?

You are correct I think. The civil suits that will come from it will be epic.

[Onkel Neal]

America: where we want more laws and we don't enforce the ones we have.

[eddie]

Neil, if that nutjob wanted a gun bad enough, he would have gotten it somewhere else. Just too easy to get one from the street.

I wonder how hard it is for the first responders to deal with such a horrific scene when they first arrived at the church? How do they get those awful mental pictures out of their memories after they finish their work there?

[Mr Quatro]

The shooter expended 450 rounds of ammunition ... what are the laws on purchasing that amount of amno?

It sure didn't have anything to do with deer hunting season.

What about the internet ... can you have that much ammunition sent to you in the USPS or UPS or Fed express or do they have laws?

[GoldenRivet]

The shooter expended 450 rounds of ammunition ... what are the laws on purchasing that amount of amno?

It sure didn't have anything to do with deer hunting season.

What about the internet ... can you have that much ammunition sent to you in the USPS or UPS or Fed express or do they have laws?

I have never attempted to purchase anything firearms related online other than a holster for a pistol. everything i purchase is in store.

the longest i have had to wait for a criminal background check was about 20 minutes, the shortest perhaps 5 minutes?

i do not own an arsenal despite being a gun rights proponent, i own three pistols, a rifle, a "gallery gun" .22 and an AR-15. I have about 5,000 rounds of ammunition between them. I know that my dad has far and away more ammunition for his guns than i do. Of course at last inventory he had over 70 firearms in the house.

the .22 and the AR-15 have never been fired outside of what is necessary following manufacture.

thankfully, gun laws in the USA are pretty liberal as they are guaranteed by the constitution. unlike other countries where i have heard you must allow your ammunition (or possibly even your gun) to be locked up at the local police station where you can go and "check it out" for the day. the concept of such a thing is completely alien to me.

for example... just day before yesterday, i walked around my local grocery store with my gun holstered inside my waistband out of site out of mind, under threat of life and limb it is literally as easy to get to as my wallet. of course i am of sound mind, have no criminal history, and went under similar vetting when i was hired to fly for the airlines just a few years after 9/11. I enjoy having that right, the right and the ability to protect myself and my family or even protect complete strangers from harm should the threat arise.

bottom line is, this guy was a known domestic abuse case with a diagnosed history of mental illness. in this case, he would not have been allowed to walk into a gun store and buy a firearm, anywhere, the background check would have prevented that... unfortunately, the prosecuting agency (United States Air Force) kept its criminal business in house and didnt communicate these facts to civil authorities... if you ask me the USAF is culpable in the murder of these people for that very reason.

the media LOVES to claim that you can walk into a big box store in America and buy a "machine gun" - and thats simply not the case... you can however, but a semi-automatic rifle manufactured to look like a military style rifle. its really no different than slapping a Lamborghini body on a Ford Fiero frame... its still a 140 horsepower in line 4 cylinder vehicle... not a v-12 racing machine.

any mad man with an inclination to kill large groups of people is going to find a way whether or not he has access to guns. Just ask Timothy Mcveigh... he killed 168 people and injured 684 others without ever firing a shot

[Platapus]

America: where we want more laws and we don't enforce the ones we have.


Making laws allows legislators to have the impression of "doing something" cheaply and helps them get re-elected.

Enforcing the laws is expensive and does not get any politician re-elected.

[Platapus]

What about the internet ... can you have that much ammunition sent to you in the USPS or UPS or Fed express or do they have laws?

What can we do about it?

If there is a law that anyone who purchases more than 10,000 rounds gets reported to the government, we will have businesses selling 9,999 rounds per order.

In my opinion, we do not have a gun problem in the US.

We have a people wanting to kill people problem. That's the problem we need to expend our effort in understanding and hopefully solving.

But solving people problems is difficult. Targeting (pun intended) guns is much easier.

Even if we were able to "solve" (what ever that means) the "Gun Problem" (what ever that means), we would still have the people wanting to kill people problem.

The first step in problem solving is to identify the root problem you need to solve. For various reasons, political and otherwise, I feel, we are being distracted from the root problem.

[August]

The shooter expended 450 rounds of ammunition ... what are the laws on purchasing that amount of amno?

It sure didn't have anything to do with deer hunting season.

What about the internet ... can you have that much ammunition sent to you in the USPS or UPS or Fed express or do they have laws?

It's done all the time.

I buy all my AR ammo in bulk orders of 500-1000 rounds. Saves me a good amount of money over buying 20 round boxes at the gun store. Some folks I know buy their ammo in larger lots than that.

A person unfamiliar with firearms might think that's a lot but in a single day at the range I can easily go through a couple of hundred rounds and not be shooting more or longer than other people on the firing line.

[Mr Quatro]

@ August and GoldenRivet Thanks for your input gentlemen ... this is not a subject you can bring up at my church :o

[eddie]

What can we do about it?

If there is a law that anyone who purchases more than 10,000 rounds gets reported to the government, we will have businesses selling 9,999 rounds per order.

In my opinion, we do not have a gun problem in the US.

We have a people wanting to kill people problem. That's the problem we need to expend our effort in understanding and hopefully solving.

But solving people problems is difficult. Targeting (pun intended) guns is much easier.

Even if we were able to "solve" (what ever that means) the "Gun Problem" (what ever that means), we would still have the people wanting to kill people problem.

The first step in problem solving is to identify the root problem you need to solve. For various reasons, political and otherwise, I feel, we are being distracted from the root problem.

I'm sure you remember that it wasn't that long ago when the only mass shootings were at the post office, when some guy would get picked on, or just disgusted with his job, or maybe even being fired for some reason. They guy snaps, goes home gets his gun and comes back to the Post Office and starts killing people. When that happens, when they snap like that, what can you do in such a short time to prevent it, if you work there and have no idea as to what happened in the first place and the guy comes back shooting? No new gun laws will help something like that, we are pretty helpless to stop something when people snap so quickly! Might be a different story when you can actually see someone heading in a downward spiral mentally, but these guys who snap in a second are the scary ones.

[Platapus]

We may have to accept the reality that there is little we can do to prevent someone from trying to kill someone else if they are so motivated.

This is especially true when it comes to the government preventing people from killing other people.

But again, I keep being lead back to the "people problem".

Why when bad things happen the vast majority of the people do not try to kill someone?

Why when bad things happen the vast minority of the people do try to kill someone?

The mechanism, in my opinion, is of less importance than the root problem of some people choosing to kill other people.

Not saying that we should ignore the mechanism, but we should not focus on the mechanism while ignoring the root problem.

[Onkel Neal]

The shooter expended 450 rounds of ammunition ... what are the laws on purchasing that amount of amno?

It sure didn't have anything to do with deer hunting season.

What about the internet ... can you have that much ammunition sent to you in the USPS or UPS or Fed express or do they have laws?


Sure. I've ordered as much as 800 rounds in one order, came to $400. I bought my Winchester online from Buds Guns, they send it to a FFL locally, and they do the background check, unless as in my case, you have a concealed handgun license, then there's no background check as it has already been done.

Making laws allows legislators to have the impression of "doing something" cheaply and helps them get re-elected.

Enforcing the laws is expensive and does not get any politician re-elected.

Yes sir, that's right. And enforcing the law is performed by.... govt employees, so you know they are super motivated.

[em2nought]

Best solution I can think of is to include a ten year NRA membership with every firearm purchased, and bump the price up $200 to cover it. Win-win, less firearms in crazy democrats hands, more money to oppose crazy democrats calling for confiscation. :03:

[GoldenRivet]

The Pastor of the church has announced that it will be demolished. He hopes to have a memorial erected on the site.

He will be constructing a new church at a different location.