The man responsible for the worst mass shooting in Texas history should not have been allowed to buy his weapons.
According to ABC News, Devin Kelley, the gunman responsible for Sunday’s deadly church shooting in south Texas was convicted by a military court in 2012 on charges of assault and aggravated assault on his wife and child.
These charges, under the Lautenberg Amendment, should have prevented Kelley from purchasing any firearms.
“The Lautenberg Amendment makes it a felony for anyone convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence such as an assault or attempted assault on a family member to ship, transport, possess or receive firearms or ammunition. The purpose of this amendment is to get and keep firearms out of the hands of those individuals with domestic violence convictions,” writes legal assistance attorney Capt. Jake Yu. “There is no exception for military personnel engaged in official duties.”
Kelley was enlisted in the Air Force from 2010 to 2014.
Officials within President Donald Trump
ORLANDO, Fla. — 's administration said Monday evening that the Air Force failed to report Kelley's criminal history to the FBI.
In 2012 he was convicted on two assault charges and was sentenced to one year at the Naval Consolidated Brig in California.
In 2014, he received a bad conduct discharge from the Air Force.
Federal law prevents anyone with a dishonorable discharge from buying firearms, but Kelley’s “bad conduct discharge” was not as severe and would not have triggered such a restriction.
“If he were convicted in a military court of law, it should have gone into the system,” said attorney Jon Gutmacher, a firearms law expert. “The problem with the system is the input, is the jurisdiction or city or state inputting.”
Background checks are carried out in every state with the use of the National Crime Information Center.
The NCIC is actually a collection of several databases, but as Gutmacher points out, it is only as reliable as the data that is, or is not, provided.
“The NCIC should have all felonies, criminal history, mental commitments or any misdemeanor convictions of domestic violence,” Gutmacher said. “All of that should be in the system.”
According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, there are a dozen reasons why a person would be prohibited from purchasing a firearm, including: a felony conviction, an active warrant, mental incompetence, an active restraining order, dishonorable discharge or a domestic violence conviction.
But the federal database has been described as incomplete.
Last year the FBI requested more money to hire 230 people to deal with background checks and ensure the database was complete and up to date.
Congress denied that request.
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