Texas Gunman Illegally Obtained Weapon, But Massachusetts Senator Warren Blames Gun Lobby
By Evan Lips | November 6, 2017, 16:39 EDT
Massachusetts sens. Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren were quick to respond on social media following Sunday’s mass-shooting in Texas. (Twitter) It took only hours on Sunday after a man opened fire inside a Texas church, killing at least 26, for Massachusetts’s two members of the U.S. Senate to take to social media to demand Congress act on gun control.
Yet the remedies offered by U.S. Senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren on Twitter soon after Sunday’s massacre inside a Baptist church in tiny Sutherland Springs have become less on point as more information has emerged about it.
Alleged gunman and former U.S. Air Force enlistee Devin Patrick Kelley was reportedly court martialed in 2012 and subsequently discharged for bad conduct in 2014 over domestic abuse charges, according to the Daily Beast.
Kelley’s domestic abuse felony conviction, stemming from an incident in which the New Braunfels, Texas, resident assaulted his then-wife and fractured the skull of his infant stepson, prevented him from legally owning a firearm, per Texas and federal regulations, but that apparently did not stop him from acquiring one.
Reports indicate that Kelley bought the weapon used in the church massacre, a Ruger AR-556 rifle, in April 2016 from a sporting goods store in San Antonio and lied on his application, listing a Colorado address and deliberately checking off “no” in a prior convictions box that would have barred him from completing the purchase.
Those facts may not have been apparent to Warren. The Cambridge Democrat unloaded on Twitter, implicating the National Rifle Association:
Senator Ed Markey, meanwhile, urged Congress to “act now” in his post:
Meanwhile, Connecticut U.S. Senator Chris Murphy also took to Twitter to accuse his colleagues of inaction:
The Democrat from Cheshire also released an emotionally-charged statement:
Murphy was then challenged to respond to several informational tidbits that have been gleaned thus far from the investigation, namely that Kelley illegally acquired a gun and that a Sutherland Springs resident living adjacent to the church apparently heard the gunshots and used his own firearm to chase Kelley from the scene:
Meanwhile, a portrait of Kelley as a religion-bashing atheist has also begun to emerge.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has also confirmed that Kelley applied for a Texas gun license but was promptly denied due to his criminal background.
According to a Texas Department of Public Safety official, Kelley was dressed in black, wearing body armor, when he approached the church from a gas station across the street.
Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackitt told CBS News that investigators believe Kelley turned his gun on himself after driving away from Sutherland Springs, killing himself after driving roughly eight miles.
