US Air Force failed to record conviction
: The US Air Force said it had failed to properly record a prior conviction for a violent crime committed by the assailant of Sunday’s mass shooting in Texas.
The oversight enabled Devin Patrick Kelley to buy the military-style assault rifle he used to kill 26 churchgoers.
In 2012, Kelley was convicted of assaulting his wife and infant stepson while stationed at an air base in New Mexico.
He was sentenced to a year in prison and discharged from the Air Force.
It was the responsibility of the military to enter this crime into a registry used for background checks on gun buyers.
“The Air Force has launched a review of how the service handled the criminal records of former Airman Devin P Kelley following his 2012 domestic violence conviction,” the US Air Force said in a statement.
“Federal law prohibited him from buying or possessing firearms after this conviction.”
Kelley used a Ruger semi-au-
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tomatic rifle, an AR-556, whose design is based on the AR-15, a military-style rifle variations of which have been used in many recent mass shootings, including those at an Orlando nightclub last year and at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.
Authorities described Kelley’s motive as more personal than ideological. “The suspect’s mother-in-law attended this church,” a local official told reporters. “We know that he had made threatening texts and we can’t go into detail into that domestic situation that is continuing to be vetted and thoroughly investigated.”