Air Force error allows Texas church shooter to buy guns

texas — The gunman who slaughtered 26 people at a Texas church was able to buy weapons because the Air Force failed to report his domestic violence conviction to the federal database that is used to conduct background checks on wouldbe gun purchasers, authorities said.

Federal officials said the Air Force didn’t submit Devin Patrick Kelley’s criminal history even though it was required to do so by Pentagon rules.

Kelley, 26, was found guilty of assault in an Air Force court-martial in 2012 for abusing his wife and her child and was given 12 months’ confinement followed by a bad-conduct discharge in 2014. That same year, authorities said, he bought the first of four weapons.

Under Pentagon rules, information about convictions of military personnel for crimes like assault should be submitted to the FBI’s Criminal Justice Investigation Services Division. It’s the kind of lapse that gun-control advocates say points to loopholes and failures with the background check system.

At issue is the Lautenberg Amendment, enacted by Congress in 1996. The federal law was designed to prohibit people convicted of domestic violence from buying or possessing a firearm regardless of whether the crime was a felony or a misdemeanor.

“This is exactly the guy the Lautenberg Amendment is supposed to prevent from possessing a firearm,” said Rachel VanLandingham, a professor at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles. —