Yet again America is determined to stick to its guns
lent past and have now become unwittingly complicit in the worse mass killing in a place of worship in American history.
On Sunday, the former serviceman calmly walked in to the First Baptist Church in the tiny village of Sutherland Springs, Texas, dressed in full tactical gear, armed with an assault rifle.
As he screamed “you’re all going to die motherf******” he opened fire killing 26 innocent people and injuring two dozen more.
It showed that even in a small rural community – where I was told by one resident, no one locks their doors – gun violence can happen.
Kelley’s killings came just weeks after 58 people lost their lives in Las Vegas to another gunman who’d armed himself with an arsenal of weapons.
Within hours of Sunday’s mass killing, the verdict was in.
The problem was not the 300 million firearms in the States, but “mental stated. When asked whether tighter controls on firearms could have been the key to stopping the shooting, he replied “This isn’t a guns situation”. He went on instead to praise Americans’ right to bear arms, hailing one local who opened fire on Kelley helping to bring Sunday’s killings to an end. His implication was that the bloodshed in Texas made the case for more guns. Effectively, that the disease of gun violence is also its cure. Together with his supporters at the National Rifle Association (NRA), Trump has been seen to repeatedly tell Americans such mass killings are simply the work of madmen. It is the cynical evasion devised by the NRA, which enthusiastically endorsed Trump for the White House, whose default setting after health”, Donald Trump each mass loss of life is that the US must first control mental illness.
It’s ironic that President Trump signed a law in February revoking an Obama-era regulation that made it more difficult for the mentally ill to purchase guns.
In the US, shootings have become commonplace with guns killing more than 30,000 people every year and injuring roughly 80,000 more.
But as locals here in Sutherland Springs continue to mourn and ask questions, the only answer as to why Kelley carried out his bloodshed is because he could.
The 26-year-old could get the firepower, a military-style assault rifle, and register whatever grievance he had had simply by pulling a trigger.
The truth is there is no way to prevent all shootings, but measures can readily be taken to reduce the carnage, as has been proved by sensible and effective gun control in other countries that also contend with issues of mental health.
No doubt when Kelley stormed the church in a ballistic vest he was, as the President said, “deranged” with “a lot of problems”.
But imagine what would have happened if he had been deranged and armed with only a knife?
After every high-profile mass shooting – at a movie theatre in Colorado, a school in Sandy Hook, a concert in Las Vegas or a workplace in San Bernardino – the US government appears to serve the NRA rather than the American public.
It is not as though the government is being asked to take all guns off the streets, but simply to introduce common-sense safeguards, rigorous background checks, keep guns from domestic abusers and the mentally ill as well as ban weapons designed for war.
So far, America’s politicians have refused. That dereliction is what is truly unforgivable.
The US government appears to serve the NRA rather than the American public