Texas shooting
Dressed in all-black tactical gear and a ballistic vest, Kelley was seen leaving his vehicle at a gas station at about 11.20 am. He began shooting at the church with an assault rifle as he approached it, and continued as he circled to its right and entered while the service was underway.
Kelley dropped his rifle and exited the church when an armed local resident engaged him in a brief exchange of fire during which the shooter used a pistol. Freeman Martin, an official of the department of public safety, told reporters that Kelley then got into his car and fled.
Two armed local residents pursued Kelley in a vehicle. His car ran off the road a short distance away and crashed. Kelley then shot himself. Sheriff Tackitt told the media: “At this time we believe that he had a self-inflicted gunshot wound.”
Kelley had used a militarystyle Ruger AR assault rifle in the attack, and had more weapons in his vehicle, officials said.
Sutherland Springs is a small rural community of about 680 people — residents told reporters it was a place where nothing ever happened and everyone knew everyone. The church, of the protestant First Baptist Church that is the second largest religious grouping in the US after Roman Catholics, is a place for friends to gather and meet every weekend.
Some Americans responded to news of the shooting with numbing weariness.
“Once again, we will pray and mourn the fallen,” David Axelrod, president Barack Obama’s political strategist and political commentator, tweeted. “Our leaders will express the grief of the nation. And do nothing.”
On October 1, Stephen Paddock, a high-stakes regular at casinos, fatally shot 58 people and wounded more than 500, using an arsenal of rifles, some of them modified to fire at a quicker rate, from his room in a hotel overlooking an open-air country music festival. His motive remains unclear.
Asked about gun safety laws at the time, Trump had said there will be time for that discussion, but later. He never got around to it. Though not always a gun rights enthusiast, Trump has found it politically expedient, from the time he entered the race for the White House, to portray himself as someone on the right side of the Republican Party’s base and the National Rifle Association, which leads the powerful gun lobby that has stymied every attempt to reform gun laws, even those backed by conservative gun owners.