As many of you know, this week has started with another mass shooting here in the U.S. Yesterday morning, a man armed with an AR-556 rifle, entered a Baptist church in the tiny town of Sutherland Springs, Texas and opened fire. When it was over twenty-six people were dead including the pastor’s fourteen-year-old daughter and other children as young as eighteen-months-old. Eight members of one family were killed including a pregnant mother. The massacre has left another twenty who were wounded. One of these is a six-year-old boy who was shot four times. This shooting has wiped out 4% of the town’s population.
A neighbor who lives across from the church, engaged in gunfire with the gunman as he was leaving the building, leading the murderer to drop his weapon and flee in his car. The neighbor flagged down another town resident and the two Good Samaritans pursued the man until his car swerved off the road. When police arrived, he was dead from what seems to be a self inflicted gunshot wound.
Right now there’s a lot of confusion about the gunman. He was a member of the US Air Force from 2010 – 2014. He served in logistics readiness at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. In 2012 he was court-martialed for assaulting his wife and child. He received a bad conduct discharge and imprisonment for twelve months. Whatever his motives were, they seem to be related to a domestic situation. His mother-in-law has been known to attend the church although she wasn’t there yesterday morning. She’s also received some threatening texts from the shooter.
It’s also been confirmed that he was denied a Texas gun license, yet according to CNN this morning, he purchased the gun in April 2016 from an Academy Sports & Outdoors store in San Antonio. At a press briefing right now, officials stated that he purchased four guns in total. Two in Texas and two in Colorado. All these factors beg the question of how he passed the background checks.
Naturally there’s already a lot of passionate debate between Second Amendment rights advocates, those calling for an outright gun ban, and those asking for common sense gun restrictions. Trump himself weighed in by stating the tragedy is a mental health issue, not a gun issue. But except for knowing that he abused his wife and child, we know absolutely nothing about the shooter’s mental state.
Growing up, I was taught to have a healthy respect for guns by my father who was a gun collector. I support the Second Amendment. But honestly? I don’t think our Founding Fathers foresaw the technology that would allow people determined to kill as many innocents as they can, to carry out these evil acts. This gunman NEVER should have been able to legally purchase a gun, but apparently, unless reports change again, that’s exactly what he did.
As always, my thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families and friends. I also have to be honest and say that I’m sickened, disgusted and angry. This country need to take a long hard look at itself. We are the only developed country that has continual mass shootings of this magnitude. I’m sick and tired of weeping and wailing every single time something like this happens, while at the same time waiting for the next event. Indeed, that is probably the only thing we agree on right now. There will most definitely be another mass shooting in the not too distant future.
By Hook Or By Book 
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