Another Gun-Free Zone, Another Mass Shooting, And A Couple Good Guys With Guns

First things first:  Berg’s 18th Law is still in full effect;  it’s been mere hours since a man murdered 27 people at Sutherland Springs Baptist Church, near San Antonio; anything you read in the media will be crap.

One thing we do know?  Churches in Texas are “gun free zones”.  Nobody in that church was legally authorized to carry a firearm to defend themselves or their fellow parishioners.

Like nearly all mass shootings, it took place in a “gun free zone”.

Just like David Lillehaug and Nancy Nord Bence like it.

You post your property “no guns allowed?”  I’m not going there.  I’m not spending money, I’m not worshipping, I’m not saying “boo”.  I will consider them a threat to my safety.

No exceptions.

But Wait:  What’s this that the mainstream media is pretty roundly ignoring about the attack?  The shooter was himself shot by…

…an armed citizen:

Stephen Willeford managed to shoot Devin Kelley before jumping in another man’s truck and chasing him down, the Daily Mail reported.

Texas Department of Public Safety chief Freeman Martin said Willeford “grabbed his rifle and engaged the suspect” after Kelley left the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, where he opened fire with an assault rifle and killed 26 people.

And just as law enforcement teaches about mass shootings these days – if you show a mass shooter any resistance, they usually break off the attack, and either give up or kill themselves.

Kelley did both:

The man who killed at least 26 people in a Baptist church in a rural Texas town on Sunday died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackitt told CBS News in an interview on Monday morning.

Tackitt said gunfire was exchanged between the gunman and two armed citizens during a vehicle chase after the shootings.

The church was a gun-free zone – naturally.   But the rest of Texas was not.

UPDATE 2:  The USAF apparently neglected to report Kelley’s domestic conviction to the NICS – allowing him to buy the guns he used.

61 thoughts on “Another Gun-Free Zone, Another Mass Shooting, And A Couple Good Guys With Guns

  1. A. Mad man was an atheist
    B. Gun free zone
    C. Church was predominately white/hispanic, not black.
    D. Good guy with a gun saves the day
    E. Only thing we don’t know is if he legally bought the gun

    Nothing to see here folks, move on.

  2. The Onion headline says it best:
    No Way To Prevent This, Says Only Nation Where This Happens Regularly

  3. Obama’s twitter comment just hours after the attack: “May God also grant all of us the wisdom to ask what concrete steps we can take to reduce the violence and weaponry in our midst.”

    Still never letting a crisis go to waste I guess.

  4. I suppose one could point out that driving a car requires registration, licensing and the books are filled with laws regulating their operation, yet tens of thousands die each year from auto accidents. How is a new set of gun laws going to change the outcome?

  5. Don’t believe anything you read in the media the first 24 hours after a mass shooting. Or anything 25+ hours after the shooting, for that matter…assuming the story doesn’t all but disappear.

  6. Emery is refering to the American habit of admitting crazed Islamic terrorists? What does that have to do with the Texas tragedy?

  7. Interesting that the perp seems to have found work as a security guard after being discharged, either less than honorably or flat out dishonorably, from the military. Somebody has some ‘splainin’ to do about that one, as well as the fact he somehow had a gun after the same. I’m not big on gun control, but I am OK with taking guns from the hands of convicted felons.

  8. Fresch m: /Beginning January 1, 2016, Texans with a handgun license will be allowed to openly carry their handguns. Churches in Texas may prevent handgun license holders from carrying handguns inside church buildings as long as the church gives proper notice. Each church may decide for itself whether to allow:

    Both open and concealed carry of handguns
    Concealed carry of handguns but not open carry
    Open carry of handguns and not concealed carry
    No handguns regardless of whether they are carried openly or concealed
    A church does not need to take any action if it wishes to allow handgun license holders to conceal carry or open carry in church buildings. If permitting handgun license holders to conceal carry or open carry on church premises is a cause of concern to your church, Texas Penal Code Sections 30.006 and 30.007 provide clear rules for notifying handgun license holders that your church is a gun-free zone or concealed carry only/ http://txb.life/article/guns-in-the-pews-churches-have-the-right-to-choose

    Fresch, do you know for a fact this church had placards posted that it was a gun free zone?

  9. Bikebubba: he had a Bad Conduct Discharge (aka Big Chicken Dinner). That does not prevent firearms purchases. However, the BCD was in regards to domestic abuse, which would be a show stopper for firearms purchases.

    I would also wonder how he got a job with any sort of position of trust with a BCD. Then again, things have changed – maybe he failed to mention service in the air farce. Or, the employer didn’t do a background check. DOD also isn’t great at getting info to civilian law enforcement as well.

  10. MBerg: did this church actually have a posted notification that reflected it was a gun free

  11. zone? ~ “Churches in Texas may prevent handgun license holders from carrying handguns inside church buildings as long as the church gives proper”

    Do you have evidence this particular church was a gun free zone?

  12. Woolly: What did self defense result in on Sunday, in a town filled with guns and people who knew how to use them? After all of the killings were complete and Kelley’s rifle abandoned, a neighbor sprayed bullets around a gas station, which was sufficient to wound Kelley but not to stop him from leaving. Had the heroic neighbor simply followed Kelley instead of shooting up the center of town, he would have accomplished the same without endangering himself and the rest of the town’s residents still living.

    The cost/benefit balance on allowing guns for self defense always falls heavily on the cost side. Only the police have the training, discipline and organization to use deadly force to the benefit of society.

  13. Mitch – you may be a victim of failing to follow your own rule.

    Initial reports said all Texas churches are gun-free zones by state law, but later reports say the law was amended last year so churches must prohibit guns to keep them out. I’m not up on Texas law so I’ll leave it to be sorted out by others, in the next day or two.

  14. Emery, it’s said the perp killed himself with his own weapon. So exactly how could the man who returned fire have done so without risking his own life? Even if the perp had not been armed, can we really assume the hero would have known this? Concealing weapons is, after all, not exactly rocket science.

    And exactly why would we blame the hero for trying to shoot a man who’d just shot nearly 50 people? And why, ahem, would we say that he was “spraying bullets at a gas station” when, ahem, the Valero station is about 700′ or so away?

    https://www.google.com/maps/place/Sutherland+Springs,+TX+78161/@29.2737305,-98.0578021,778m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x865cdc0359c71dc5:0xa56177fd6e63ea9f!8m2!3d29.2732957!4d-98.0566728

    Pardon my French, but from whom are you getting your bullshit, Emery? You’ve gotten quite the load, to put it mildly.

  15. And yet Emery, what benefit did the trained police provide as well? Trained police don’t stop crime. They can investigate crime and apprehend criminals, but only very rarely stop crime. Because criminals generally don’t commit crimes directly in front of police. So what you are really advocating is that everyone is always within sight of a policeman.

    No one has stated that allowing those who choose to carry for their protection will stop all criminals all the time. But it can give them a chance.

  16. BB: You must be referring to the BS MBerg posted regarding the church as “a gun free zone” .

    Loren: The neighbor shot at Kelley after he had completed his killings and dropped his assault rifle. He did not prevent Kelley from getting into his truck and leaving. He did endanger his own life. We should be grateful that he flagged down a passing motorist and that the two of them pursued Kelley , as Kelley might have remained free for a time otherwise. But shooting at Kelley with a handgun just resulted in a bunch of stray bullets flying around the neighborhood. If the neighbor was a hero, he wasn’t an especially useful or competent one.

  17. Emery, no, I’m talking about you, crap artist extraordinaire. Here are the things that we know are false about your statement:

    1. That the hero could have followed an armed man who had just shot 50 people without risking his life–and you repeated this BS.

    2. That the hero was “spraying” a gas station with bullets when the gas station is 700′ away or so and on the other side of 3 buildings from where the perp would have entered and left the church.

    3. That, contrary to accounts, the perp dropping his rifle and fleeing had nothing to do with the perp fleeing.

    4. That the man did nothing to stop the truck from leaving–maybe, just maybe, this might have something to do with the fact that the perp fled going northbound on HW 539, right past the ()*&()*&)& gas station?

    I’m sorry, but where are you getting your BS lately? why don’t you put it to good use growing tomatoes or something instead of slandering people?

  18. BB: Do you ever sit and read what you write? It’s like a comic book. There’s a lot of paranoia, an ample dose of self-delusion, and quite a recognizable God complex. Batman isn’t a practical philosophical guide; he’s a compelling dramatic figure only because of his deep emotional damage.

    Unless you’re living in an isolated cave somewhere, you live amongst other people in a society. For societies to function, you must accept certain limits and make certain contributions. In return, society provides a structure, including protections for your safety and property, which allow you the time and space to be productive and happy. Paranoid hyper-individualism is neither noble nor particularly effective as a life choice. People who practice it too long sometimes snap under the pressure and kill themselves or their family. And I would hate to see that happen. Learn to trust others

  19. I guess eTASS does not subscribe to the notion that unless you try, you do not succeed. He also apparently subscribes to the Hollywierd version of gunfights where good guys only need one bullet while perps pray and spray. Hmmm, how many shots does it take for NYC police to subdue a subject, and this was just a good guy with a gun pumped up on adrenaline.

    The neighbor shot at Kelley after he had completed his killings and dropped his assault rifle.

    And he KNEW that the killing had stopped? That killer had no more weapons? Do you have that knowledge firsthand, eTASS? Did killer off himself with a loaded finger?

    If the neighbor was a hero, he wasn’t an especially useful or competent one.

    A person put himself in mortal danger to subdue a perp and prevent further carnage and you open your big yap to say that? You are indeed a waste of animal flesh, for you are not human if you bothered to utter those words. You putrid, fetid slug. You do not deserve to lick soles of that person’s boots from the hole you spend your slimy, festering existence.

  20. That does not prevent firearms purchases.

    But from what I heard this morning, it apparently did stop him from securing Concealed Carry Permit.

  21. dropped his assault rifle.

    Assault rifle? Really? Your ability to unthinkingly, voluntarily and willingly regurgitate and disseminate orc talking points without putting it through a logic filter is unfailing.

  22. Emery, You’re dropping a load of crap and you know it.

    “The neighbor shot at Kelley after he had completed his killings and dropped his assault rifle.” The are reports that Kelley dropped his rifle after being shot by Willeford. But there is some uncertainty about that. The did however exchange gun fire so what difference does it make what type of weapon Kelley was using, he was still on the attack. It has been reported that Willeford was armed with a rifle, no mention of him using a handgun.

    “But shooting at Kelley with a handgun just resulted in a bunch of stray bullets flying around the neighborhood. If the neighbor was a hero, he wasn’t an especially useful or competent one.” Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackitt reported that Kelley and Willeford exchanged gun fire. How do you equate that to a bunch of stray bullets flying around the neighborhood? Seems to me Willefords actions were both useful and competent given that Kelley’s attack ended and he ran from the scene in his vehicle

    “He did endanger his own life.” I’d call that heroic, and many others are saying the same.

  23. Emery; same to you, buddy. You can start by acknowledging that your contentions are counter to all responsible news reports of this atrocity, and you can continue by apologizing, HERE, for acting as if other peoples’ mental illness is suspect.

    I’m sorry, Emery, but you have crossed a few lines with this horse manure you’re spreading about this atrocity, and a few more in how you’ve responded to people who point out not only that it isn’t true, but moreover that it cannot be true.

  24. I’ve been reading up, and by some accounts:

    It appears the gunman was hit by the armed citizen, possibly in the neck, as he dropped his rifle, a Ruger AR, and fled to his vehicle.

    The gunman died at the scene, and as the driver of the truck stated he made no movements and there were no shots fired for the 5 to 7 minutes before police arrived. Evidence indicates he bled out and died from a gunshot wound or wounds inflicted by the armed citizen. Police stated the gunman’s vehicle contained multiple firearms and he may have been headed to another location to continue his shooting spree, but was killed instead.

    Will see how much of this is indeed true. But if it is, anybody wants to place bets if eTASS will apologize for spreading lies, innuendo and talking points written before the incident (a la Comey sHrillary exoneration)?

    Also, note there is no mention by eTASS about the nature of this evil. An atheist filled with hate for Christians – which had already been proven to be a fact. Also, there seems to be info linking him to antifa – eTASS’ favorite terrorist movement funded by his talking point masters. But that yet ot have ben proven.

    It is indeed telling that eTASS decided to jump on the lies and talking points to push orc agenda and not a peep about the perp. Very telling indeed. Keep digging cupcake.

  25. Berg’s 18th Law is in effect because initial news accounts are reliably unreliable, but you’re discussing the case anyway, with Emery, no less!

    You guys crack me up.

  26. Not discussing, JD. Pointing out the lies and misinformation he is already spreading.

  27. Joe: :^) That noted, there are some things here that we ought to be uncertain about–whether the perp’s atheism or antifa affiliation had anything to do with this, whether this was a clear domestic incident, whether or not the church was gun-free zone, etc..

    Emery’s comments, however, cross a line by assuming absurdities like the notion that a guy who’d just shot nearly 50 people could be somehow assumed to be unarmed. I would have hoped that both sides of the debate would agree that such a man ought to be assumed to be armed and dangerous until proven harmless–preferably by his demise–but Emery is disabusing us of this common sense notion. It’s somewhat shocking.

  28. It’s somewhat shocking.

    Really, bb? Absurdities coming form eTASS-BFL-SPM? Shocking?

  29. Mass shootings breed mass shootings. As they become more common, mentally unstable and otherwise troubled individuals have a template to work from.

    Clearly the Islamic terrorists inspired by ISIS are relative amateurs at the terror business. Well-armed, native born Americans have shown in Las Vegas and Texas they are much more lethal than Islamic militants renting Home Depot pickups. USA! USA!

    It appears that the perpetrator attacked the church because his ex-wife’s family would sometimes attend services there. They were not present. Lethality does not imply being otherwise competent. Any idiot can be lethal with an AR-15.

    The guys with offices on either side of me own guns. One of them bought an AK-47 last week; he already owns an AR-15. He plans to shoot it at a shooting range, but mostly just wants to own it. He’s a nice guy, good at his job. It’s very unlikely that he’ll ever use one of his guns in anger, but therein lies the problem. The probability that he will act in anger one day, multiplied by the number of guys armed like he is, adds up to a regular drumbeat of killings. Oh, there’s another guy down the hallway, very nice young man; he has a special license to own automatic weapons and use silencers. He’s a gun hobbyist, likes to hunt, kill groundhogs at a distance with a sniper rifle.

    Despite how angry it would make these colleagues who are gun hobbyists (and they would be very angry), I would happily criminalize all gun possession and the purchase of ammunition tomorrow, not because it would end gun violence quickly (nothing could), but because it would reduce gun violence slowly, which is better than nothing.

    Any government that wants to deliver law and order has to be the sole entity that may legally use deadly force. That is true for both despots and democracies. Most countries greatly limit the ability to acquire the means of deadly violence to citizens not currently in the military or law enforcement. At some point the American citizenry will grow tired of gun violence and tell the hobbyists that their hobby asks too much of society. The massacre in Sutherland Springs is another small step down that path. It helps that it was white people killing white people, apparently the result of a bad relationship, and in a small rural town. Even my office-mates can see how such an incident could happen in their own town, with the perpetrator being somebody who looks a lot like they do.

  30. Speaking of absurdities by Emery, it’s worth noting that Germany banned civilian gun ownership in 1938, just a few months before Kristallnacht. Obviously it didn’t exactly stop mass killings of civilians there. Gun confiscation also preceded genocides in the Ottoman Empire, in the Soviet Union, in Communist China, and elsewhere.

    And more nonsense by Emery includes the notion that Islamists have not pulled this kind of stunt as well–just ask those who were there for Bataclan or the Pulse nightclub. Nations with strict gun control aren’t exempt either, of course–just ask people in Paris (Bataclan) and Oslo.

    Emery, with the kind of nonsense you’re spouting off today, maybe you need to rethink the notion that it’s OK to wake up thinking you’d like to be a pinata.

  31. eTASS screed – tl;dr. Nothing but tired talking points from a person whose motto is “happy to be enslaved by the goobernment”.

  32. The funniest thing, JPA, is that he’s happy to be quite subject to a gooberment headed by the likes of Donald Trump. One would think that Emery’s disdain for Le Grand Orange would remind him of why he doesn’t want government holding absolute power, but no such luck.

  33. BB, which goes to prove that blind adherence to the Marxist ideology is a mental disorder which prevents one from viewing life as a free-thinking individual. These people can only survive by being enslaved, having the State tell them when to take a breath, when to go the bathroom, when to stick their head into a noose. No free will. None whatsoever. Hence, they are not human, they have not evolved. They do not think, therefore they are not.

  34. Emery and his vermin ilk can posture, preen, pontificate and pout to their content.

    The fact is, American citizens will be disarmed, even at least so far as the government knows, only at the cost of oceans of bloodshed, the spilling of which the vast majority of leftists like Emery will most certainly not survive.

    90% of the armed forces vote GOP, as do the overwhelming majority of vets. Coppers, hunters, EOC preppers, militia nuts, shooting sports enthusiasts…everyone who can point out the business end of a weapon will fight any attempt to disarm the civilian population. We know all other rights hang by the 2nd amendment thread…we can read and have read history.

    This is not Canada, this is not Europe, this is not Australia, this is not Norko, this is not Russia. This is the United States of America. We acknowledge our God given right to the defense of our persons, property and liberty. We know this right does not come without cost, but we gladly accept it.

  35. No Way To Prevent This, Says Only Nation Where This Happens Regularly

    Wasn’t that a headline in Charlie Hebdo?

  36. “The probability that he will act in anger one day, multiplied by the number of guys armed like he is, adds up to a regular drumbeat of killings.”

    I’m troubled by your comment, Emery. You believe there’s a high probability your office mates are mentally ill. You believe it’s only a matter of time before they snap and kill you with their guns. But you haven’t called the police to have them committed, for their own good and the good of society.

    Why not?

  37. Oops, I forgot: I’m not responding to idiocy posted by the troll.

    Damn, he’s good. Sucked me right in.

    Never mind.

  38. Mental health problems are not an on/off thing. It’s a question of degree. The US used to institutionalize more of its mentally ill citizens, but moved away from that policy, because it was expensive, resulted in cruel treatment, and put a lot of harmless people behind bars who could cope in the normal world with a little help. Devin, the shooter in Sutherland Springs, appears to have been a young man with anger problems and a bad former marriage. You can’t lock up in a mental institution every young man who seems angry and is convicted of assault. Most young men of that sort grow up to be less angry and less violent. The question you have to ask is whether he did anything before yesterday which would have seen him locked up in a mental institution in any sort of reasonable and workable system? The answer is almost certainly no.

  39. The USAF apparently neglected to report Kelley’s domestic conviction to the NICS – allowing him to buy the guns he used.

    Well then by all means let’s make more gun laws so bureaucrats of the same ilk can enact them as efficiently.

  40. And, as the good-guy with the gun said in his own words, he exchanged fire with the shooter, who appeared to be hit. The shooter climbed into his own truck and fired more shots through the window at the citizen trying to stop him.

    This personal account may not be authoritative enough for Emery, who just knows that the shooter was unarmed and through with killing when he left the church.

  41. Hey Emery,

    You anti gun sycophants are the paranoid ones. Collectively, all of you think anything is justified to ban all gun ownership by law abiding citizens, aka communism and nazism. Of course, since REAL history classes have been sanitized by those same left wing moonbats, many of those same sheeple don’t realize that an armed population is the antidote to tyranny.

    I’m sure that like all hypocrites of your ilk, you have your own gun free zone signs outside your houses, because all of you know that such signs will protect you.

  42. emery burbled: “Oh, there’s another guy down the hallway, very nice young man; he has a special license to own automatic weapons and use silencers. “

    First he would need at least 2 licenses….details, details, I understand you’re not the detail oriented type.

    Last I checked there were fewer than 20,000 people & organizations in the US licensed to manufacture and posses fully automatic weapons (roughly a third of that number are concentrated in the entertainment industry) so this alleged “guy down the hall” is something of a rare duck.

    emery, you’re starting to sound more and more like peeve – next you’re going to tell us that your next door neighbor was John Kerry’s lead negotiator for the UN Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) and that he agrees with you

  43. The world’s full of angry people, a small fraction of whom will act out violently. Nobody knows how to single out that small fraction prior to them acting.

  44. Regarding the question of whether the church was a gun free zone, nobody’s taken a picture of the door, if even it still exists after the shootout, to figure out whether it was listed per 30.06 or 30.07. But that noted, I’ve learned that the church averages attendance of 100, which may mean 70 (“round to the next target”) or even 50 on a day when the lead pastor is not there, and given that we know a bunch of kids are dead, it’s not a gimme that anybody there would be armed.

    If the shooter knew his stats, he would have had a very good idea, in fact, that it was unlikely–especially as Sunday School teachers often decide NOT to carry because bad things would happen when kids climbed all over him.

    Conclusion; it’s pretty likely the shooter had a very good idea it would be a gun free zone. Once again, Emery is wrong, of course.

  45. Oh, c’mon, Scott. You expect eTASS to believe anything a person on the scene says? The person he denigrated and belittled? The only facts are what eTASS had feed via talking points. Anything else are lies, lies, lies.

    Speaking of lies and innuendo, still waiting for that apology, eTASS. Or does your mental disorder block truth and fact receptacles? Do you have any scruples? Any integrity? Any humility? Or are they also being blocked by your mental disorder?

  46. Count me also among those who are curious where Emery got his nonsense, and also among those who think he owes this forum, and several people here, a few apologies.

    Emery’s source, whatever it is, also deserves a hearty rebuke, and ought to be issuing some apologies. As I noted above, there are things which are eminently excusable in the aftermath of an atrocity like this, but there is a point where left and right ought to agree that contentions are absurd on their face.

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