20+ Dead in Texas Church Shooting.

[bayonetbrant]

The company my wife works for also has the transcription accounts for the local hospital where the victims were taken.  An 'all hands' message went out late yesterday for help on the account overnight, but what they needed was outside her specialty.

[JasonPratt]

I can tell you, people carry (concealed) in my home church, of about this size, and have done so for a few years at least.

Admittedly, the people I know for sure who carry, aren't all people I'd normally want to be carrying a gun (for various reasons) -- I also think some of them are doing it (based on long past experience with how they behave) to show off how important they are to the congregation.  >:(

Anyone coming onto the property to cause trouble, though, won't be leaving the way they came in. And despite personal problems with some of the personnel, I'm okay with that.

Kelley was gambling hard nowadays to hit a rural southern church, that he wouldn't be welcomed with a supersonic pat on the face. 

[Sir Slash]

I agree with a lot of what Jason says above. We have many people who have C&C Licenses in our church but, me included, might not be the best people to be taking shots at a potential threat. Off-duty police or security guards would be expensive and most churches aren't flush with cash. Plus some people I think would walk-out rather than think of sitting in a church with guns around out of fear of accident or offending their own religious morals. In addition, there are probably 6 different entrances into our Sanctuary-- almost impossible to cover them all. I think many other churches have the same problems. They were designed for access to and not protection from. A sad day when churches have to secured like banks or jails.

[JasonPratt]

I went to an apologetics convention at a fairly large church (membership 3500ish) in Murfreesboro, TN, on Saturday. They normally do their own security, but I suppose death threats had been leveled at one or more of the speakers, because the sheriff's department was on site all day wanding everyone entering the building and checking purses, no backpacks allowed. (Indeed, the loot bags handed out for the convention were translucent backpacks!) Maybe this had something to do with Antifa's attempts at trying to gin up armed attacks nationwide on the 4th (that Saturday), I don't know. Unfortunately, the attendance numbers were about ten times what was expected! -- which was good in other regards, but created some serious foot-traffic bottlenecks. Not least at the bathrooms, only two and a half of which were open to attendees until late in the day. But again, the reason for that was naturally to control potential security problems.

Fortunately we didn't have any trouble beyond inconveniences. But this is the world we live in now. Which of course is the world many people have been living in for years and decades already.

[Nefaro]

Apparently the guy was attempting to get away, while still shooting at random people.

Until someone nearby shot back, and reportedly gave the killer a fatal wound.

Texas hero: Resident shot, chased Texas church shooter

<...snip...>

According to state officials, during the confrontation, the Good Samaritan managed to hit the suspect, who then dropped his assault-type rifle and fled from the church. The local citizen waved down another man driving by and the two chased after the suspect.

During their pursuit, the suspect, identified as Devin Kelley of New Braunfels, used his cell phone to call his dad and told him he didn't believe he was going to make it. Kelley crashed a short time later.

Authorities found Kelley dead inside the vehicle and believe he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, but the pathologist will confirm his cause of death.

Eyewitness Kevin Jordan lives less than 50 yards from the church and saw it all happen. He was outside changing his car's oil when the masked gunman started his deadly assault.

Jordan said his neighbor, who he described as a man who would do anything for anyone, ran over with a gun then shot at the suspect while taking cover behind a car.

"If it wasn't for him, the guy wouldn't have stopped," Jordan explained to KENS 5.  He explained that his neighbor also shot through the suspect's car window as he sped off.

Before entering the church, the gunman also shot at Jordan's house and he said the bullet went through his window, narrowly missing his 2-year-old son and wife.

"When he saw me and I ran, he took a pop shot off at my house," Jordan described. 

Later when the suspect left the area, Jordan, who is a medical assistant, went inside the church to try and help the victims, many of whom he has known for years.

<..snip...> 

http://www.wtsp.com/news/resident-shot-at-and-chased-texas-church-shooter-1/489433072

[joram]

 Latest in possible motivation.  His mother in law attended that church.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/06/us/texas-church-shooting/index.html

[Nefaro]

Sharpshooting plumber fired shot that took down Texas church gunman

The man hailed as a hero for confronting the Texas mass shooter during his rampage is a sharpshooting plumber with no military background — who hit the gunman through a gap in his body armor, according to a report.

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

Kelley blew himself away after wiping out in his SUV, according to Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackitt.

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.

An area resident told the paper that Willeford, an avid biker who attends another church, learned about the shooting when his daughter called to say a man clad in body armor was shooting worshipers.

The local said that although Willeford has no military background, he didn't hesitate when he came face to face with the suspect — and managed to squeeze off a round that struck the gunman, who had dropped his Ruger AR-15 variant.


Willeford jumped into a truck driven by another local, Johnnie Langendorff, who witnessed the confrontation, and the pair gave chase.

Langendorff later told reporters about the dramatic pursuit.

"I pulled up to the intersection where the shooting happened and I saw two men exchanging gunfire, the other being a citizen of the community," he said.

"The shooter of the church had taken off, fled in his vehicle, and the other gentleman came and he said, 'We need to pursue him,' that he just shot up the church. So that's what I did. I just acted."

He said he didn't know who the heroic citizen was at the time.

"He was just a member of the community, and whenever he came to my vehicle in distress with his weapon, he explained very quickly what happened and he got in the truck and I knew it was just time [to go]," he said, KSAT reported.

"So we were doing about 95 mph, going around traffic and everything," he added.

"Eventually he came to kind of a slowdown and after that, we got within just a few feet of him and he got off the road ... He just lost control and that's whenever I put the vehicle in park ... The other gentleman jumped out and had his rifle drawn on him and he didn't move after that," he said.

Langendorff's girlfriend, Summer Caddel, said Kelley died a few feet away from Langendorff.

The local man said Kelley was already dead when they found him.

"He was bleeding pretty bad," the resident told the news outlet of Kelley while he was driving. "He didn't live much longer than that."

Martin confirmed that police had found Kelley dead.

"We are not sure if it was self-inflicted or if he was shot by a local resident," the police official said.


http://nypost.com/2017/11/06/sharpshooting-plumber-fired-shot-that-took-down-texas-church-gunman/

[Nefaro]

Latest in possible motivation.  His mother in law attended that church.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/06/us/texas-church-shooting/index.html

There is scuttlebutt from some of his classmates who say he was a weirdo, and some of them had recently dropped him from Facebook because of his rabid anti-christian rants he had been posting.

[Nefaro]

aaaand... since he had been convicted of domestic abuse before..  yet still got his hands on one..


Texas Church Shooting: Suspect Denied Gun Permit, Governor Says
Suspect in mass shooting at a Texas church was denied firearms carry permit and may have had a connection to the church, authorities say.


https://patch.com/texas/sanantonio/texas-church-shooting-suspect-denied-gun-permit-governor-says

[Sir Slash]

Please stop contradicting the Left's Anti-Gun message with facts. It confuses the issue and makes them uncomfortable.  :'(   

[joram]

Oh brother, here it comes again...

[DoctorQuest]

Oh brother, here it comes again...

Agreed. Move this to RFP if you guys want to get political. This is just a horrible tragedy and we need to understand the facts. So far we've kept this thread focused on that.

Prayers to all the victims and their families.

[mirth]

Prayers to all the victims and their families.

+1

[mirth]

NPR just reported that his domestic violence conviction wasn't flagged in the Federal background check database. Unclear as to why. May have been a reporting error or issue from the AF.

[Gusington]

^I saw that. That is a huge piece of info.