Oops

Melissa Jeltsen has an article in the Huffington Post about a fuckup by the Air Force:

The Air Force said on Monday that it failed to record the Texas church shooter’s domestic violence conviction in a Federal database that would have kept him from buying a gun.
That glaring oversight allowed Devin Patrick Kelley, 26, to pass multiple background checks and legally purchase firearms. The stunning admission from the Air Force raises critical questions about coordination between the military and the Federal background check system that is designed to keep guns from those who have lost the right to purchase them.
On Sunday, Kelley opened fire on the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, east of San Antonio, Texas, killing nearly thirty people and wounding twenty others. He was later found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Kelley, who served at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, was convicted by a general court martial on two charges of domestic assault against his wife and stepson before being released with a bad conduct discharge in 2014.
Under Federal law, his conviction prohibited him from buying or possessing firearms, but it appears Kelley’s domestic violence offense was never entered into the Federal database that gun sellers use to check the criminal history of potential buyers.
“Initial information indicates that Kelley’s domestic violence offense was not entered into the National Criminal Information Center database by the Holloman Air Force Base Office of Special Investigations,” Ann Stefanek, an Air Force spokesperson, said in a statement. She added that the Air Force will conduct a comprehensive review to ensure records in other cases have been reported correctly.
The Air Force statement reads in part:

The Air Force has launched a review of how it handled the criminal records of former Airman Devin P. Kelley following his 2012 domestic violence conviction. Kelley was convicted by a general court-martial on two charges of domestic assault against his wife and step-son under Article 128 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. He then served twelve months in confinement at the Naval Consolidated Brig Miramar in California before being released with a Bad Conduct Discharge in 2014. He was also reduced in grade to an E-1. Federal law prohibited him from buying or possessing firearms after this conviction.
Initial information indicates that Kelley’s domestic violence offense was not entered into the National Criminal Information Center database by the Holloman Air Force Base Office of Special Investigations.
Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson and Air Force Chief of Staff General David Goldfein directed a complete review of the Kelley case by the Air Force Office of the Inspector General. The Air Force will also conduct a comprehensive review of Air Force databases to ensure records in other cases have been reported correctly. The Air Force has also requested that the Department of Defense Inspector General review records and procedures across the Department of Defense.

A spokesperson for Academy Sports + Outdoors, a sporting and hunting goods store, told the Huffington Post that Kelley purchased firearms at two of their locations, in 2016 and 2017. On both occasions, the sales were approved by the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. If his domestic violence conviction had been logged in the system, Kelley would have been flagged as prohibited from purchasing guns.
While in the Air Force, Kelley was found guilty of strangling his then-wife by putting his hands around her neck, as well as striking her, pulling her hair, and kicking her on multiple occasions between June of 2011 and April of 2012.
He was also found guilty of striking a child under the age of sixteen on the head and body “with a force likely to produce death or grievous bodily harm”. Don Christensen, a former chief prosecutor for the Air Force, told The New York Times that Kelley assaulted his stepson “severely enough that he fractured his skull.” He was also accused of pointing a loaded firearm at his wife, but that charge was dismissed.
It appears that domestic violence was a thread through Kelley’s life. At least two ex-girlfriends told NBC that he stalked them after they ended relationships with him. His first wife filed for divorce in 2012, the same year Kelley was court-martialed for the abuse of her and her son. He was remarried in 2014.
Authorities said that he had been fighting with his current wife’s family and had sent threatening texts to his mother-in-law, who sometimes worshipped at the Sutherland Springs church. Among his victims was his wife’s grandmother.
“There was a domestic situation going on within the family and the in-laws,” said Freeman Martin, a regional director of the Texas Department of Public Safety.
In some ways, Kelley’s profile is not that unusual. In the US, most mass shootings involve domestic violence, according to research from Everytown for Gun Safety, although many incidents do not make national news.
In fifty-four percent of mass shootings from 2009 to 2016, defined as incidents in which four or more people were fatally shot, not including the perpetrator, the gunman shot a current or former intimate partner or family member. Everytown also found that, in nearly half of these cases, the killer exhibited warning signs, such as recent acts of violence, threats, or violation of a protective order.

Rico says somebody deserves another court-martial for failing to log his... (And didn't these women ask any questions before marrying this asshole?)