However from the perspective of the U.S. Air Force: Reduced in rank to Airman Basic, a year in the Brig, and thrown out of the U.S. Air Force with a Bad Conduct Discharge (most all veterans' benefits are forfeited).
Another Mass Shooting in the U.S.
- Thread starter essguy_
- Start date
This is what tribalism is. It's not about what's best, the greater good. It's about whose side you're on.
Its gotten to a point where which party you support is more important than any other distinguishing factor for many people in the U.S. And they can never be friends with the other side, it seems. I'm finding that more and more in the past decade in Canada too. WAY more partisan. Way more labelling somebody as "left" or "right" when in fact they may be neither. You see that a lot even on this forum.
I heard that his domestic violence charge was not entered into the database and thus he was able to buy a gun.
IF true I see a massive lawsuit.
Well if it's true that they failed to put the shooter's name into the database.... what would their defense be? That he would have used a car instead?
There seems to be a real problem with their classification. He received a BCD instead of a dishonourable discharge. Which makes you wonder what the heck he needed to do to make it dishonourable - like beating his wife and kids wasn't dishonourable? Anyway, a BCD does not disqualify you from gun ownership. BUT, his 1 year felony prison sentence should have. So the system screwed up on handling the two different classifications. Also - still not confirmed but there's talk that Kelley may have lied on his firearm transaction record (form 4473)- so combined with the faulty NICS data allowed him to easily get a gun.
https://www.atf.gov/file/61446/download
Virtually impossible to sue the US armed forces. There's something called "doctrine of sovereign immunity" which protects them from lawsuits. Only way to get around that is to have permission from the federal government, and that aint gonna happen
Normally there is a statute which enables such lawsuits. In Ontario, it is the "Proceedings against the Crown Act".
I assume that there is an equivalent in the US which enables negligence suits against the federal government. Were there not, then anyone who slipped on uncleared ice or drove into an unfilled pot-hole on an army base would have no redress.
If there was a clerical oversight which failed to transcribe his military punishment to a database, that sounds like straight-up negligence - like the uncleared ice.
But I am guessing that military punishments do not equate to civilian penal sentences for legal purposes. In the service, you can be jailed for telling a colonel to go fuck himself. That has no civilian equivalent. You can also be jailed for refusing to wear a uniform or clean your gun. Again, no civilian equivalent.
If he was charged with "conduct unbecoming" for beating his wife and court-martialed, then there may be no domestic abuse conviction per se and the year in the stockade may not be considered a year's jail time on a felony conviction.
That link still supports what I said. Switzerland has 7.7 homicides per 100,000 vs 29.7 for the U.S., which is quite a large spread.
As other's have already pointed out no lawsuit. But very definitely direction from the Office of the Secretary of Defense and/or the Secretary of the Air Force, making certain that this does not happen again. Perhaps even legislation.
The Federal Torts Claims Act. (1946)
However, interestingly no State that I'm aware of has done away with Sovereign Immunity. Typically it takes a special act by the State Legislature signed into law by the Governor to permit a lawsuit (which almost never happens).
But a situation such as this is not covered by the Federal Torts Claims Act.
SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Tex. — A day after a gunman massacred parishioners in a small Texas church, the Air Force admitted on Monday that it had failed to enter the man’s domestic violence court-martial into a federal database that could have blocked him from buying the rifle he used to kill 26 people.
The conviction of the gunman, Devin P. Kelley, for domestic assault on his wife and infant stepson — he had cracked the child’s skull — should have stopped Mr. Kelley from legally purchasing the military-style rifle and three other guns he bought in the last four years. But that information was never entered by the Air Force into the federal database for background checks on gun purchasers, the service said.
“The Air Force has launched a review of how the service handled the criminal records of former Airman Devin P. Kelley following his 2012 domestic violence conviction,” the Air Force said in a statement. “Federal law prohibited him from buying or possessing firearms after this conviction.”
The statement said that Heather Wilson, the Air Force secretary, and Gen. David Goldfein, the Air Force chief of staff, had ordered the Air Force inspector general to work with the Pentagon’s inspector general to “conduct a complete review of the Kelley case and relevant policies and procedures.”
The Air Force also said that it was looking into whether other convictions had been improperly left unreported. “The service will also conduct a comprehensive review of Air Force databases to ensure records in other cases have been reported correctly,” the statement said.
New details of the killings also emerged on Monday, including a possible motive. Local law enforcement officials said that Mr. Kelley may have been driven by anger toward his estranged wife’s family, the final chapter in a life full of domestic rage. In addition to his court-martial, in which his previous wife was the victim, he had been investigated on a rape complaint, though he was not charged and his relationship to the victim was unclear.
His current wife’s mother attended First Baptist Church, the target of Mr. Kelley’s rage on Sunday. “The suspect’s mother-in-law attended this church,” Freeman Martin, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said during a news conference Monday morning. “We know that he had made threatening texts and we can’t go into detail into that domestic situation that is continuing to be vetted and thoroughly investigated.”
“This was not racially motivated, it wasn’t over religious beliefs, it was a domestic situation going on,” Mr. Martin added.
Mr. Kelley’s wife and her parents were not at the church on Sunday, the authorities said, but a relative of his wife’s grandmother posted on Facebook that the grandmother was there and had been killed.
Mr. Kelley, who was dressed in all black and wore a skull-face mask, left the church, engaged in a gunfight with a bystander outside, and then led the bystander and another man in a dramatic car chase that ended with Mr. Kelley dead behind the wheel. He had shot himself, investigators said, though it was not yet clear whether that bullet had caused his death.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a...man-to-buy-weapons/ar-AAuvF6z?ocid=spartandhp
The conviction of the gunman, Devin P. Kelley, for domestic assault on his wife and infant stepson — he had cracked the child’s skull — should have stopped Mr. Kelley from legally purchasing the military-style rifle and three other guns he bought in the last four years. But that information was never entered by the Air Force into the federal database for background checks on gun purchasers, the service said.
“The Air Force has launched a review of how the service handled the criminal records of former Airman Devin P. Kelley following his 2012 domestic violence conviction,” the Air Force said in a statement. “Federal law prohibited him from buying or possessing firearms after this conviction.”
The statement said that Heather Wilson, the Air Force secretary, and Gen. David Goldfein, the Air Force chief of staff, had ordered the Air Force inspector general to work with the Pentagon’s inspector general to “conduct a complete review of the Kelley case and relevant policies and procedures.”
The Air Force also said that it was looking into whether other convictions had been improperly left unreported. “The service will also conduct a comprehensive review of Air Force databases to ensure records in other cases have been reported correctly,” the statement said.
New details of the killings also emerged on Monday, including a possible motive. Local law enforcement officials said that Mr. Kelley may have been driven by anger toward his estranged wife’s family, the final chapter in a life full of domestic rage. In addition to his court-martial, in which his previous wife was the victim, he had been investigated on a rape complaint, though he was not charged and his relationship to the victim was unclear.
His current wife’s mother attended First Baptist Church, the target of Mr. Kelley’s rage on Sunday. “The suspect’s mother-in-law attended this church,” Freeman Martin, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said during a news conference Monday morning. “We know that he had made threatening texts and we can’t go into detail into that domestic situation that is continuing to be vetted and thoroughly investigated.”
“This was not racially motivated, it wasn’t over religious beliefs, it was a domestic situation going on,” Mr. Martin added.
Mr. Kelley’s wife and her parents were not at the church on Sunday, the authorities said, but a relative of his wife’s grandmother posted on Facebook that the grandmother was there and had been killed.
Mr. Kelley, who was dressed in all black and wore a skull-face mask, left the church, engaged in a gunfight with a bystander outside, and then led the bystander and another man in a dramatic car chase that ended with Mr. Kelley dead behind the wheel. He had shot himself, investigators said, though it was not yet clear whether that bullet had caused his death.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a...man-to-buy-weapons/ar-AAuvF6z?ocid=spartandhp
As you see above, the USAF has now admitted fault. Why wouldn't this be a situation of negligence covered by the FTCA?
So I'm driving down a state highway in MI last August visiting family and a huge pothole smashes my car to shit and I end up a paraplegic.
No issue of driver's negligence. 100% negligence attributable to the condition of the highway and admitted and obvious nonfeasance in maintaining the roadway. Can I not sue the shit out of Michigan? I'd sure as hell sue Ontario if it happened up here.
Don't know about Michigan for certain, but in most states sorry but you are SOL in terms of suing the State, unless the state grants you permission to sue (typically by special act).
You may indeed be correct. I don't practice in Federal Torts Claims, and don't claim to be an expert in it.
My initial thought was that the Military is treated differently than civilian agencies, and that this therefore may not be one of the torts covered by the Law. But I may be off base in this situation.
However, even if not covered this may be a situation in which Congress would pass legislation granting special permission to sue.
To describe the U.S. Air Force's actions as a world class screw up is putting it quite mildly!
