Texas church killer Devin Patrick Kelley never should have been able to buy his assault rifle, military brass admitted Monday — acknowledging that the Air Force failed to tell the FBI he had been court-martialed for domestic violence.
Under federal law, Kelley’s 2012 conviction for beating his wife and cracking his infant stepson’s skull should have barred him from possessing any firearms after he served 12 months in the brig and was slapped with a “bad conduct” discharge in 2014.
But the fiend amassed a small arsenal by legally purchasing one weapon a year — two each in Texas and Colorado — between 2014 and 2017, authorities said.
The former airman was able to pass mandatory background checks because his military criminal record wasn’t entered into the FBI’s National Crime Information Center database, the Air Force said in a statement.
Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein have ordered “a complete review of the Kelley case,” as well as “a comprehensive review of Air Force databases to ensure records in other cases have been reported correctly,” the statement said.
“The Air Force has also requested that the Department of Defense Inspector General review records and procedures across the Department of Defense,” it added.
Kelley’s weaponry included the Ruger AR-556 he used to methodically gun down the congregation inside the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs Sunday morning.
He also owned a 9mm Glock pistol and a .22-caliber Ruger handgun found in his car, where he used one of the weapons to fatally shoot himself in the head as cops closed in.
Houston lawyer Brett Podolsky, an expert on Texas gun law, said the Lone Star State is especially strict when it comes to domestic abusers, and merely an “affirmative finding of family violence” — without a conviction — is enough to bar someone from buying a gun.
“All day long and every day, an assault against a spouse or a child, biological or otherwise, would trigger a prohibition,” he said.
“This is the prototypical example of why you have this law.”