Yet another horrific American mass shooting has left 26 people dead and about 20 others wounded at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. That means, in case you’re keeping track, that two of the five deadliest mass shootings in the U.S. since 1949 happened in just over a month. But it “isn’t a guns situation,” according to Donald Trump. No, “we have a lot of mental health problems in our country, as do other countries.” (Including other countries that don’t have mass shootings on a regular basis.)
It’s all so very sad and there’s just nothing we can do about it. In case you’re counting, Trump is saying this just over eight months after he repealed President Obama's rule making it harder for severely mentally ill people to get guns. The shooter, by the way—Devin Patrick Kelley—was in the Air Force until he:
… was court-martialed in 2012 for two counts of Article 128 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, assault on his spouse and assault on their child, Stefanek said. Kelley received a bad conduct discharge, confinement for 12 months and a reduction in rank, she said. The Air Force did not provide a date of the discharge.
Kelley is one more in a string of shooters and killers and terrorists who abused the women in their lives before turning their violence on the public. And the church shooting may have been directly connected to Kelley’s violence toward his ex-wife—his former in-laws attend the church, though they weren’t at this Sunday’s service. Here’s a small sampling of who was there, and who was lost in just one family:
Joe and Claryce Holcombe lost children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren all at once, a total of eight extended family members, the couple said in a phone interview with The Post.
Their son, Bryan Holcombe, 60, and his wife, Carla Holcombe, 58, were killed. Bryan was associate pastor for the church and walking to preach at the pulpit when he was shot, Joe Holcombe told The Post.
Among the dead was also their granddaughter-in-law, Crystal Holcombe, who was pregnant. She died along with her unborn child and three of her children, Emily, Megan and Greg, according to Joe Holcombe. She had been at church with her husband, John Holcombe, who survived along with two of her other children.
Their grandson, Marc Daniel Holcombe and his infant daughter, who is about a year old, also died, Joe and Claryce Holcombe said.
Can you fathom it? But it’s the reality we live, and our government will do nothing to make it stop.