Texas Church Shooting : Thread

What a TOTAL loser!

I blame his seething form of atheism, which combined with violent tendencies.

I respect people's right to have faith or not. I was an atheist myself at one point.

It's when they start preaching it, and calling everyone who believes in God or that Jesus was Godsent and the son of God, a fool and an idiot that there's a big problem with atheism.

They shouldn't even care.

That said, I'm not suggesting that atheists in general aren't good people, but some of them do have a real hate on for Christians, and it's time for that to stop dead in its tracks.

I wish the haters were not so presumptuous or so arrogant in how they malign people of faith and in some instances, true understanding and comprehension.

If he had the first clue as to what those people were honoring and why, he wouldn't have done it. Might have even left the gun at home and joined them.

originally posted by: dragonridr
a reply to: soberbacchus

Wow nice guy he beat women and children now it turns out he even beat puppies. Whats next stealing candy from babies?

You're talking about between that and murdering half a church full of people?

originally posted by: Irishhaf
a reply to: projectvxn

Which is it?

I have read dishonorable, and I have read bad conduct... do we have a definitive on this yet?

He went through a court martial and the discharge was court ordered. That means it was a bad conduct discharge just like chelsea manning.

a reply to: dragonridr

I still can't believe that any judge would give him that kind of charge after fracturing an infant's skull.

originally posted by: Irishhaf
a reply to: projectvxn

Which is it?

I have read dishonorable, and I have read bad conduct... do we have a definitive on this yet?

I'm guessing with the way it went down that it was a bad conduct discharge.

You have to understand that discharges of this type are far more rare than people realize.

The vast majority of the time discharges can only fall into one of two categories Honorable and Dishonorable. General discharges are typically for people who wash out of basic(unless they were injured in which case they get honorable for benefits), bad conduct discharges are rare but we're talking about getting caught with a prostitute, not cracking an infants skull.

So is there a definitive? Not that I have seen yet.

but it looks like the military justice system dropped the ball hard core on this.

a reply to: projectvxn

Let's be frank, with any kind of justice system, this would be dropping the ball, but we know this doesn't just happen in the military. There have been cases in the civilian system where child molesters get off with a veritable slap on the wrist.

For some reason, children don't count.

This is, however, a text book case of what they mean when they say that those who abuse and torment animals tend to escalate. Sadly this one escalated into super volcano levels.

if nothing else they prevented him from going back in and shooting more bullets at the wounded...we don't know if he planned to shoot up other places besides the church

originally posted by: Simon_Boudreaux
a reply to: Stevemagegod1

Exactly! We have no idea what else this guy had planned. The civilian that engaged him and the guy with the truck should be considered heroes.

a reply to: ketsuko

I have noticed that our system doesn't seem to care about children that much.

For as horrific as those types of crimes are, the punishments rarely do the crime justice.

a reply to: projectvxn

Bad conduct is rare your right. But the reason is it requires a court martial to get one.

originally posted by: dragonridr
a reply to: projectvxn

Bad conduct is rare your right. But the reason is it requires a court martial to get one.

I'm not a JAG officer so I can't say for sure.

But I'm fairly certain that this merited a DD not a BCD.

A DD would have averted this..At least using legal avenues.

I hardly ever post on ATS these days,although I still love the place it saddens me to see how it has followed the trend of the rest of the internet.
The polarization,the tribal us vs them mentality..

This breaks us as a people,and sadly i believe it is by design by those who wish to make us ALL weaker and subservient to the state.
This event is a real tradgedy and my heart bleeds for anyone who has lost loved ones.

All I can say from my perspective in the UK is this:

My country came up with the saying that "A gentlemans home is his castle."
That essentially means that if someone comes into your home,your town,your shop,your church with ill intent-then you have the right to defend yourself.
Now,in the UK this right has almost been taken from us.
We can still use minimum required force,but in court we must prove that our defence against attack was the "minimal force"required to repel or stop said attack.

In the case of someone attempting to kill you,I would argue that minimal force would include killing the attacker.
I would state that in court.

Now-I am a lover of peace,but I understand that there are evil people in this world who do not want peace.
If such a person attacked my family with lethal force(such as a gun),I would stop them with whatever lethal force I could muster.
And I would tell the truth in court,that I meant to kill such an attacker to save myself,friends,or family.

For this reason,I respect the American 2nd amendment.

If I lived in America,I would be a legal gun owner to protect my family.

The 2nd worst thing in the world for me would be to kill someone.
The 1st worst thing in the world would be to see my family killed by an attacker.

Even if it meant my own death,or life in prison-I would fight tooth and claw to the death,to protect those I love.

In America,you can do that legally.
IN the UK,I would maybe end up in prison,but I would take that with honour every time,over anyone in my family being killed.

I do not believe the problem is gun related.
Here is why:
We banned guns in the UK.
Criminals switched to knives.
We made new harder laws against knife crime.
Criminals switched to acid attacks.

Criminals or terrorists will use the most easily avalible or that which will give the lesser prison sentence to carry out their crimes.

But,as a law abiding citizen,if the police are not here to help-I will pick up WHATEVER is at hand to fight back and if needs be kill anyone who wishes to kill my family.

I say this as someone who has fought off home invaders with my bare hands(cops said I was right to do so).
My dog once bit a criminal who was trying to steal my car outside my house.(cops said my dog was a hero).

Never think the law prevents you from defending youself.
You and your families lives are always more important than any low life degenerate who tries to harm you.

Peace and love is the way to live IMO,but protection of your peace may,in some circumstances require violence to maintain.
Whatever the law says.

a reply to: AnkhMorpork

It's already been determined that the motivations were not religious or racial for the shooting. Easy to blame atheism, it already gets blamed for everything else wrong with the planet by religious people. He's ex military, probably has PTSD or CTE. Either way he's a loony tune.

originally posted by: projectvxn

originally posted by: dragonridr
a reply to: projectvxn

Bad conduct is rare your right. But the reason is it requires a court martial to get one.

I'm not a JAG officer so I can't say for sure.

But I'm fairly certain that this merited a DD not a BCD.

A DD would have averted this..At least using legal avenues.

Honorable
To receive an honorable discharge, a service member must have received a rating from good to excellent for his or her service. Service members who meet or exceed the required standards of duty performance and personal conduct, and who complete their tours of duty, normally receive honorable discharges.

General
General discharges are given to service members whose performance is satisfactory but is marked by a considerable departure in duty performance and conduct expected of military members.

Other Than Honorable (OTH)
An OTH is a form of administrative discharge. This type of discharge represents a departure from the conduct and performance expected of all military members

Bad Conduct Discharge (BCD)
A Bad Conduct Discharge (BCD), can only be given by a court-martial (either special or general) as punishment to an enlisted service-member. Bad conduct discharges are often preceded by a period of confinement in a military prison. The discharge itself is not executed until completion of both confinement and the appellate review process.

originally posted by: Stevemagegod1
a reply to: TheJesuit

A Good Guy with a Gun stopped a Bad Guy with a Gun. But the Left wont admit it because there Laws Failed.

A good guy shot a bad guy who should have never been able to buy a gun after he murdered 26+ plus people.

The NRA crowd will never acknowledge the latter.

But no doubt the "good guy" who shot him after the murders as well as the entire town of Sutherland Springs would agree that the shooter never should have been sold a gun and whatever allowed him to needs to get fixed.

a reply to: soberbacchus

Im blaming texas on this one. I know im going to catch hell but heres why. Federal law states anyone found guilty of domestic violence is banned from owning a gun for life. However Texas law has a 5 year ban, so 5 years after time served you become illegible to buy guns again.

originally posted by: AnkhMorpork
What a TOTAL loser!

I blame his seething form of atheism, which combined with violent tendencies.

Swap atheism with monotheism and you have the majority of hate killers in the world.

Just saying, blaming atheism for his actions is something a fundamentalist might suggest.

He was hoping to catch his mother-in-law there BTW. This was a domestic beef + Crazy.

a reply to: soberbacchus

No. I am pretty sure that we all acknowledge he shouldn't have been able to legally buy a gun, but we also say that the laws we had were improperly applied somewhere along the way. So adding new ones isn't going to fix an issue with properly applying the laws we have.

a reply to: dragonridr

Hasn't been 5 years - 2013 or 2014

Texas denied a carry permit.

Looks like the feds screwed up there is even one.

Just to clarify, I said "seething form of atheism", atheism with an axe to grind. It was most certainly a factor.