U.S. Air Force ordered to pay $230 million in damages after Texas church shooting

In the wake of every multiple-victim public shooting, anti-Second Amendment extremists run to the nearest microphone to blame America's "lax" gun laws for the loss of life.

On the other hand, Second Amendment advocates point out that the reason many of these attackers had access to firearms it is the lack of enforcement of existing gun control laws.

A federal judge in Texas has now sided with Second Amendment advocates, ruling in a lawsuit brought by survivors and victims’ families after a deadly shooting at a Texas church.

From WCPO (ABC Cincinnati):

The U.S. Air Force has been ordered to pay more than $230 million in damages to survivors and victims’ families for a deadly shooting at a Texas church.

The ruling comes from a Texas federal judge who earlier decided that the Air Force was liable for the massacre carried out by a former serviceman.

More than two dozen people were killed in the 2017 attack in Sutherland Springs when [killer's name redacted - we Don't Name Them] opened fire during a Sunday service.

A lawsuit alleged the Air Force might have prevented the deaths by flagging [the murderer's] prior assault conviction, preventing him from legally buying the weapon used in the shooting.

The ruling came in the wake of revelations that the murder had been court-martialed, and that his court-martial and subsequent conviction under Article 128 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice wasn't entered into the federal NCIC database. If it had been, he would have been disqualified from legal firearms ownership or purchases.

The judge had previously thrown out a case which attempted to blame the gun store that sold the killer his gun, noting that the gun store ran the required background check, and could not have known about the information that had not been entered by the U.S. Air Force.

As we have reported on many occasions, the lack of appropriate data entry is a major problem with the country's background check system.

• Report: Nearly 100 courts in Ohio failed to report felons to background check database on time
• Cleveland Municipal Court officials fail to report convictions to gun database because of expired password, report says
• Report: How technology problems and clerical errors could allow felons to purchase guns in Ohio
• Headline: Man arrested in Cleveland three times in six months on gun charges: “I’ll never stop carrying a gun”
• Officials admit almost total failure to prosecute lying on background checks
• It's "the nut behind the bolt" that make guns dangerous
• Indiana red flag law fails to stop FedEx killer

These and many more examples are why we say that until the government gets its act together, there should be no more talk of laws which only punish the law-abiding.

There should be no talk of mandating government control over private sales of guns between individuals.

Those who are truly seeking to make a difference should focus their efforts on ensuring that government entities consistently, accurately, regularly input their data into the national database, and enacting and enforcing penalties on those who don't.

Chad D. Baus served as Buckeye Firearms Association Secretary from 2013-2019, and continues to serve on the Board of Directors. He is co-founder of BFA-PAC, and served as its Vice Chairman for 15 years. He is the editor of BuckeyeFirearms.org, which received the Outdoor Writers of Ohio 2013 Supporting Member Award for Best Website, and is also an NRA-certified firearms instructor.