Updated at 2:06 p.m. ET
Our top story on midday edition the investigation has begun into the church shooting in Sutherland Springs Texas. 26 people were killed and 20 wounded. The gunman died of a self-inflicted gunshot. Among the many issues surrounding this massacre mental health, lack of gun regulations, is the connection being made between domestic violence and mass shootings. The shooter was court-martialed and sentenced to a year in military prison back in 2012. He recently sent threatening text messages to his in-laws. Joining me is the hope international president. Welcome to the program.Great to be with you.What are the statistics on the number of mesh shooters who have domestic violence in their backgrounds?The published research puts it at 54% of all mass shooters having a domestic violence history. We actually think the number is dramatically higher than that, but definitely the majority.Do we know why violence at home would be an indicator of mass shootings?There's little doubt that in America we raise our criminals at home. A vast majority of these domestic violence offenders have a childhood trauma history. You have a childhood Tom --, history that increases the range in a man and becomes domestic violence as an adult. That domestic violence is not just slapping and punching.'s also strangulation. The man who chokes a woman is more likely to be the killer. We definitely find that childhood history and then the adult must violence history. It's not just mashed shooters. We have found this pattern in mass shooters and terrorist and the cop killers of the U.S. It is magnified by the fact that these rage filled men have easy access to firearms.You are teaching a class to FBI agents now about the link that you just mentioned between a certain type of domestic violence that is strangulation and the likelihood of future murder. Tell us more about that.We run a course called the training into two on chart -- strangulation prevention. We are here this week in South Carolina training 95 federal prosecutors and FBI agents on how to handle near fatal or non-fatal strangulation assaults. We miss this issue so many years. There's no visible injury often when he has choked the victim so law enforcement misses the significance of that. So the message here is when a man leaves a woman with a black eye or broken bone from a close face, he's an idiot. When he puts his hand around her neck, he is raised his hand and said he's a killer. We need to focus on those men. Those of the cop killers of America and the people that we have to stop before we really start saving lives.One of the lost Ronnie people convicted of domestic violence?If they are prosecuted under federal law, this a federal ban. There are places like California where if they have conviction are restraining order against them, they're not allowed to possess a firearm. In Texas, there is a prohibition as well. He should not have been accessing firearms. Because it was a court-martial, it did not show up and criminal records in the same way that a criminal conviction in a criminal court would've shown up. So what we have in the Texas situation is a loophole in the law that allowed him to buy these firearms in April 2016 that he then used in the church this weekend.Even if you know that a person has committed domestic violence and perhaps even tried to strangle someone, you can't convict someone for a likelihood of committing another act. What can law enforcement do?There is two parts to this. One is you have to focus on early intervention. The earliest is when you have somebody who's growing up with violence and abuse. We have to deal with trauma expose kids in this country and invest the resources on the front and to deal with their rage.. On the backend, we have to be far more aggressive when we figure out that somebody is violent and abusive and eliminating their access to firearms. The argument can be made that they will attain them -- obtain them illegally, that is true but a vast majority of men that kill people in mass shootings have legally possess guns. They either -- either got them before they should not happen or bought them when they should not have been allowed to buy them but someone sold them to him in a gun store. That dynamics has to be dealt with in this country. It's unbelievable that were still talking about the fact that violent, rage filled men with violence and abuse can still legally buy firearms in this country. That has to stop.I've been speaking with the president of the San Diego-based alliance for hope international to go thank you.Thank you very much.
Updated at 2:06 p.m. ET
A "domestic situation" might lie behind the massacre that unfolded at a small South Texas church during Sunday services, authorities say. At a news conference Monday, law enforcement officials explained that the gunman — identified by police as 26-year-old Devin Patrick Kelley — had sent threatening text messages to his mother-in-law, who is a parishioner at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas.
Currently, officials do not believe the attack was racially or religiously motivated.
Authorities did lay out a detailed timeline of events.
At about 11:20 a.m. local time, a suspicious man was reported near a convenience store across the street from the church. Dressed in black tactical gear and toting an assault-style rifle, the man walked toward the church as a service was underway.
The gunman opened fire even before he entered the building, unloading bullets into the walls from outside. Then, he stepped into the church and continued his attack, killing 23 parishioners inside. Two people were killed outside the church, and another person died after being transported from the scene for medical treatment.
Officials say that not long afterward, Kelley left the building and headed toward his car — at which point a local resident who saw the attack drew a weapon and fired on Kelley. Now under fire, Kelley dropped his rifle on the ground and attempted to escape by driving away.
Eventually, he was found dead in his vehicle, crashed off the road in a neighboring county. Authorities believe Kelley shot himself, sitting beside two other guns.
Now, investigators are seeking to understand at least one important question: How did Kelley obtain those guns? According to agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Kelley purchased four weapons over the span of four years — at a rate of one gun a year.
But officials say Kelley did not have a license to carry them — and his military service history further complicates the situation. NPR's Scott Neuman explains:
"He had been enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and was based in New Mexico from 2010, where he reportedly served in logistics readiness at Holloman Air Force Base until receiving a bad conduct discharge in 2014, Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek tells NPR in an email.
"She says he was court-martialed in 2012 for assaulting his wife and child, sentenced to confinement for one year and reduced in rank to E-1."
For now, crucial questions also continue to linger about Kelley's relationship with his in-laws. Authorities have not yet released the names of the victims — though they did add that the victims inside the church range in age from just 18 months to 77 years old. The official release of those names must wait for authorities to inform the victims' families.
In such a small town as Sutherland Springs — a rural community with fewer than 700 people and just a few roads — one theme continues to arise among witnesses and residents: In such a tight community, the devastation is likely to touch the lives of everyone nearby.
"Everyone I spoke to at the vigil [for victims Sunday night] knew someone in that church," David Martin Davies, a reporter with member station KSTX, told Morning Edition on Monday.
"And not only are they mourning the loss, but they're also very worried about people that are still in surgery trying to recover — because many people have multiple gunshot wounds, and they don't know what the future holds for them."
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