Texas church shooting: Gunman`s motive `domestic`, not racial or religious

A gunman armed with an assault rifle opened fire on a small-town Texas church during Sunday morning services killing 26 people.

Texas: The gunman who killed 26 people at a Texas church on Sunday is believed to have been driven by a "domestic" dispute.

"This was not racially motivated, it wasn`t over religious beliefs. There was a domestic situation going on with the family and in-laws," Freeman Martin, regional director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, told a news conference.

"The suspect`s mother-in-law attended this church," he said, adding that 26-year-old shooter Devin Patrick Kelley had sent "threatening texts" prior to the mass shooting, as per AFP. 

The gunman, Devin Patrick Kelley, was court-martialed in 2012 on charges of assaulting his wife and child and sentenced to twelve months confinement.

He received a “bad conduct” discharge in 2014, according to Ann Stefanek, the chief of Air Force media operations, Reuters reported.

Kelley walked into the white-steepled First Baptist Church in rural Sutherland Springs on Sunday carrying a Ruger AR-556 assault rifle and wearing a black bulletproof vest, then opened fire during prayer service.

After he left the church, two local residents, including one who was armed, chased Kelley in a truck and they exchanged gunfire.

The chase ended when Kelley crashed his car, and may have died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound or from the Good Samaritan`s weapon, said Martin.

Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackitt said in an interview that the family members were not present at the time of Kelley`s attack.

The attack, which killed people ranging from 18 months to 77 years old, came a little more than a month after a gunman killed 58 people in Las Vegas in the deadliest shooting by a sole gunman in US history.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump said on Monday that the United States was living in "dark times", but with calls for stricter gun control reinvigorated, he insisted the latest tragedy "isn`t a guns situation."

"I think that mental health is your problem here," Trump told journalists when asked if gun control could reduce the rampant firearms violence plaguing the US.

Speaking in Tokyo as part of his Asia tour, the US president dubbed the gunman "deranged".

(With Agency inputs)