- A 42-year-old gunman was killed by police after opening fire at a summer camp in Texas on Monday.
- The shooter’s wife told the WFAA on Wednesday that he had used a handgun and kept it locked.
- The gunman was convicted of a crime and could not possess a firearm, but his wife still could.
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A 42-year-old gunman who entered a summer camp in Texas on Monday and fired two shots at an employee and children before being killed by police was barred from possessing a weapon due to a preliminary conviction for manslaughter, court records show.
But the shooter’s wife revealed this week that her husband had taken and used her pistol, which she kept locked.
The case shows the complexity of owning a firearm and the difficulty of keeping weapons out of the hands of those who are not required by law to possess them.
“Just because you’re married to someone who is a criminal doesn’t deny you the right to the Second Amendment,” Eugene Voloch, a professor at UCLA’s law school who teaches a seminar on firearms policy, told Insider.
Luquita Ned told WFAA on Wednesday that her husband had brought a gun he owned to Duncanville Fieldhouse, near Dallas, where he got into – and was killed in – a shootout with local police after shooting an employee and in a locked classroom room with children inside.
More than 250 children were in the camp at the time, but no one else was injured.
“I didn’t know he had the gun at the time,” Ned told the WFAA. “He doesn’t have to own a gun. I own a gun. He’s standing in a box with a hidden key.”
Other members of the shooter’s family told NBC5 that he does not normally carry a firearm. In fact, a previous conviction made him illegally access a gun.
According to court documents, the shooter was convicted of a second-degree crime in 2011 for manslaughter and was sentenced to two years in prison.
A police report at the time said the man was driving at high speed on December 31, 2010, when he turned and hit a curb.
His blood alcohol level was 0.17 – more than twice the legal limit – and the man in the passenger seat was killed.
Under Texas law, a person convicted of a crime can live in a home with a firearm if it has been five years since he served his sentence. But federal law prohibits people from owning firearms if convicted of a crime punishable by more than a year in prison.
UCLA professor Voloch said the shooter had to comply with both state and federal law – meaning he could not own, own or have free access to a gun.
Voloch said the law could require the gun to be locked or inaccessible. Even if someone who is not allowed to own a weapon does not physically touch the weapon, this can be considered a form of possession, even if he or she simply has access to the firearm.
As long as the gun is locked, Voloch said, no one is committing a crime.
“Generally speaking, we do not visit people’s sins against their husbands,” Voloch said. “She may need to be a little more limited in her exercises. He may have to lock her up, but we can’t just say, “Well, look, you’re married to a criminal; there is no gun for you. You “don’t have the tools to defend yourself.”
It is not immediately clear how the shooter managed to gain access to his wife’s gun. The Texas Department of Public Safety, which is investigating, did not respond immediately to numerous requests for information from Insider.
In interviews with local media, the shooter’s family apologized to everyone who was at the summer camp during Monday’s incident.
“I really want to know what happened to my husband,” Ned told NBC 5. “I know he would never hurt anyone.”
She said she discussed with her husband last month the mass shooting at Rob Elementary School in Uwalde, Texas, where an 18-year-old man shot and killed 19 children and two adults.
“He felt that the man was selfish. We talked about these things. And then it happened,” she said.
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