American Sniper Author Shot and Killed in Texas - Page 1

Another good guy with a gun shot dead by a person with mental illness, how are them background checks working?


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/04/us/chris-kyle-american-sniper-author-reported-killed.html

Since retiring from the Navy SEALS, Chris Kyle, who was known as America’s deadliest sniper, would occasionally take fellow veterans shooting as a kind of therapy to salve battlefield scars.



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Brandon Thibodeaux for The New York Times

Chris Kyle at his home in Dallas in March 2012

Mr. Kyle, author of the best selling book “American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History,” was with a struggling former soldier on just such an outing on Saturday, hoping a day at a shooting range would bring some relief, said a friend, Travis Cox.

But Texas authorities said Sunday that for unknown reasons, the man turned on Mr. Kyle and a second man, Chad Littlefield, shooting and killing both before fleeing.  

“Chad and Chris had taken a veteran out to shoot to try to help him,” Mr. Cox said. “And they were killed.”

On Sunday, the police identified the shooter as Eddie Ray Routh, a 25-year-old veteran with a history of mental illness who had served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The police offered no information about a possible motive.

Mr. Routh shot the men at about 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, at the Rough Creek Lodge, an exclusive shooting range near Glen Rose, about 50 miles southwest of Fort Worth, Sgt. Lonny Haschel, a spokesman for the state Department of Public Safety’s Highway Patrol Division, said in a statement. Mr. Routh then fled in a pickup truck and was arrested on Saturday night at his home in Lancaster, a southern Dallas suburb. He has been charged with two counts of capital murder, Mr. Haschel said.

Mr. Cox, the director of a foundation that Mr. Kyle created, said he was not acquainted with Mr. Routh, but said that Mr. Kyle had devoted his life since his military retirement to helping fellow soldiers overcome post-traumatic stress.

In 2011, Mr. Kyle created the FITCO Cares Foundation, to provide veterans with exercise equipment and counseling. He believed that exercise coupled with the camaraderie of fellow veterans could help former soldiers ease back into civilian life.  

“He served this country with extreme honor, but came home and was a servant leader in helping his brothers and sisters dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder,” Mr. Cox, also a former military sniper, said by telephone.

Mr. Kyle, who lived outside of Dallas, had his own difficulties adjusting after retiring from the SEALS in 2009. He was deployed in Iraq during the worst years of the insurgency, perched in or on top of bombed out apartment buildings with his .300 Winchester Magnum.

He became proficient at his job, racking up more than 150 kills and becoming the scourge of Iraqi insurgents, who put a price on his head and reportedly nicknamed him the “Devil of Ramadi.”

He preferred to think of his job not as killing bad guys, but saving the good.

“I feel pretty good because I am not just killing someone, I am also saving people,” he said in a Jan. 2012 interview with The Dallas Morning News. “What keeps me up at night is not the people that I have killed. It is the people I wasn’t able to save.”

I just saw this, and you beat me to it! LOL

I mean, really if this just doesn't drive home the point that MENTAL illness, and firearm therapy is a very BAD idea.

And the Navy Seal guy seemed like just a real, nice caring guy. This is another sad story that wouldn't have happened, but for there being available, a loaded gun.

How sad and ironic.   It is evident that we really need to focus on mental illness and how to treat those who suffer from it.

You guys...
Arm chair experts.

No motive as of yet.

PTS is not your common garden variety mental disorder, none of you have any experience with it period.



This is another sad story that wouldn't have happened, but for there being available, a loaded gun.

Excellent Bee,
as brilliant as ever.

Thank you Moons, I know you can't stand how right I always am! 

Moons, if it was PTSD, then that is why we need to focus on mental illnesses of all types.   BTW how do you know if any of us have or haven't suffered from PTSD?   Anyone who has experieinced a tragic event of any kind can suffer from PTSD.  

GSD posted the story as if it has anything to do with his gun control agenda.

And you cannot compare just any experience you might have that stressed you out to combat.






It is evident that we really need to focus on mental illness and how to treat those who suffer from it.
I agree GG.

Then if this guy suffered mental illness why did he have a gun? Same with the anti-government nut why if he had known mental illness did he have a gun?

BTW, plenty of people suffer PTSD, some from [worst](lol for you Moons) worse things than combat.

I do like the way you figure only you know who suffers worse. Have you ever been in combat?

Blah blah blah GSD.

I never said only I GSD.

Talk to a vet sometime GSD, one who's been there.
There is something unique about that situation you will never know.

I think GSD posted it to show that mental illness and gun therapy, didn't work for the Lanza's and it didn't work here, either. Why people keep thinking it is a good idea for therapy is beyond me. I can predict a gun death, merely because someone has a loaded gun. That has always been GSD's point, I think.

He'll correct me, I am sure.... if I misunderstood his purpose.