Fort Hood gun store again linked to base rampage

http://hamptonroads.com/2014/04/fort-hood-gun-store-again-linked-base-rampage



According to Lt. Gen. Mark Milley, Ivan Lopez, the shooter, purchased his weapon recently at Guns Galore, seen Thursday, April 3, 2014, in Killeen, Texas. A soldier opened fire Wednesday on fellow service members at the Fort Hood military base, killing three people and wounding 16 before committing suicide.

Fort Hood gun store again linked to base rampage
By Paul J. Weber
The Associated Press
© April 4, 2014

KILLEEN, Texas

Guns are wall-to-wall at the Guns Galore shop near Fort Hood, and so are posters: No Idiots Allowed. This Isn't a Place for Children to Play. Firearm Trafficking is Illegal.

But now that a second mass shooting at the Texas military base has been linked to guns bought at the squat brick store, which promises "3,000 Guns In Stock," the message Guns Galore clerks are emphasizing is don't blame them.

Fort Hood officials say Guns Galore, perched along the main road to the nation's largest Army post, is where Spc. Ivan Lopez bought the .45-caliber pistol used to kill three people and wound 16 others this week. It also sold a semi-automatic pistol, laser sights and high-capacity magazines in 2009 to Nidal Hasan, who then killed 13 people and wounded more than 30 others in a base rampage.

Lt. Gen. Mark Milley, the senior officer at Fort Hood, said Lopez bought the gun on March 1, about a month before Wednesday's attack. Hasan also bought his FN 5.7 tactical pistol not long before his rampage in November 2009.