GLEN ROSE, Texas - A former Navy SEAL and the author of “American Sniper,” Chris Kyle, was shot and killed along with another man Saturday at a Texas gun range, a county sheriff has told the Texas news media.
The sheriff of Erath County, Tommy Bryant, said Mr. Kyle, 38, and a second man were found dead at Rough Creek Lodge’s shooting range west of Glen Rose, according to The Fort Worth Star-Telegram and The Stephenville Empire-Tribune. Glen Rose is about 50 miles southwest of Fort Worth.
Kyle wrote the best-selling book, “American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History,” detailing his 150-plus kills of insurgents from 1999 to 2009.
Kyle, a Texas native who grew up hunting, served four tours in Iraq with Navy SEAL Team 3. His shooting during battles in Ramadi and Fallujah became legendary, and insurgents nicknamed him the “Devil of Ramadi” and put a bounty on his head.
He was credited with 160 confirmed kills, including one in 2008 in which he said he fired from 2,100 yards away – 1.2 miles.
In a February 2012 interview with NBC News, Kyle said he didn’t want to put the number in the book but the publisher insisted.
“If I could figure out the number of people I saved, that’s something I would brag about,” he told NBC News’ Lester Holt.
I was just reading a comment from someone who knew him and it seems he and the other victim went to the range with this person and he " just snapped".
Uodate.
Investigators told WFAA that Routh is a former Marine said to suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome.
Kyle, 39, served four tours in Iraq and was awarded two Silver Stars, five Bronze Stars with Valor, two Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medals, and one Navy and Marine Corps Commendation.
Kyle fought against weapons bans
Kyle served four combat tours in Iraq and received two Silver Stars, among other commendations.
He left the Navy in 2009.
He recently spoke out against weapons bans. In a video interviewwith guns.com, Kyle accused President Barack Obama of being “against the Second Amendment.”
The founding fathers “had the same weapons the military did,” he said. “We don’t even have that today – but don’t try to take what I’ve already got.”
and
“Kyle and Littlefield were both involved with trying to help veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Bryant said he did not know immediately whether Routh suffered from PTSD.
At the range, investigators found 25 to 30 weapons, including hand guns, long guns, and AK-47s, Bryant said. Authorities do not yet know which weapon or weapons were used to kill.”
since you posed the question, no, but in the long run, in the future, there will be fewer guns available then if we continue with our open policies and non-enforcement.
and, as a nation we’d be setting a tone that resolving conflicts with a gun is not acceptable - this might take a couple generations, but again I’m looking to the future.
As a nation, we’re proving we don’t deserve guns - - not just the mentally ill and gang-bangers, but not enough (of US) knows how to keep them secure and use them wisely.
I don’t know about flashbacks, but PTSD i believe is more of a depression thing. Having gone through pretty much the same thing as the vets myself, i can tell you that without medication, it can be pretty bad. I never tried therapy, some seem to think that helps, but it was night and day to me once i got onto the right drug cocktail. Over time i was able to ween off, but i fought it for a year and a half before i found the right doc, and it sucked big time. And i know how a lot of these guys are, they do not want to admit it to anyone, or themselves. So they drink to self medicate, which in the long run just makes the depression worse. I can only imagine how bad this dude must have felt, and the weird dark place his mind was in to have thought shooting his buddies was a good idea…
Yeah, my understanding, not having suffered from it myself, is that you don’t flash back as if you think you’re back on whatever place. You just can’t remember the event without reliving it, feeling all the accompanying stress, fear, etc. and that, along with the feeling of isolation, like no one else knows what you’re going through, is what leads to the depression.
Does it make sense to take someone with PTSD to a gun range? Seems to me you’d want to avoid anything that could cause a flashback.
Thats now it works. They may have been doing it to help him. Shooting can be very relaxing as your mind fades into the process not to mention spending time with comrades. Sadly many peoples experience is based on how things are portrayed in the movies so they think as you (understandably) did. PTSD is a beast.
Thats now it works. They may have been doing it to help him.
There’s no question they were trying to help him, but PTSD is unpredictable. The sound of gunfire or act of firing a gun may or may not have been a trigger to some sort of acute episode. I don’t think you can dismiss it out of hand.
Live by the sword and die by the sword. In the end he’s just another one of the 10,000+ people a year in the USA who die by gun homicides.
Some days you are a real fucking idiot. I wondered which clueless idiot would be the first so congratulations. Didn’t you have family that served? Would you say the same if they were killed and justify it by saying they had killed people in doing their job? Or course you wouldn’t.
Live by the sword… please stay north of the fucking border.