A federal judge ruled that the US Air Force held the majority of the responsibility for an Air Force veteran legally purchasing weapons that he used in a mass murder at a Texas church in which 25 people were killed in 2017, the Associated Press reports.

United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas Xavier Rodriguez ruled that the US Air Force’s failure to report Devin Kelley’s history of violence and abuse to a federal database was central to Kelley’s ability to carry out the massacre.  Such a conviction on the record would have barred him from buying a gun at a store.

“The trial conclusively established that no other individual — not even Kelley’s own parents or partners — knew as much as the United States about the violence that Devin Kelley had threatened to commit and was capable of committing,” Rodriguez wrote.

Kelley purchased an AR-556 semi-automatic rifle used in shooting at Academy Sports and Outdoors.  Academy ran the proper background check legally required and no data about the arrest by military police for spousal and child abuse.  He received a bad conduct discharge in 2014 after serving five years.

The families of the victims at the shooting at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas have sued numerous entities, including the sporting goods store and the Air Force, for negligence for their role in the deadliest mass killing in Texas history.