Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton called for armed security in places of worship following the church shooting in Sutherland Springs, TX, that left at least 26 people dead.
“If somebody’s willing to kill someone they’re also willing to violate a gun law. All I can say is that in Texas, at least we have the opportunity to have concealed carry,” Ken Paxton said in an interview Sunday with Fox News.
“And so if it’s a place where somebody has the ability to carry, there’s always the opportunity that gunman will be taken out before he has the opportunity to kill very many,” he continued.
According to authorities, a good guy with a gun did intervene during the shooting likely saving lives and preventing more carnage.
“As he [the suspect] exited the church, a local resident grabbed his rifle and engaged that suspect,” said Freeman Martin, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, at a press conference Sunday.
“The suspect dropped his rifle, which was a Ruger AR assault-type rifle, and fled from the church” [in an SUV], Major Martin added.
SEE ALSO: Obama Calls for Gun Control Less than 6 Hours after Texas Shooting
The armed citizen would then elicit the help of a nearby motorist and pursue the fleeing suspect. After a high-speed chase, the suspect crashed his car into a ditch. The two good Samaritans pulled up to the scene. And the one with the gun held the man at gunpoint until police arrived.
The suspect died of a gunshot wound. It’s not clear whether it was self-inflicted or a result of the gunfight with the armed citizen.
In America, what protects you from being shot to death by a stranger who happens to be the mood to kill people? Nothing. Random chance. Luck
— Dana Stevens (@thehighsign) November 5, 2017
Paxton also spoke about the grim reality of living in a world with lone wolf attackers.
“We’ve had shootings at churches forever. It’s going to happen again,” he said. “We need people in churches, either professional security or at least arming some of the parishioners or the congregation so that they can respond when something like this happens again.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (Photo: Houston Chron.)
To that end, Texas recently enacted a law cutting red tape for armed volunteers, approved by congregation leaders, to serve as security personnel for churches.
The question was posed, in the Tweet above by film critic Dana Stevens, “In America, what protects you from being shot to death by a stranger who happens to be [sic] the mood to kill people”?
She answers, “Nothing. Random chance. Luck.” She’s wrong. Well, she’s right, if you believe like so many, that your safety is the responsibility of the government.
But she’s wrong if you acknowledge the truth. As the attorney general intimated, only you can keep you safe. Your capacity to fight back is what protects you.
Get a concealed carry permit. Train. Train hard. Nothing’s guaranteed in life. But your odds are much better if you have it than if you don’t.
i was sound and vid tec for 2.5 years at a local church and carried often, being in the back and up top
God loves us all so much, He permitted His Son, Jesus Christ, as a gift to the fallen human race, to come into this world to do for us what we could not do for ourselves, that is, to provide a way of salvation wherein God can be just and we can be justified. And that’s all possible only via exercised faith in that Gift. But to then refuse to do for ourselves what God has given us authority and provision to do, is wanton presumption. Blessed are those who read this and understands….
Great thought, as soon as we have armed security in schools, movie theaters, public events, etc.etc.
Here is a thought, we could allow legally armed and educated concealed carry holders to legally carry. This would eliminate the the soft targets for the deranged!
just what was thinking. let the people who go to their church and have guns legally carry them inside to protect themselves and others.
The primary question is “ Will the leaders in American churches love their people enough to actually protect them?” In the very early medieval days the thought was that God would protect those who deserved it. But the Viking raids into what is now Scotland, England and Ireland taught them that they must protect themselves. “Love” does NOT allow us to leave the innocent unprotected.