USA Today Opinion Columnist: It's 'Terrifying' that White Settlement Congregation Members Were Armed

Brittany M. Hughes | January 2, 2020
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In an opinion column for the Arizona Republic and published by USA Today, author Elvia Diaz purported that while the man who shot and killed a gunman in a Texas church last Sunday was an acceptable stopgap to a massacre, the other parishioners who drew their guns on the attacker are “terrifying.”

According to Diaz, Jack Wilson, credited with saving an untold number of lives after firing the single shot that took down the gunman less than six seconds after he’d launched his attack, “wasn’t just an ordinary parishioner, as gun advocates may want you to believe.”

“The church’s volunteer security team member is a firearms instructor, gun range owner and former reserve deputy with a local sheriff’s department, according to a New York Times detailed account,” Diaz explained. “In other words, he’s exactly the kind of man you want around with a firearm.”

But the other armed church-goers, not so much.

“But we know nothing about the at least six other parishioners who also appeared to draw their handguns at West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, Texas. And that's terrifying,” she went on. 

Diaz argues that while having an armed, well-trained citizen in your congregation might be of benefit (a point that would be hard to argue against, given last Sunday’s example), she nevertheless continues to claim that an armed citizenry filled with ordinary people carrying firearms for self-defense is “terrifying.” While lacking any information about the readiness, training or aptitude of the other armed parishioners, and without a shred of proof that they possessed any less ability than Jack Wilson, Diaz criticizes the concept that ordinary people should carry – or even be allowed to carry – firearms in many public places like churches.

“The Second Amendment gives Americans the right to bear arms. And that isn’t going anywhere,” she wrote. “But that constitutional amendment doesn’t spell out the types of firearms Americans should bear, nor does it give Americans the right to sell them to anyone to carry anywhere.”

Leave it to an anti-gun liberal to use even the story of an armed hero saving people from a bloody massacre to push an anti-gun narrative. 

 

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