A shooting massacre at a Texas church has prompted outcry from the state’s lead attorney for armed security in places of worship.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told Fox News hours after the deadly rampage at the Sutherland Springs First Baptist Church that U.S. churches should be “arming some of the parishioners” or hiring “professional security.”
“It’s going to happen again,” Paxton said of the shooting, which resulted in 26 dead and roughly 20 injured.
If more churchgoers were armed, he said, “there’s always the opportunity that the gunman will be taken out before he has the opportunity to kill very many people.”
As mass shootings in the U.S. become more frequent and gun control legislation stalls at the federal level, more churches, schools and workplaces are devising security plans for handling an armed attacker.
“We’ve had shootings in churches for, you know, for forever … so we need people in churches, professional security or at least arming some of the parishioner or the congregation so they can respond if something like this — when something like this — happens again,” Paxton said.