Critics of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden are slamming his comments about Texas’s nonrestrictive firearms laws after an armed parishioner shot and killed a suspect who opened fire on a church congregation in the state over the weekend.
“It is irrational, with all due respect to the governor of Texas, it’s irrational what they’re doing,” Biden said in September following a mass shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. “I mean every day, you see a mass shooting.”
Two people, including the alleged attacker, died after he opened fire during Sunday services at the West Freeway Church of Christ in Tarrant County over the weekend.
Witnesses said the gunman was shot and killed by an armed parishioner. According to some reports, the gunman was killed by an armed security guard.
Gun rights activists have heralded the incident as an example of a “good guy with a gun” stopping a violent attack.
“We lost two great men today, but it could have been a lot worse, and I’m thankful that our government has allowed us the opportunity to protect ourselves,” Britt Farmer, the pastor of the West Freeway Church, said during a news conference.
[Read more: ‘Make sure your vote is on target’: Man who stopped Texas church shooter is running for office]
West Freeway Church of Christ Senior Minister Britt Farmer: “I’m thankful our government has allowed us the opportunity to protect ourselves” pic.twitter.com/5fLSnSjQzg
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) December 30, 2019
Texas has some of the most liberal Second Amendment laws in the country. A newly passed law in September allows citizens to openly carry firearms in places of worship.
Biden and other leading Democrats have argued that having guns in schools, churches, and hospitals does not make mass shootings less likely or dangerous.
“The idea that we don’t have elimination of assault-type weapons, magazines that can hold multiple bullets in them — it’s absolutely mindless,” Biden said. “It’s no violation of the Second Amendment. It’s just a bow of special interests of the gun manufacturers and the NRA.”
Former Texas congressman and onetime 2020 candidate for president Beto O’Rourke, who made gun control a pillar of his failed run for the White House, echoed Biden’s remarks.
So saddened to hear about another church shooting in Texas, this one in White Settlement near Fort Worth. Clearly what we are doing in Texas, what we are doing in this country, when it comes to guns is not working. https://t.co/krwcpL1lih
— Beto O’Rourke (@BetoORourke) December 29, 2019
“Clearly what we are doing in Texas, what we are doing in this country, when it comes to guns is not working,” O’Rourke said.
Video clips of Biden’s September comments were circulated online and on social media by conservatives and pro-gun activists.
In September, Democrat Joe Biden attacked TX Gov Greg Abbott for signing a law that let lawful gun owners carry guns into places of worship
Biden: “it’s just absolutely irrational. It’s totally irrational”
Today, a good guy with a gun saved countless lives inside a Texas church pic.twitter.com/qeK31Bvm84
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) December 29, 2019
