The massacre that took place on Sunday at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas that left 26 worshippers dead and 20 others injured has been flooded with supremely awful takes on how we should ban all guns (i.e. most liberals’ take) or suggest that Antifa was behind the attack. And while a lot of liberals were mocking the use of prayer and religion following the attack, in relation to the “thoughts and prayers” talking point, there’s a narrative that hasn’t gotten enough attention: A good guy with a gun stopped a bad guy with a gun. In the midst of this horrific event that took the lives of churchgoers as young as 18 months and as old as 77 years, the only thing that stopped Devin Patrick Kelley, 26, from inflicting more carnage on the small southeastern Texas town was two Samaritans with guns.
Stephen Willeford, a former National Rifle Association instructor, was at his home when his daughter came telling him she heard gunshots at the First Baptist Church nearby. Willeford got his rifle out of his safe and spotted the gunman outside of the church. That’s when he engaged. In an interview with 40/29 News, Willeford recounted the firefight, saying, “I kept hearing the shots, one after another, very rapid shots — just ‘pop pop pop pop’ and I knew every one of those shots represented someone, that it was aimed at someone, that they weren’t just random shots.”
He continued. “He saw me and I saw him. I was standing behind a pickup truck for cover.”
“I know I hit him,” Willeford said. “He got into his vehicle, and he fired another couple rounds through his side window. When the window dropped, I fired another round at him again.”
Johnnie Langendorff, a resident of nearby Seguin, was driving by the church on his way to his girlfriend’s house when he heard gunshots. Willeford ran over to his truck and said, “That guy just shot up the Baptist church. We need to stop him.”
Willeford and Langendorff chased down Kelley in their truck going 95 mph until Kelley’s car crashed in a ditch. They found him dead in his vehicle with a gunshot wound to the head. Police would not confirm whether Kelley’s death was self-inflicted or caused by the firefight.
When asked why they did what they did, Langendorff said, “He just hurt so many people. Why wouldn’t you want to take him down?”
The details of the shooting at the First Baptist Church are gruesome and horrific. There’s no better way to paint it. The worshippers who were killed, injured, or witnessed the attack don’t deserve this. And there’s no possible way of knowing that if one of those parishioners inside the church was armed that the casualty toll would’ve been much, much lower. What can be said is that if Willeford and Langendorff did not intervene when they did, there would’ve been much more bloodshed.
