The Evil that Men Do

The Rev. Jeffress imagines a shooting as if it were a scene in a movie:

“They bring them into the church with them,” Jeffress confirmed. “And if somebody tries that in our church, they may get one shot off, or two shots off, but that’s it — and that’s the last thing they’ll ever do in this life.”

The shooter in Sutherland Springs shot 50 people in 15 seconds, and was wearing a bullet proof vest.  How long would it take you to:  a) realize there was an active shooter in the building; b) realize you had to respond to that shooter; c) remove your concealed weapon from where you were carrying it; d) stand (assuming you were seated and not, say, an usher); e) locate the shooter; f) aim; g) fire, hoping your round doesn't strike someone else in the building by mistake, of which there is a high likelihood; h) while being shot yourself (as all indications are every person in the church building was wounded, if not killed) or facing fire?; i) realize the shots you made to center mass were not having the effect you expected, because of the body armor?

15 seconds, and 26 people are dead, another 25 wounded.  15 seconds.  A highly trained person might get one round off, or several if the weapon was at least a semi-automatic.  The odds any of those rounds would hit the shooter are low (consider how many rounds were expended against the Boston marathon bomber trapped in a boat (upwards of 150), and how many actually struck him), the odds of a shot being fatal even lower.  The odds of there being such a highly trained person in a congregation with so many guns (“I’d say a quarter to a half of our members are concealed carry,” Jeffress said.) are so low as to be non-existent.

And yet the solution to our lawlessness is more lawlessness.  This is diseased thinking.  This is malignant thinking.

This is evil, pure and simple; as evil as the shooter in that church yesterday.