Robert “Beto” O’Rourke’s comments about the West Freeway Church shooting, as reported by the Daily Caller and others, sticks in my craw: “So saddened to hear about another church shooting in Texas, this one in White Settlement near Fort Worth,” the former Democratic presidential candidate tweeted. “Clearly what we are doing in Texas, what we are doing in this country, when it comes to guns is not working.”

Am I just reading too much into these words by an ex-Congressman and failed Senate and Presidential candidate? Did “what we are doing” fail because this murderer had a shotgun? Or because the congregation was able to protect itself from a murderously evil man? Are he and other haters of guns upset that another massacre did NOT take place, right after Christmas?

In just two days, the information is somewhat clearer regarding the attack at the West Freeway Church of Christ’s assembly on Sunday morning. And I find myself thinking that some of what is being said is right – if for the wrong reasons.

Many people expected it to be pushed under the rug, since it (a) was not a “mass shooting” and (b) the reason it was not that the congregation was prepared for, and dealt with it. Instead, it seems to be picking in coverage even by the mainstream media.

Not in the way many people wish, of course. The dead attacker turns out to very much match a profile we’ve seen all too often: the mentally-disturbed, drug-using, serial criminal and abuser. Older than many, but still decades younger than the two brothers in Christ he killed and the third brother (Jack Wilson) who put him down like the rabid dog that he was. And although he had been in contact (and received benevolence from the church or some of its members), he was there in disguise on Sunday morning.

A nice juicy mass shooting (which this was not, according to the usual definitions) would have splashed across the video screens and top-of-the-hour reports around the world. It would have (as so many other such attacks have) let the hoploclasts and hoplophobes really beat their breasts over the tragedy. So is O’Rourke and his ilk upset that Texas law now “allows” churches like this to defend themselves? Instead of depending on government?

An MSM outlet (MSN) tries to present a “fair” and even-handed report on the gun battle and the controversy swirling around it, and I have to admit that they did a better job than usual. However, it is clear that the hoplophobes and hoploclasts are unhappy with it, and using the incident to demand more action on controlling (banning) guns in private ownership.

The video is a bonus – for once we see the start AND the end of a gunfight, and I’ve already pointed out the lessons learned. It is ironic (at least to the Regressivists) that the second man killed, the man who the murderer spoke to, was a black man in what had already been condemned as a “racist” church in a “racist” town (based solely on its name). And it is also telling that the members of the congregation tried to give life-saving first aid to the murderer as well as his victims.

As has been noted, Texas’ new law “allowing” weapons to be carried in and around church meetinghouses is only a few months old. There are still many states and jurisdictions that prohibit weapons from being carried in many different “gun-free zones.” Which makes them little more than hunting preserves for evil madmen like this guy.

As I’ve pointed out regularly, the Lord explicitly allows and commands self-defense and defense of others using deadly force, when necessary. If you know people in jurisdictions that still deny the God-given, basic, human right of self-defense, tell them to consider in turn disobeying that evil manmade law. Echo the Apostle Peter, who told the Sanhedrin (equal to at least a State Legislature today), to their face: “We must obey God rather than men.”