SUTHERLAND SPRINGS

Imagine being in a church on a Sunday morning... or in any other building or event... a town meeting, a Kiwanis Club meeting, a high school basketball game... and in walks unannounced evil.

I can't imagine how those churchgoers in Sutherland Springs, Texas felt yesterday, all sitting there with Bibles in hand, joined in the worship of God.  As I write this, the horrible news is just breaking out and I don't even know anything about the shooter yet, except that he's dead.  Did he shoot himself or did the cops shoot him?  I don't know.

So, the first shot rings out.  Now, where do you think the cops were on an otherwise peaceful Sunday morning?  I have to think they were not out on the immediate street corner waiting for something to happen.  Some, maybe one, was at home with family on a day or shift off, maybe another had just gotten off shift and was at home in the bunk, maybe another was filling up his patrol car at a gas station... just how many cops does a town of 400 have on their entire force anyway?  They may not even have a police force; they may rely on a county sheriff for protection.  My initial research shows there is one highway patrolman living in the area and the Wilson County Sheriff's office in Floresville... 15 miles away; there are 6,500 people in Wilson County, so just how many do they have working as deputies?  

The shot rings out and pandemonium begins as the minutes tick by.   Bang! One dead.  Bang!  Two dead.  Screams.  No one but the shooter has a gun.  The first call to 911 hasn't even happened yet.  Bang!  One seriously injured.  Bang!  Another dead... someone finally fishes a cellphone out of his pocket.  Bang!  We're just now five or six seconds into this sickening scenario.  

What the timing was, I don't yet know, but it could have been 15 minutes before the first law enforcement showed up from Floresville, counting getting the dispatch to getting into a patrol car to traveling at 80 or 90 mph to the scene.  Whatever the timing was, the shooter had plenty of time to reload.  Bang!  Bang!  Bang! 

Sooner or later, this country has to come to grips with the sheer reality of the situation.  If there were 30 people in that church, at least two or three should have been carrying a concealed weapon and known how to use it.  If just one or two had... maybe lives would have been saved.  Maybe the minutes would not have gone so desperately by in an otherwise quite church interrupted only by bang... bang... bang.