A ‘Good Guy With A Gun’ Showed Up At Osteen’s Church and Opened Fire

I don’t want to sound flippant about this, because it is horrifying whenever one of these public shootings take place. It is always tragic when innocent people are shot or killed in a public place. But the simple truth is that the location of this particular shooting, is where MAGAs and “Second Amendment People” as Donald Trump once characterized the NRA crowd, is their own home turf. And maybe that is what’s needed. Maybe the idiocy of the easy availability of guns will finally drill itself home to the right people, because the “good guy with a gun” showed up in a prosperity consciousness church today and began shooting.

The church was getting ready for its Sunday Spanish service. Deputy’s working at Lakewood shot a possible shooter. Kids are safe inside, to be moved soon. Other parishioners are outside. A robotic dog is on site.

Prayers don’t work with guns. We need to do our part.

— Rock the Boat, Make Big Blue Waves 🌊🌊🌊 (@walkrunfly1) February 11, 2024

This is a breaking story so I don’t know if there is a racial angle to this but at first blush there might be, because it was a Spanish service. Here’s what’s known at this time.

Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez also posted about the incident, saying the possible shooter appeared to be down. He had earlier said a Harris County sheriff’s deputy had fired the shot, but later clarified that did not appear to be the case, saying “other agencies fired.”

A Lakewood parishioner at the scene told CNN affiliate KPRC he was inside the church waiting for the Spanish language service to start when he heard multiple shots fired. The man was then instructed by a church usher to run, he told KPRC. The service was slated to begin at 3:00 p.m. ET, according to the church website.

CNN has reached out to Houston police and the Harris County Sheriff’s Office for more information.

Lakewood Church, now located in what used to be a sports arena, was founded by Osteen’s father in the 1950s.

I’m purely speculating at this point, but I wonder if this isn’t part of the outworking of Donald Trump’s racial animus right now? Houston and all of Texas is caught up in this border madness as Trump plays the only card that he has. I’m wondering if some MAGA crazy didn’t simply decide that anybody at a Spanish speaking church service would be an enemy of the MAGA state and therefore it would be a good idea to take out a few.

The appeal of Trump, I have come to believe, is a basic, primal one: His dog whistle is to keep America white. I truly believe that that one basic imprimatur is what makes MAGA run. A certain portion of rural whites are terrified of being in the minority. The melting pot that America has always been is about to melt them down — they fear.

That’s a ridiculous fear but it is the common thread of Trump’s appeal — or else why would he want to keep the border issue alive so that he can capitalize on it?

There has to be some reason 73 million people voted for the senile lunatic and that’s my best guess as to what it is. It’s fear of the Great Replacement, fear of Us v. Them, and They are getting too numerous.

That’s the Rosetta Stone of Trumpism, I believe. And that’s why Make America Great Again goes back to a romanticized version of life in the 1950’s, when Blacks knew their place and gays were invisible and women were in the job market in lower-rung support positions, if at all.

The “great” life of the 50’s never existed. The 50’s was a decade with its virtues and drawbacks, like every decade. It was a wonderful time because it was a post WWII era, where people were giddy and buying luxuries on credit and using the G.I. bill to buy a tract house. The population exploded with the boomer generation and schools were built and teachers hired to teach them.

The fifties led into the 60’s, also a decade of great promise and expansion. But in the background, always in the background, were the harsh realities of life: the Cold War, the Bomb, the subjugation of women. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was instrumental in women being able to have credit in their own name. That was not possible for a very long time.

But Trump has his finger on the pulse of the frightened underdogs in this society and he convinces them that he will soon deliver them back to a time when they are in charge. He will be their “revenge” and their “retribution.” He has said as much.

Are we stupid enough to throw democracy away and opt for fascism? There is no other question. Not in politics in 2024.