Nearly 380 violent attacks have struck religious institutions across the United States over the past 25 years, producing almost 490 deaths and hundreds of injuries. The carnage spans more than 30 states, and the pace shows no sign of slowing.
That grim tally, outlined in a Fox News commentary by Erin Mersino and Nicole Velasco of Advocates for Faith & Freedom, should alarm every American who values the right to worship in peace. But the data also points to a hard truth the left refuses to accept: when evil comes through the church door, the people inside, not distant lawmakers, are the ones who stop it.
The deadliest house-of-worship attack in the past decade struck First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, in November 2017. A gunman opened fire during Sunday services, killing 26 people and wounding 22 others.
One year later, 11 worshippers died at the Tree of Life congregation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, targeted, as the commentary states, “simply because of their faith.”
The bloodshed has continued into 2025:
Each attack hit people at their most vulnerable, heads bowed, hands folded, children beside them.
The CrossPointe Community Church shooting deserves special attention because it ended differently. About 30 minutes into the Sunday morning service, a heavily armed man opened fire and wounded a security guard in the leg. What happened next is everything the Second Amendment was made for.
A parishioner struck the gunman with a vehicle. Two volunteer church security team members then shot him dead. Breitbart reported that police confirmed only one innocent person was injured and no congregants were killed.
Just The News identified the suspect as 31-year-old Brian Anthony Browning of Romulus, Michigan. Authorities said Browning’s mother belonged to the congregation and that he had attended services there two or three times over the past year. He arrived carrying an AR-15-style rifle, a semi-automatic handgun with an extended magazine, more than a dozen loaded magazines, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
That arsenal could have produced a massacre on the scale of Sutherland Springs, or worse.
Local police did not mince words. The Washington Examiner noted that officers praised the armed responders as heroes, saying they “undoubtedly saved many lives and prevented a large-scale mass shooting.”
Jay Trombley, a member of the church security team, put it plainly:
“You are your own first responder. You are the first person on scene.”
That is not bravado. It is operational reality. Police cannot teleport. Response times in suburban and rural areas can stretch to minutes, an eternity when a gunman is firing into pews.
Rep. Shri Thanedar acknowledged the obvious, as Newsmax reported:
“Their actions undoubtedly saved the lives of the men, women and children present at the shooting.”
Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood drove the point home: “There’s not enough police in America to stop all of these threats. Just one citizen stepping up can make the difference.”
The Fox News commentary argues that churches “must implement layered security, establish trained safety teams, coordinate with law enforcement and rehearse emergency response.” That is common sense, not paranoia. CrossPointe had a volunteer security team in place. It worked.
Every time a mass shooting occurs, the left’s reflex is to demand new restrictions on lawful gun owners. The Wayne, Michigan, incident obliterates that logic. The attacker wore a tactical vest and carried enough ammunition to sustain a prolonged assault. No background-check tweak or magazine-ban bill would have stopped a man bent on slaughter.
What stopped him was a trained citizen with a firearm, the very person gun-control advocates want to disarm.
Violence is not the only threat to worship. The Fox News commentary also references an embedded video describing five suspects, including Don Lemon, pleading not guilty to federal civil rights charges tied to an anti-I.C.E. protest that disrupted a Minnesota church service in St. Paul. When activists invade a sanctuary to push a political agenda, they trample the same freedom the Constitution protects.
Whether the assault comes from a gunman or a mob, the pattern is the same: people of faith are treated as soft targets.
Nearly 490 people have died in attacks on American houses of worship over a quarter century. The violence has touched more than 30 states. Churches, synagogues, and chapels from Texas to Michigan to Pennsylvania have been turned into crime scenes.
The evidence is clear. Armed, trained security teams save lives. Disarming law-abiding citizens does not. Every congregation in America deserves the right, and the means, to defend itself.
When seconds count, the Second Amendment is not a talking point. It is a lifeline.
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