Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick told reporters during a Sunday night press conference that the churchgoers were armed due to a law that took effect in September, making it legal for people to have guns in houses of worship. The Texas church gun law came about after another mass shooting in Sutherland Springs in 2017 was mercifully stopped by an armed neighbor.

Texas DPS Director Jeoff Williams took it a step further. As Daily Caller reports, Williams said that the congregants who charged the shooter had saved everyone else in that building.

"The citizens who were inside that church undoubtedly saved 242 other parishioners, and that might get swept aside," he said.

"It was miraculous. The true heroes in all this are the people who were sitting in those pews today and responded, the immediate responders.. it was truly heroic."