When a man opened fire with a shotgun in White Settlement, TX church, he signed his own death warrant. Within six seconds, he’d pulled out his weapon, killed two people, and got killed himself with a single shot fired by volunteer church security team member Jack Wilson. Wilson’s shot was absolutely perfect, the kind of thing we all hope to achieve if we’re faced with a similar situation, and everyone in that church was damn lucky he was there.

However, what should probably have been a slam-dunk for gun rights has turned out to be anything but. Instead, the anti-gun media has latched onto White Settlement to make the case that it somehow proves we need more gun control, despite its failures.

A prime example is this piece:

Jack Wilson is a hero alright. It took him only six seconds to kill a gunman at a Texas church, saving countless lives.

Unfortunately, that kind of split-second heroism has turned into a PR tool by gun advocates.

The reality of Wilson’s heroism is a lot more complex. He wasn’t just an ordinary parishioner, as gun advocates may want you to believe. The church’s volunteer security team member is a firearms instructor, gun range owner and former reserve deputy with a local sheriff’s department, according to a New York Times detailed account.

In other words, he’s exactly the kind of man you want around with a firearm. But we know nothing about the at least six other parishioners who also appeared to draw their handguns at West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, Texas.

And that’s terrifying.

We don’t know anything about them because, since they’re not the ones who took the shot, the media doesn’t have a particular interest in them.

I think few would disagree with the fact that Wilson was well-qualified to take that shot, but it’s not his time as a reserve deputy that made him that good. It was long, countless hours on the range where he honed his skill.

As for those other parishioners? I’m going to clue the writer in on something I’ve noticed from my own personal experience. A whole lot of armed citizens spend more time training with their firearms than the average police officer.

Yes, Jack Wilson was a reserve deputy sheriff, but law enforcement qualification with a firearm isn’t particularly difficult nor relevant to an active shooter incident. In fact, I’d argue that if that hadn’t been part of his background, he’d have still been just as deadly. That’s because most police officers who are honest about their weapons training will tell you that their range time is limited. In fact, many officers only hit the range when it’s time to requalify.

Unfortunately, though, it seems that Wilson’s law enforcement background is precisely the thing that is being used to hold him up as some kind of anomaly.

While the writer now wants to do as so many others in the anti-gun media do and try to focus on how a criminal got his hands on a firearm, she’s continuing to dismiss not just Wilson’s actions, but the fact that had Wilson not been there that day, someone else would have ended the attack. Would it have been a headshot at that distance? Probably not, but so what? So long as the threat was over, no one would really care.

The fact of the matter is that we know the killer wasn’t allowed to have a gun, so gun control laws failed. We also know that there were plenty of good guys with guns to end the threat after that gun control failed, and that’s how gun rights won the day.

Some in the media will continue trying to downplay that fact, but they can’t erase it. It happened, we’ve all watched it, and there’s nothing they can do to unmake it, so instead they’ll try to portray it as the exception, not the rule.

Unfortunately for them, good guys with guns are the only thing that will stop a maniac. The bad guys can use shotguns or even vans, but the good guys are going to need firearms to stop them. It’s as simple as that.