November 5, 2017 a shooting happened in Sutherland Springs, Texas at a church.  About 50 people were in the church at the time of the shooting. At least 26 have been killed and at least 20 are injured. This has been the deadliest church attack in 20 years. The man who entered the church (Devin Patrick Kelley) was chased down by a citizen. It is still unclear on if a citizen had killed Kelley, the police, or if he took his own life. This has affected many religious and nonreligious people. Church is a place for safety and comfort, but sometimes it just doesn’t stay that way.

Church shootings have been around for a very long time. Different people have different reasons to shoot up a church, but they usually all have one thing in common. They don’t like the religion that those people believe, or they do not like religion at all. Cesar Lopez, a sophomore who has very strong Christian beliefs says this about church shootings, “People don’t really like Christianity or the concept of God. They don’t like that there is someone so high above them, so perfect. They don’t like being held to standards made by a higher being.”

This has affected many people in many different ways. Hannah McGill, a sophomore who is an atheist has this to say about the shooting, “ I think you shouldn’t judge religion as long as the person is not pushing it onto someone else. The shooting was an unnecessary loss of life and should never happen. I strongly believe that you should never try to push your beliefs on others. The person that did this needs to be punished severely. I don’t know how severely because I also don’t know the laws of Texas. Everyone should have the right to have whatever religion or lack there of should they choose so, that does not mean that it is ok for you to go around and shoot others just because of what they believe in.”

This has been an awful thing to have happened in our country. Even though different people have different beliefs, everyone should come together and try to help these families who have lost a life or lives that day. Whether it be prayer, or sending a care package, support needs to be shown in some way. Those lives did not deserve to be lost that day, and hopefully nothing like this will ever happen again.