AUSTIN, Texas — In speaking with Fox & Friends on Sunday in sharing his thoughts about the El Paso Walmart shooting on Saturday, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick noted that the nation has compartmentalized God, isolating Him to the church and kicking Him out of the public square.
“As long as we continue to only praise God and look at God on a Sunday morning, and kick Him out of the town square and our schools the other days of the week, what do we expect?” he asked.
Patrick Crusius, 21 and of Dallas, has been identified as the assailant who arrived at the El Paso Walmart Saturday morning and began gunning down shoppers in the parking lot with an AK-47 style assault rifle. He then moved inside where an estimated 1,000 to 3,000 people were shopping, many of whom were innocently seeking to take advantage of back-to-school deals.
It was later discovered that Crusius had posted a manifesto to the site 8chan just prior to the shooting, expressing racist views and also objecting to the “Hispanic invasion” of Texas.
“I’m not going to surrender even if I run out of ammo. If I’m captured, it will be because I was subdued somehow,” he wrote, according to reports.
However, Crusius was taken into custody without issue and has been charged with capital murder. Hate crime and domestic terrorism charges are pending. The death toll, which initially was at 20, rose to 22 on Monday. More than 20 others were injured, from a toddler to the elderly.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott released a statement characterizing the attack as “a heinous and senseless act of violence.”
“Our hearts go out to the victims of this horrific shooting and to the entire community in this time of loss,” he wrote.
Patrick, in notating various aspects that contribute to violence in society — from video games that entertain with murder, to bullying on social media and disrespect for police, told Fox & Friends that the nation needs to turn to God — and not just after something bad happens.
He said that he posts a Scripture to social media each Sunday and is criticized by some for it.
“Well, everyone drops to their knees and prays after the event. We better start facing God before the event so we don’t have to pray as much after the event,” Patrick exhorted.
“And I will tell you, going to countless funerals [from] law enforcement in Dallas to students [killed in Santa Fe] at the school — all these services that the governor and I and others go to, to pay respects to those … if it weren’t for their faith in God, these communities and these parents and these people couldn’t even make it. I don’t know how they make it without it.”
He stated that all Americans must confront the problem of murderous massacres in the nation.
“There’s no excuse for this,” Patrick declared. “We condemn it totally, but as a nation we have to look at this, and leave all of this politics out of it. I’ve already seen too many politics online since the shooting yesterday that makes me sick. This is all of our problem: Republican, Democrats, independent, black, white, and brown, male, female, young, middle age and old. We all have to attack this because it’s not acceptable any more.”
As previously reported, in Mark 7:20-23 Jesus outlined that murder, like all sin, begins in the heart. It is why He declared that men must be born again (John 3:3) and have their very nature changed, or they cannot see the Kingdom of God.
“That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man,” Jesus said. “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.”
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