Britt Farmer, Senior Minister of West Freeway Church of Christ in Texas, praised the Texas government on Sunday for allowing lawful gun owners in the state to protect themselves at places of worship after a good guy with a gun stopped an attack at the church.

Farmer’s remarks are a strong rebuke of remarks made by Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden earlier this year when Biden attacked Texas Governor Greg Abbott for signing a bill into law that allowed lawful gun owners to carry firearms in places of worship.

“First off, I want to say that I am extremely thankful to lieutenant governor and the governor — Governor Patrick and Governor Abbott — and their rapid response to this,” Farmer said. “To the law enforcement agencies that have been here, we couldn’t have asked for more professional, seamless interviews, and work with our congregation and our people and the kindness that was shown to them by law enforcement.”

“We lost two great men today, but it could have been a lot worse, and I’m thankful that our government has allowed us the opportunity to protect ourselves,” Farmer continued. “We have a congregation here of open-hearted people, we help people, we’re here to help people and to have something like this happen destroys my heart and when I say destroys it, destroys it because there is evil in this world.”

“Today is one sermon I’ll never preach, it’ll go away, it was called leaving a legacy, and two men today left legacy, but the congregation is going to build on that legacy,” Farmer added. “Right now I’d like to say to all those that are watching: thank you for your prayers, please continue to pray for the West Freeway Church family.”

“We’d like to say we’re a place you and your family can call home, today our home was invaded by evil,” Farmer concluded. “The sad thing is it happens all the time as far as evil’s concerned, but I know two men right now that are better off than any of us are, and I hope and I pray that not only will we survive this, I know we will, but that in some way we might be a beacon to those who don’t know what to do because today we proved that not only can we be God loving, God-fearing people, but we can protect each other as well.”

West Freeway Church of Christ Senior Minister Britt Farmer: "I’m thankful our government has allowed us the opportunity to protect ourselves" pic.twitter.com/5fLSnSjQzg — Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) December 30, 2019

Farmer’s remarks cut against what Biden, who is ardently anti-Second Amendment, said in September.

“Dealing with firearms, it is irrational, with all due respect to the governor of Texas, irrational what they are doing,” Biden told reporters on September 2. “On the very day you see a mass shooting … and we’re talking about loosening access to have guns, to be able to take them into places of worship, it’s just absolutely irrational. It’s totally irrational.”

Jeff Williams, Regional Director for the Texas Department of Public Safety, praised the hero who immediately engaged and killed the attacker.

“It cannot be overstated how important it is that everyone recognize what took place here today,” Williams said. “The citizens who were inside that church undoubtedly saved 242 other parishioners, and that might get swept aside in this whole conversation about active shooter response, and God knows law enforcement has done a whole bunch of work to make our response better, we needed to do that.”

“But we’re starting to find out that, as the Lt. Governor mentioned, over half of these are over before we get there, and I want to commend the chief and his department, their response, it is never going to get faster than that, it was miraculous,” Williams continued. “And so the true heroes in this are the people who were sitting in those pews today and responded, the immediate responders that saved their fellow citizens. I just can’t overstate how critical that is, I just want to recognize it, it’s truly heroic and this citizens of this community have a lot to be proud of for their response.”