A church in Central New York has responded to the Texas church shooting by inviting its members to bring their guns to services.

"We are not a gun-free zone," a sign outside the Lighthouse Mexico Church of God in Oswego County says. The church's official website also includes a scrolling message that says "We are NOT a 'Gun free zone'- we protect our people!"

Pastor Ronald Russell tells Spectrum News that his church, located on S. Jefferson Street in Mexico, N.Y., has allowed congregants to openly carry guns since a shooting at a South Carolina church in 2015. Dylann Roof, a self-identified white supremacist, was convicted last year of killing nine black church members at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C.

Russell says he put the open-carry sign up this week after a Texas gunman killed 26 people and injured 20 at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs on Sunday. Police say Devin Patrick Kelley's attack was likely motivated by a "domestic situation" with his second wife's in-laws, but the deadly incident has raised questions of gun control across America.

"Times are changing," Russell told Spectrum News on Thursday. "It's not the congregation, per se, but the leadership. People say 'well, pastor, you're talking about killing some,' and I say 'well, if I don't protect my people, I'm being complicit.' A shooting here, that's not going to happen."

According to Spectrum, the Lighthouse Mexico Church of God also offers training, teaching self-defense and ways to identify suspicious behavior. Its website describes it as a "Full Gospel, Pentecostal church" with a reputation for being the "Most Upbeat Church in Upstate New York."

Another church in Upstate New York, Buffalo's True Bethel Baptist Church, says it is teaming up with Buffalo police SWAT team instructors for active shooter training.

The Texas church massacre has divided Americans between those who support gun rights and those who want more gun control. Kelley had a history of domestic violence that legally should have prevented him from buying his guns, including an AR-15 assault rifle, while Second Amendment advocates insist guns saved more lives, citing a NRA member who pulled out his own rifle and wounded Kelley.

"Both sides are following the respective scripts that we have seen many times before," Robert Spitzer, chairman of political science at SUNY Cortland and an expert on firearms and Second Amendment issues, told the Associated Press.

"There's an old saying: 'The best answer for a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,'" Tiffany Teasdale-Causer, owner of Lynnwood Gun and Ammunition in Lynnwood, Washington, said.

Sandy Phillips, a gun owner in Texas whose daughter was killed in the 2012 movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado, disagrees with the notion of "heroes" saving lives in Sutherland Springs.

"They didn't even succeed in killing him. He killed himself," Phillips told the AP. "The bottom line is people are killing people with guns and they're killing them in large numbers because we have easy access to guns."