He added: “I just wish I could have gotten there faster. But I didn’t know, I didn’t know what was happening.’’

At a photo-op in Austin months ago, Gov. Greg Abbott fired a pistol at a gun range, and then turned to his 20-year-old daughter, who fired off some rounds with the same gun. People routinely show up at demonstrations with their bullhorns, their bottles of water and their rifles, because in Texas it is legal to carry a rifle slung over a shoulder in public. The state’s campus-carry law, which allowed licensed Texans to carry concealed handguns on college campuses, took effect on Aug. 1, 2016, the 50th anniversary of the Whitman tower attack.

More than 1 million men and women in Texas have active licenses to carry handguns. Only Florida, with 1.7 million as of May 2016, had more licensees than Texas.

One pastor in Beaumont, the Rev. James McAbee, was known for keeping a loaded .45-caliber pistol beneath the podium at his New Horizons Church. Mr. Patterson, the former state senator, often carried a gun in his boot in Austin when he served as the Texas land commissioner, and he saw no difference in carrying at a place of business or a place of worship.

“Frankly, if the church chose to prohibit lawful carry, as churches can do in Texas, I’d probably go to a more welcoming church,” said Mr. Patterson, who attends a Lutheran church in Austin.

The Rev. Stephen Curry, pastor of the La Vernia United Methodist Church, seven miles from First Baptist, said he has no doubt that some of those who gather at his church on Sundays are carrying concealed handguns. “I know they do,” Mr. Curry said. “It’s not unusual in this part of the country. Most of them are very discreet about it.”