(JTA) — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said that the church shooting in the small town of Sutherland Springs that left 26 people dead needs to be “put in the context of history” and compared it to the “horrific events” of the Nazi era.
Abbott made the comments Sunday in the hours after the deadly attack on the First Baptist Church in the small Texas town during an interview on “Outnumbered Overtime” on Fox News. He was responding to host Harris Faulkner, who asked for a non-political answer to the question “What do we say to each other about this?”
Abbott called for a “a two-step process,” saying that “part is putting this in context.”
“Remember, even though we’re facing these severe tragedies — whether it be what happened in Sutherland Springs, or what happened in Las Vegas, or what happened in New York last week, or what happened in London earlier this year — we have acts of evil taking place, and because they are close in time to us right now, we think this is something heavy right now. But put this in the context of history. Look at what happened with Hitler during the horrific events during that era,” he said.
Abbott continued, going back further in history: “and Mussolini and go back in time before that to the earlier ages, the Middle Ages, when people committed horrific crimes, and when you go back through the history of the Bible, there was evil that took place from earliest stages of the Bible to post-New Testament, so evil is something that has permeated this world.”
The Republican governor has said publicly that not enough Texans own guns and has supported concealed carry weapons legislation.
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