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Gays Against Guns, Others Demand #GunControlNow After Texas Shooting

Church Shooting

The hashtags #ThoughtsAndPrayers and #GunControlNow are both trending after another senseless shooting in a church.

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In the aftermath of a deadly shooting at a Baptist church in Sutherland Springs, Texas on Sunday that left 25 people dead (a number Representative Henry Cuellar of Texas confirmed with The New York Times) and about 20 more people injured, the hashtags #ThoughtsAndPrayers and #GunControlNow have begun trending while the group Gays Against Guns has condemned the tragedy, referring to the issue of mass shootings as a "public health crisis" on its Twitter account.

People in the small town of Sutherland Springs, outside of San Antonio, were attending services at the First Baptist Church when a gunman walked in and murdered 25 parishioners and injured several more in the span of what witnesses said was about 15 seconds, according to the New York Times.

The gunman fled the scene and police chased him into the next county where he was shot and killed, although it's not certain if police shot him or if he turned a gun on himself, Wilson County Commissioner Albert Gamez Jr., told CNN.

"My heart is broken," Gamez said. "We never think where it can happen, and it does happen. It doesn't matter where you're at. In a small community, real quiet and everything, and look at this, what can happen."

Meanwhile, Donald Trump and Paul Ryan sent prayers out to the victims and their families via Twitter while others on the social media site sent their "thoughts and prayers" before demanding better gun control.

The group Gays Against Guns NYC posted on Facebook saying, "Our nation's gun violence epidemic grows more and more virulent by the day," before reminding readers that the country's largest mass shooting in Las Vegas, which Trump said should not be politicized, occurred just over a month ago. Gays Against Guns wrote on Facebook that the issue of gun control could no longer be dismissed:

"If we stop to consider that recent studies predict the annual gun toll death will exceed 33,000 to 38,000 this year and that there is a mass shooting -where four or more die or are injured - once a day in this country and that our Republican-led Congress refuses to adequately address this health crisis but instead capitulate to the gun lobby and Second Amendments rhetoric, then our only question is not who will the next victims of gun violence be--as the intersectionality of gun violence is quite expansive--but when."

There is currently no information available about the shooter.

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Tracy E. Gilchrist

Tracy E. Gilchrist is the VP of Editorial and Special Projects at equalpride. A media veteran, she writes about the intersections of LGBTQ+ equality and pop culture. Previously, she was the editor-in-chief of The Advocate and the first feminism editor for the 55-year-old brand. In 2017, she launched the company's first podcast, The Advocates. She is an experienced broadcast interviewer, panel moderator, and public speaker who has delivered her talk, "Pandora's Box to Pose: Game-changing Visibility in Film and TV," at universities throughout the country.
Tracy E. Gilchrist is the VP of Editorial and Special Projects at equalpride. A media veteran, she writes about the intersections of LGBTQ+ equality and pop culture. Previously, she was the editor-in-chief of The Advocate and the first feminism editor for the 55-year-old brand. In 2017, she launched the company's first podcast, The Advocates. She is an experienced broadcast interviewer, panel moderator, and public speaker who has delivered her talk, "Pandora's Box to Pose: Game-changing Visibility in Film and TV," at universities throughout the country.