After touring the American West in the 19th century, Irish writer Oscar Wilde reportedly said, “An armed society is a polite society.”

Not only is it polite, but by consistent evidence, it is safer for all concerned — except criminals who use guns.

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That was in full evidence at the West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, Texas — outside Fort Worth — on Sunday as two volunteer security guards shot and killed a gunman armed with a shotgun after the man murdered two people in cold blood during a faith service.

The volunteers returned fire within six seconds of the gunman’s opening shot.

Related: Texas Gunman Opened Fire at Church on Sunday

If they hadn’t, as has sadly been seen in mass shootings across the nation over the years, many more innocent people likely would have been killed.

The reason the guards were there in the first place is that in June, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed into law a bill that allowed gun owners to bring concealed weapons into houses of worship.

Dems and the Left derided that law as an unneeded measure when it was signed.

And even after Sunday’s heroic intervention, Democrats still don’t get it.

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Upon hearing the news of what happened, former presidential candidate and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) inexplicably tweeted, “Clearly what we are doing in Texas, what we are doing in this country, when it comes to guns is not working.”

Is O’Rourke speaking of leftist gun-control laws that would have made it impossible for those volunteers to return fire and take out the murderer within seconds — before any more innocent people could have been hurt?

Someone who was at the scene of the shooting on Sunday sees things quite differently than O’Rourke does.

Britt Farmer, the church’s senior minister, told The Dallas Morning News on Sunday that the church lost two “great men today, but it could have been a lot worse, and I am thankful our government has allowed us the opportunity to protect ourselves.”

GOP Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick of Texas (shown at the top of this article) echoed those sentiments.

“The immediate responder is the most important,” Patrick said during a press conference on Sunday, as The Dallas Morning News and other outlets reported. “The citizen responder. Because even though the chief’s brave officers were here in less than a minute … by the time they got here, the shooting was over.”

“And that always happens,” Patrick added, “that over 50 percent of shootings, our first responders, it’s usually over when they get there, no matter how hard they try.”

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