Gov. Greg Abbott confirms 26 dead in church attack, the largest mass shooting in Texas history

"I'm sad to tell you, to confirm at least at this moment in time there are 26 lives that have been lost," Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said at a press conference Sunday night on the scene of the deadly shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. The victims' ages range between 5 and 72, Abbott said, and 23 were inside the church building when they died.

"We don't know if that number will rise or not," Abbott continued. "All we know is that's too many, and this will be a long suffering, mourning for those in pain." He thanked first responders and praised teams from nearby San Antonio for volunteering to help the tiny town grapple with a tragedy of this scale, which Abbott said is the largest mass shooting in the state's history.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.