This is a story with a rather surprising twist, so stick with me here. It concerns a gun attack on the property of MAGA Pastor Greg Locke. The actual attack happened back in September 2024. What has happened is that a recent reveal has pulled back the curtain to expose what was really going on.
Hint: The story told by Greg Locke to explain the gun attack turns out to have been a pack of lies. But hey, if you are familiar with Locke’s antics, then that will not be a surprise. The actual surprise is what was really going on and why the attack happened.
Let’s take this step by step.
The September 2024 Gun Attack
Here is Greg’s Facebook posting describing the event …
Did it actually happen?
Various local media stories reported on it, so yes, it really happened …
- Fox 17 (Sep 4, 2024): Gunfire erupts at outspoken pastor’s Tennessee home with child inside: ‘Truly horrific’
- People (Sep 4, 2024): Home of Tennessee Pastor Is Riddled with Bullets While His Child Was Home: ‘Horrific’
Greg is a tad “infamous”, or to use the term within the first story, “outspoken”, so it all tends to imply that somebody with a grudge against him decided to take their criticism to the next level.
That’s the story that Greg went with; The devil was out to get him but god supernaturally protected him, it was “a miracle”.
Within his next sermon Locke presents this as persecution for speaking “truth”, but he would stand firm and keep going …
“I’m going to run my race and Jesus is going to be the focus of my finish. This crowd can try to distract us, and discourage us, and shoot us, and belittle us, and hate us, but at the end of the day, I’m looking unto Jesus.”
Within “ChurchLeaders” an article appears in which Greg lays out all the details and also takes more or less the same stance.
He loved that story and promoted it via twitter basically because it presented him as the guy that the universe revolves around.
Who is Greg Locke?
You might or perhaps might not know who Greg Locke is. Before we move on to the reveal it is perhaps wholly appropriate to lay out of few details regarding him.
He is your classic right-wing Trump supporting fundamentalist QAnon nutter and has a long established reputation for spreading batty conspiracy claims. He also of course had a go at being a “prophet” and predicted that Trump would win in 2020.
We all know how well that worked out for him.
Guess who was also there on Jan 6?
Yep, our Greg was in that mix as well, and fanned the flames of violence leading up to it all.
So the point is this, if there is a wild whacky conspiracy claim doing the rounds then Pastor Greg Locke will also most probably be promoting it within his Global Vision Bible Church tent located in Tennessee as “truth”.
As explained within the opening paragraph of his very own Wikipedia page …
Locke called the COVID-19 pandemic fake and discouraged his congregation from using masks and being vaccinated. Locke was present at the 2021 United States Capitol attack and encouraged his congregation to attend. He has said that children with mental illnesses “could be” possessed and claimed to have discovered witches amongst his congregation.
Side Note: There are only two types of individuals who get their very own Wikipedia page. People who are famous because they have done something notable (sports, movies, elected, etc…), and then there are those who who infamous for being so utterly obnoxious that they have had a social impact. I think you can guess which category Greg falls into.
One other note, something the “Personal Life” section in Wikipedia tends to brush over is just how messy his personal life really is. This Pastor started an affair with his personal church assistant, decides she is the one, so he declares his wife is mentally ill, puts her on the bus out of town off to a shelter and promptly divorces her. There is the whitewashed story he tells about all this, and then there are the details others trip over when they look into it all.
To wrap all this up with a bow, those that went to school with him and know him ever so well, label him as a pathological liar. That’s not a term they use as a slur, but rather as a fact-based observation. That perhaps makes him absolutely ideal for the career of MAGA pastor.
Let’s now get into the reveal.
What really happened back in 2024 at Greg’s House?
In December 2024 a suspect is arrested. It turns out to have been a 21-year-old named Tyler Poole.
On Jan 12, 2026 Tyler’s trial finally happens and he pleads guilty – Man who shot 60+ times at TN pastor Greg Locke’s home pleads guilty
Via the Roys report on Jan 14, 2026 we finally get the details of what really happened.
Reveal 1 – It was absolutely nothing to do with Greg Locke or his preaching
Their article headline is the reveal: “2024 shooting at Greg Locke’s home wasn’t persecution against controversial pastor but an attack directed at stepson:“.
Within the article they explain …
Controversial pastor Greg Locke said that a “madman” shot up his home in 2024 because of his bold preaching. But the 67 bullets fired into the Middle Tennessee residence were intended as a message for Locke’s stepson. They had nothing to do with Locke, his sermons or social media, a prosecutor told The Roys Report (TRR).
“Absolutely nothing,” Wilson County Assistant District Attorney Tammy Meade told TRR. “A juvenile had an argument with another juvenile, like boys do. They got into it and someone got mad and got a gun.”
Tyler Poole, 21, took responsibility for his angry decision on Monday. He pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated assault and two counts of reckless endangerment. The Tennessean reported Poole entered his plea calmly, standing in the Lebanon, Tennessee, courtroom in an orange prison jumpsuit.
Poole was facing a jury trial in March. There was little chance he’d escape conviction. The state had extensive evidence he was feuding with Caden McGee, Locke’s 17-year-old stepson. Poole went to the house where McGee lived on Sept. 3, 2024, and wildly fired off dozens of rounds from a .40 caliber automatic handgun, reloading the weapon multiple times to keep shooting.
Did Locke assume the universe revolved around him and that this was an attack by Satan to stop him preaching?
We will shortly come to that in reveal 2.
What is clear is that this kid knew absolutely nothing about Locke at all, instead it was a just an angry kid who was mad at some other kid and also got access to an automatic weapon.
It that it then?
Well no, because there is a plot twist here.
A guy named Jon Guffey was Locke’s head of security at the time of the incident and he also had a reveal to share with the Roys report.
Reveal 2 – Locke knew at the time it was not about him, but he decided to use it to promote himself by claiming it was persecution
Again via that same Roys Report article …
He told TRR he quit working for Locke in 2025, in part because of the way he saw Locke use the shooting story for his own self-aggrandizement. While Guffey still has deep admiration for Locke and agrees with much of what he preaches, he said the minister’s lack of integrity made him question a lot of things.
The shooting “had nothing to do with Greg Locke or the church and it had everything to do with Greg’s wife’s son,” Guffey said. “Greg knows it was Caden, and it had to do with Caden, but he’s also like, ‘Hey, we can use this to our advantage.’”
Will any of this be a wakeup call for any of Locke’s fan club?
Nope, the Roys report, a Christian run website, will be dismissed as “Fake News”.
Part of the problem is that when you are emotionally invested in something, you will quite naturally discard any information that screams out that you are being a bit of an idiot.
This is called Motivated reasoning.
This is the psychological, often unconscious, tendency to process information in a biased manner to reach a desired, pre-determined conclusion rather than an accurate one. It is driven by emotions or self-interest. Individuals subconsciously search for evidence confirming their existing beliefs while discounting contradictory data. This cognitive, bias-driven process is heavily used to protect personal identity, reduce cognitive dissonance, and maintain social bonds.
It is perhaps deeply ironic that Greg holds his weekly church services in a circus tent, because it really is the ideal venue for clowns.
How to avoid falling into the Motivate Reasoning trap
Here are the most effective, research-backed strategies to counteract motivate reasoning:
1. Cultivate Self-Awareness & Emotional Control
- Identify Emotional Triggers: Recognize when you feel strongly about a topic or when a claim feels threatening to your identity or beliefs. Emotional intensity is a red flag that you may be distorting reality.
- “Step Back” and Slow Down: Avoid making important decisions when in a heightened emotional state. Take a break, walk away from an argument, or “sit” on a conclusion for a day to allow emotions to subside.
- Recognize Your “Inner Lawyer”: Accept that you might be trying to justify a position rather than discover the truth, and intentionally try to act as a judge instead of a lawyer.
2. Actively Seek Disconfirming Evidence
- Play Devil’s Advocate: For any position you hold, force yourself to identify at least four compelling points against it.
- Actively Seek Contradictory Information: Specifically look for data that challenges your views, rather than waiting for it to come to you.
- The “Front Page” Test: Imagine that your decision-making process and the resulting conclusion will be published on the front page of a major newspaper. This increases objectivity.
3. Change Your Intellectual Environment
- Discuss with Disagreement: Engage in discussions with people who hold different perspectives, especially those with no apparent stake in the outcome.
- Foster Diverse Perspectives: Actively avoid “echo chambers” by ensuring you are exposed to, and actually listen to, opposing viewpoints.
- Use Trustworthy, Non-biased Sources: When researching sensitive topics, look to sources known for high-quality, objective reporting rather than opinion-based media.
4. Adjust How You Process Information
- Frame Facts Within Values: If trying to persuade someone else, align the facts with their core values rather than fighting their beliefs directly.
- Check the Source First: Before sharing, reading, or acting on information, verify its accuracy to avoid falling for confirmation bias.
- Focus on Process, Not Outcome: Prioritize asking “Is this evidence solid?” over “Does this evidence support my view?“.
By implementing these steps, you can move from a state of directional goals (wanting to reach a specific conclusion) to accuracy goals (wanting to be right, regardless of what the conclusion is).
I want to believe as many true things and as few false things as possible
– Matt Dillahunty