I was, for a short time during college, a volunteer fireman, and my responsibility was to operate the equipment while more experienced firemen entered the burning building.  Following a fire at one house, another student who had gone inside told me how he stood in the smoke-filled kitchen spraying water at the flames to no avail.  It wasn’t until he realized that he was facing a mirrored wall and that the flames were actually behind him that he turned and was able to extinguish the fire.  As long as he was sending water in the wrong direction the fire continued unabated.

With every mass shooting in America there is a repetition of the same demands from the Left to take “substantive” action against guns and gun owners to stop such tragedies.  These demands go nowhere because sensible people understand that, like spraying water at a mirror instead of the fire, such actions will not and cannot make a difference.

You will never solve a problem so long as you are aiming at the wrong target.  We are not dealing with people who are under the control of God or law.  In other words, good people do not kill each other and do not need gun control!  As Paul wrote in I Timothy 1:9, the law is made “for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and for sinners. . . for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers. . . . “

Tragically, murder has been with us from the very beginning of human history.  I expect we are all familiar with Cain’s killing of Abel.  And in the approximately six thousand years since, things have not improved.  Cain did not need a firearm to kill his brother, and the absence of such weapons has never been an obstacle to those who are bent on killing someone.

So, is there a “Christian” view of guns?  Does the Bible give us any indication of what God might say about such things?  A former president mocked traditional Americans for relying on their “God and guns.”  Clearly, Leftists delight in throwing Scripture texts or generalities into our faces thinking they can embarrass us into yielding to their demands.

But their efforts are based upon twisted understandings of the Bible, passages taken out of context, or simply ignoring important relevant texts.  Superficially, one might think that God would frown on the existence and use of guns in general, but to conclude this would be to overlook a large body of Scripture.  And it is clear that the only people who would benefit from taking firearms from law abiding Americans would be criminals and tyrants.

A thorough examination of the subject would require writing a book, so the best we can do here is to hit a few high points.  God’s heart can be seen in the fact that the first environment He created for us was that of a garden, symbolizing both beauty and serenity.  It was mankind who introduced discord and violence to creation, and we learned immediately that God disapproved of that violence.

While allowing Cain to live following his killing of his brother, God, shortly thereafter (Gen. 9:6) instituted the death penalty for murder, declaring that murderers were to be executed.  Thus, God’s justice requires that violence be met with violence.

Interestingly, there is no evidence in Scripture for a wholesale surrender of peaceful people to violent people.  “Turning the other cheek,” which we read of in Matthew five applies in the context of Christ’s Kingdom (which was rejected then but will be established in the future) where God will take revenge for His people.  Therefore, if God approves of meeting violence with lethal force, if necessary, it only makes sense that guns are not forbidden by Him.

It is certainly applicable to the topic to consider that David, a “man after God’s own heart” used a high-velocity projectile (slingshot) to take out the giant, Goliath.  Modern studies suggest that a stone released from an ancient sling would have the approximate killing power of a  44 magnum!  David became the progenitor of the Davidic dynasty, from which Christ, the world’s future Ruler has come, and it was he who noted that God taught his “hands to make war.”

God is not anti-war when there is an evil, mortal enemy to fight.

Third, the Apostle Paul addressed the responsibility of a man to his family.  In I Timothy 5:8 he wrote that if a man does not provide the essentials for his family, “especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”  The idea that providing for one’s family includes food and a roof over their heads but not their protection against intruders is ludicrous.

Virtually whatever a man needs to keep his family safe is legitimate, and with the weapons available to criminals, one has no alternative but to be able to meet force with force, if need be.  This would include firearms.

Finally, the US Constitution provides in its Second Amendment a protection of the individual’s God given right to own firearms for the express purpose of protecting “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;” and only the naïve would say that this amendment provides merely for hunting.  Rather, its intention was for the citizen to protect himself and his family from a tyrannical government, which the colonists had just defeated in a bloody war.

It is precisely for this reason that Leftists beat the drum for more gun control.  The most significant obstacle to their achieving a strangle hold on the American public is the citizens’ right to “keep and bear arms.”

Therefore, all who love liberty and life and understand that these are God given rights, will not yield an inch in the battle for the Second Amendment.  What we must understand is the Left’s willingness to allow and even create suffering for the nation’s citizens in their quest for power.  They cynically believe that if enough innocent people die, eventually tender-hearted citizens will change their minds and allow the government to disarm the public.  Once the public is sufficiently disarmed, our chains will be forged and we will be subjugated, just as they are in China, North Korea, Russia, Venezuela, and other socialist countries.

Do we understand that the Left has no interest in stopping these killings?  There are substantial things that could be done to reduce the killings without violating the Constitution, but the Left fabricates reasons to oppose them all.  We who are truly concerned about the deaths of innocent people struggle to accept the fact that Leftists, whether politicians or academics, don’t care!  Every week in cities like Chicago there are killings equivalent to a mass shooting, yet those in charge do nothing.

There are also over one hundred thousand drug related deaths annually in America, and the Left’s response is to make those drugs more available and curtail efforts to interdict the narcotics crossing the southern border.  Their utter lack of concern for these tragedies underscores the fact that Leftists, regardless of their rhetoric, do not care for America’s citizens, even the children.

What can be done?  The evidence is that training and arming teachers and other staff at every school would be one quick and effective improvement.  But you will get no encouragement from the Left in this.  And there are other available options we won’t get into here because I would like to go to the two most important and effective tools in the tool chest, both of which are hated by the Left.

First, reintroduce students to God and the Bible.  “We can’t have a state church,” you say.  Well, we already do, it’s called Humanism, its priests are teachers, and its cathedrals are the public schools.  But, even at that, the expression “separation of church and state” is seriously misunderstood.  Few Christians want a state church, but all desire to see the principles of righteousness that are sourced in Christianity taught to the Nation’s children.

There is a great difference between a “state church” and teaching morality and goodness to children.  Under the guise of “protecting” children from a state church Leftists have thrown out the principles that are essential to a healthy culture, good citizenry, and safe neighborhoods.

Leftists hate Christianity so virulently that they would rather have the chaos and death across the culture than to hear someone proclaim, “Thus saith the Lord!”  They deeply resent being told that lying, cheating, stealing, and adultery are sinful, but they have no problem declaring that traditional values are evil!

They claim that children are “damaged” by being told about God and their accountability to Him.  Apparently, having a sense of guilt (for which Christianity also provides relief) is worse to Leftists than dying of violence or a drug overdose!   Regardless, the issue is not whether somethings are good and some evil, but rather, who decides what is good and what is evil!

The Left went public with its war on God and the Bible in the 1960s, and that war has only escalated over time.  The horrific violence witnessed daily across America is just one consequence.  One could ask, “America, how is this war on God working out for you?”  The best thing America could do to encourage a God-consciousness in young people.

The second thing we must do, which is related to the creation of a cultural God-consciousness, is to reinvigorate the traditional family.  The chaotic culture we now have is clearly the opposite of a safe, stable culture that would not produce these mass shootings.  The single most important factor in a safe, stable culture is intact, traditional families.  This is indisputable.  Just as darkness cannot exist in the presence of light, chaos cannot exist in a stable society! Duh!  Only a brainwashed Leftist would seek to dispute this.  But it is in fact the very reason for the Leftists’ war against the family.

They understand that the public would never yield to their tyranny if we were experiencing a safe, stable, and prosperous culture.  Understand this: the violence, unrest, and destruction we have witnessed over the last several years are not the natural manifestations of a normal culture.  It has all been orchestrated to achieve a simple objective: the subjugation of the American people.

Opponents of liberty seek to shame those of us who love America’s freedoms with false narratives regarding love.  No, love is not tolerant toward those who would destroy that which is good and right.  A good man does not sit idly watching intruders victimize his family.  As long as predators exist, good men will protect those they love!

“Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD,” is not merely a pleasant platitude.  It is the one most essential element for a peaceful, prosperous nation.  I again call on all Americans to repent and submit to the Holy, yet gracious Lord and God, Jesus Christ!

Sadly, so long as fallen mankind and tyrants run things here, weapons will be necessary to protect one’s life and liberties.  When Christ, the Prince of peace reigns, however, we will see such things come to an end and weapons will be repurposed into plows and pruning hooks!  Eden will be restored!

Will you be there?

The Biden Administration’s efforts to trample our Second Amendment rights fall into two categories: overt and covert.

In the more overt category is the game of “changing semantics”- the evolution of word usage usually to the point that the modern meaning is radically different from the original usage. This trend seems to be happening at an ever quickening pace. Even words once easily defined such as “woman” have the power to stump some of our nation’s most educated–case in point– Ketanji Brown Jackson—President Joe Biden’s recent nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Another word not so easily defined is “terrorist.” Historically considered to be “an individual and/or group committing criminal acts to further ideological goals,” it now is evolving to mean “concerned parents voicing those concerns at a school board meeting.” Recently, parents have had good reason for legitimate concerns. From school policies resulting from the pandemic such as shutdowns and unnecessary masking to abrupt changes in curriculum such as Critical Race Theory and “Comprehensive” Sex Education, parents were showing up at their local school board meeting and demanding to be heard and their views considered.

So last fall, the National School Board Association (NSBA) sent a letter to President Biden urging the administration to classify “these heinous actions” of concerned parents as “the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes” quickly prompting U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to issue his own memo promising “a series of measures designed to address the rise in criminal conduct directed toward school personnel” and directing the FBI and U.S. Attorneys to coordinate with state and local authorities on the matter.

What exactly is going on here? Is the main concern behind the broadening of the term “terrorist” really the safety of school personnel? Or are there more nefarious reasons at work? Gun-control maybe? After all, a terrorist should not be sold a gun. And although Garland testified before Congress: “I do not think that parents getting angry at school boards for whatever reason constitutes domestic terrorism,” FBI whistleblowers revealed that a tag has been created to track “threats specifically directed against school board administrators, board members, teachers, and staff”–effectively broadening the definition of “terrorist” to now include concerned parents.

Which seems to be a just one arm of a emerging world-wide trend. The United Kingdom just passed a bill declaring that anybody that goes against the official narrative with “propaganda” will be charged criminally even if later information reveals they were correct.” This could be the direction we are headed here in the U.S.

In the more covert and disturbing method of trampling 2nd Amendment rights is a trick as old as the hills–the hiding of gun control measures within the recent $1.5 Trillion Infrastructure Bill which sends $13.6 Billion to Ukraine. The bill passed the U.S. Senate with bi-partisan support (68-31) and was signed by President Biden.

Hidden in the 2207 pages of this omnibus bill is the previously rejected Violence Against Women’s Act (VAWA). While its title sounds harmless enough, it originally failed due to its gun-control provisions. The resurrected version contains a major change in current law–the NICS Denial Notification Act of 2022.

Anyone who has purchased a gun or is knowledgeable about the procedure knows that a criminal background check is conducted before someone receives a “green light” on the purchase. This system is utilized literally thousands of times a day across the country and is not without its problems. Would be gun-purchasers often face never-ending delays or, much to their surprise, flat out denials.

According to Gun Owners of America, the FBI itself admits that it’s often wrong on gun-related background check denials. And when an appeal to the denial is filed,  “27.7 percent of [the denials] are overturned”, and the firearm purchase is approved. Yet according to the research published by Professor John R. Lott, these denials are wrong 99 percent of the time!

Now comes the dangerous part. The NICS Denial Notification Act of 2022 passed as part of the Infrastructure Bill will NOW require the criminal investigation of all denials on the National Instant Criminal-Background-Check System (NICS). That’s right. If you happen to be part of the 27.7 percent who are erroneously denied your gun purchase–even when that denial is appealed and corrected–an immediate and mandatory criminal investigation is opened into that person (you!) and sent to not only local authorities but the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms as well. This gives local authorities and lawyers the Federal authority to create a database on you and snoop into your social media posts, spending habits, etc. The time to be alert is here.

While all of our God-given, Constitutionally protected rights are precious, perhaps the most precious is the Right to Bear Arms for it is the right needed to protect all of the others.

“The beauty of the Second Amendment is
that it will not be needed until they try to take it.”   
~Thomas Jefferson

The massacre of seventeen students and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida is just the latest in what seems like an accelerating manifestation of school shootings. Parents, students, citizens, activists and law makers are justifiably angry.

Demands to “do something” are loud and urgent, driven by a dread that the next shooting will be at my child’s school. Even some staunch defenders of the Second Amendment are shaken, agreeing that “it’s time for a national conversation about the Second Amendment, gun violence, gun safety, protecting our children and self-defense.”

There is a problem—and it’s getting worse. “During the 1950s, there were 17 school shootings. In the 1960s, 18. In the 1970s, 30. In the 1980s, 39. In the 1990s, 62. In the first decade of this century (2000-2009), 60 school shootings. From 2010-2018, 153.”

In the search for a solution, tension inevitably develops between protecting our constitutional right to “keep and bear arms,” and preventing the horrific acts committed by people with guns who are bent on murder and mayhem. On the extremities, one side advocates for an all-out ban on guns, while the other fends off any attempt to diminish the weight of the Second Amendment. Between the two are myriad proposals for restricting everything from what type of guns can be bought to how they can be purchased to how many can be owned to what accessories are permitted.

If there is one point of agreement, it is that any kind of mass slaughter, whether in Parkland, Las Vegas, Orlando or Richmond, is unacceptable. “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13) is a universally recognized human ideal.

A gun ban is unconstitutional and impractical

We can rule out a ban on all guns for at least two reasons. First, American citizens have the legal, unassailable right to possess and carry firearms. Ratified in 1791, the Second Amendment was a prescient measure put in place by our Founders specifically as a counterweight to the centralized power of the federal government. The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld that right as recently as 2008 (District of Columbia v. Heller) and 2010 (McDonald v. City of Chicago).

Second, while estimates vary, there are probably more than 300 million guns in the U.S., which has the highest gun ownership rate in the world at 88 guns per 100 citizens. Nine million Americans pack a loaded handgun monthly and three million carry daily. It is impossible to imagine confiscating or running a gun buy-back program for that number of weapons. Guns are here to stay.

Some restrictions are allowable

We can also rule out unrestricted access to any and all kinds of guns at any age that the constitutional purist may want. Political historian and pundit, Jay Cost, writes that a proper understanding of the Second Amendment recognizes that it “establishes an individual right for a public purpose — and it therefore follows that the people, acting through their representatives, can properly set the terms of how that right will be enjoyed.”

In other words, we have the individual right to keep and bear arms for the specific purpose of defending ourselves and our neighbors, and the weapons we bear should reflect that purpose. That gives us all some latitude to debate proper restrictions. For example, machine guns were banned from private ownership during the Reagan administration, a law that is still in effect today. Certain semi-automatic rifles defined as “assault weapons” were outlawed for ten years during the Clinton administration (though with little effect).

Laws like those prove that there are reasonable limits the public is willing to have imposed. Keep in mind, however, that “firearms are the most-regulated common consumer product in the United States.” It could be argued that our legal framework surrounding guns is in “infringement” territory already.

Some practical things to do instead

As we consider where to (re)draw the lines on the continuum between unrestricted access and sensible limits to gun ownership, there are other things we can do to reduce the risks of school shootings.

Train and arm teachers. Force must be met with force and the sooner during an incident, the better. After a 1974 attack at a school in Israel, the country “passed a law mandating armed security in schools, provided weapons training to teachers and today runs frequent active shooter drills. There have been only two school shootings since then, and both have ended with teachers killing the terrorists.” It’s already being tried in Colorado, where teachers “are being trained to carry guns in classrooms” in order to respond quickly to attacks.

Hire armed guards. Closely associated with arming teachers is the idea of employing security guards at public schools. We already have a pool of qualified candidates: many of America’s veterans are unemployed, yet are trained to use deadly force. We might also hire retired police officers. Having armed guards on location makes them first responders who can eliminate the unprotected gap between when an attack starts and law enforcement arrives.

Use gun-violence restraining orders. Writing in National Review, David French promotes the idea of Gun-Violence Restraining Orders (GVROs). As he explains, a GVRO is “an evidence-based process for temporarily denying a troubled person access to guns,” and that the “concept of the GVRO is simple, not substantially different from the restraining orders that are common in family law, and far easier to explain to the public than our nation’s mental-health adjudications.” Such an approach addresses an individual rather than an entire category.

Home school your kids. The Columbine massacre was a watershed moment for the country. It was also a watershed moment in our decision to home school our children. While it has its challenges, home schooling not only keeps your children physically safe, but you are the primary influence on their intellectual, emotional and spiritual development. If home schooling isn’t for you, consider a private Christian school. “Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it” (Proverbs 22:6).

It’s not the guns: it’s us

Whatever we decide to do in response to this latest horror, one fact is inescapable: we are no longer a virtuous society that can be categorically trusted with firearms. John Adams said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

It is getting harder and harder for us to claim to be “a moral and religious people.” At one time we could plausibly make that claim, but not anymore. We are more like the nation of Israel during the time of the judges: “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit” (Judges 17:6).

The issue is the human heart soaked in a secular culture that devalues human life, despises authority, promotes victimhood, mocks religion, glories in debauchery, embraces radical autonomy and rages at the slightest offense.

The breakdown of the family has led to a quarter of our children living in fatherless homes.  Psychotropic drugs are prescribed to more than 8 million children, some as young as 18 months, to control depression, anxiety, and a lack of focus. Ten percent of our children are addicted to video games, many of which are violent. Add a steady diet of movies, music and media that glorify unrestrained sex, violence and drug use, and we’ve got a volatile cocktail of generational depravity that would make Caligula blush.

It all started when we began to systematically remove God from the public square. C.S. Lewis summed up our situation in his work, The Abolition of Man:

“In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”

By all means, let’s adopt additional measures for the safety and security of our children. But let’s also be clear that until we regain our virtue, new policies, laws and strategies won’t put an end to the violence. They never have.

RESCHEDULED: IFI Worldview Conference May 5th

We have rescheduled our annual Worldview Conference featuring well-know apologist John Stonestreet for Saturday, May 5th at Medinah Baptist Church. Mr. Stonestreet is s a dynamic speaker and the award-winning author of “Making Sense of Your World” and his newest offer: “A Practical Guide to Culture.”

Join us for a wonderful opportunity to take enhance your biblical worldview and equip you to more effectively engage the culture.

Click HERE to learn more or to register!

They say that lightning never strikes twice in the same place. Not true. It does if you stand high atop a cliff’s edge waving a lightning rod above your head during a thunderstorm. In fact, in the unlikely event you survive the first strike, it’ll keep right on striking until you climb down.

So-called “gun-free zones” are lightning rods for mass murder. It’s time we climbed down from the cliff’s edge.

America mourns yet another needless and preventable mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas. When will gun-grabbing liberals learn?

In a blunt and provocatively titled, though well-reasoned post, submitted shortly after Wednesday’s shooting, Gateway Pundit’s Jim Hoft charged: “Obama Is Responsible for Latest Fort Hood Murders – Still a Gun-Free Zone.”

Wrote Hoft:

“In 2009 Islamist killer Nidal Malik Hasan, a U.S. Army major and psychiatrist, fatally shot 13 people and injured more than 30 others at Fort Hood, Texas. Fort Hood was a gun-free zone.

“Hasan reportedly screamed, ‘Allahu Akbar!’ as he committed his mass murder. …

“Barack Obama termed this Islamic terrorist attack ‘workplace violence.’ Complete lunacy.

“After the first mass killing nothing changed. Fort Hood is still a gun-free zone. President Bill Clinton’s gun-free policies are still in place.

“Today there was another mass shooting at Fort Hood. Soldiers were told to take cover and hide like cowards as a crazed gunman shot at least 14 Americans on base. The shooter, Ivan Lopez, then shot himself in the head.

“These deaths are the result of failed policies. These deaths are the result of a dangerous ‘gun free zone’ policy.

“The Obama administration is responsible for this mass shooting. They witnessed this before. They didn’t learn a thing. Gun-free zones are death zones,” concluded Hoft.

Of course, no one but Ivan Lopez is responsible for his own horrific crimes. Still, this Obama administration is likewise responsible for its own criminally horrific incompetence.

By maintaining his demonstrably failed “gun-free zone” policy at Fort Hood (and anywhere for that matter), Obama may as well have beckoned: “Hey, would-be mass murderers, we’ve still got some unarmed soldiers here. Come and finish ‘em off!”

This president is undeniably culpable. His reckless insistence upon preserving this obtuse, liberal – but I repeat myself – gun-grabbing policy rendered defenseless, once again, the fine servicemen and women of Fort Hood. It kept in place the same mass-murder-rich environment in which Nidal Malik Hasan committed the first Fort Hood “fish-in-a-barrel” soldier hunt.

And the only people surprised are you gun-control nutters.

Here’s the thing about liberalism, which is really cultural Marxism, euphemistically tagged “progressivism”: It’s never worked and it never will. It can’t. It’s a material impossibility. “Progressivism” can no more work than can one answer a nonsense question like, “How big is blue?” As with all similar such humanistic efforts to achieve a man-made earthly utopia, “progressivism” is a hopeless non-starter.

Why? Because “progressivism” is utterly detached from reality. There’s truth, and then there’s “progressivism.” Central to every single “progressive” policy, without exception, is the fatally flawed denial of the existence of sin – of man’s fallen nature. There’s also a stupidly stubborn refusal to acknowledge the reality of moral absolutes. “Progressivism” is built upon a utopian, relativist house of cards; and when that house comes crashing down, the results are often deadly.

This past Wednesday America witnessed liberalism’s deadly results first hand. A public policy that intentionally disarms American citizens – much less American soldiers – is a policy that creates a pond full of sitting ducks; this, whether we have a terrorist behind the trigger, or a government with designs on tyranny.

Notice a trend here? What do Sandy Hook Elementary, Aurora, Colorado’s Century 16 theater, Columbine High, Fort Hood No. 1 and Fort Hood No. 2 all have in common? They’re all “gun-free zones.”

Oh, if only, rather than “gun-free zone” signs, each of these terror Ground Zeros had had a sign reading: “Staff heavily armed and trained. Any attempts to harm those herein will be met with deadly force.”

Might some of those beautiful souls have still died before one or more well-armed good guys could take out the well-armed bad guys? Perhaps. But how many precious lives could have been saved?

Albert Einstein famously quipped that the definition of “insanity” is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” In that sense, “progressives” are insane.

Or, if not exactly insane, they’re certainly no Einsteins.

I’ll admit that many “progressives” are generally well-meaning and decent people. I even have a handful of “progressive” friends who’ve yet to see the light. I love ‘em, but they still want what they can’t have, at least not until that glorious last trumpet sounds.

They want heaven on earth.

It’s not for lack of sincerity that “progressives” are destroying America and putting lives at risk.

It’s for failure to grasp reality.

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