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?

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You don’t have to be a climate scientist to know the ringleaders of the “climate change” bandwagon don’t truly believe the narrative they’re selling.

And it’s not just because they jet around the world in private jets to lecture you about your car and your hamburgers.

In fact, if the people at the top bought into the notion that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are really “pollution” producing a “climate crisis,” they would be doing exactly the opposite of what they’re actually doing.

Examining climate policy and communist China proves the point.

Consider the UN Paris Agreement. Negotiated at the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) in Paris in 2015, the global deal calls on national governments to make their own national pledges about what they force on their populations to combat the alleged “climate crisis.”

Under the deal, the Obama administration unilaterally pledged to slash CO2 emissions in the United States by more than 25 percent by 2025. This was to be imposed on Americans through executive orders and federal regulations to avoid involving Congress. Other Western governments made similar promises.

The Chinese communist regime, by contrast, was already emitting far more CO2 than the United States and now spews more than the entire Western world combined by far—and yet it pledged only to keep increasing its emissions for the next 15 years. Seriously.

In its submission to the UN (pdf), the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) agreed “to achieve the peaking of carbon dioxide emissions around 2030.”

In other words, the regime proudly announced to the world that its CO2 output would continue to grow for at least 15 years, at which point nobody will even remember the Paris pledges.

When I asked members of the Chinese delegation for comment at the UN summit, instead of responding, they sent one of their minions to follow me around the conference and take pictures of me, something I promptly reported to UN security and the French police.

It’s a good thing for the CCP that nobody will remember its promises by 2030, because virtually every analyst who has looked at the regime’s coal-fired power-plant construction binge has acknowledged there’s no way its emissions will “peak” by 2030. Communist promises have never been worth the paper they’re printed on anyway, as history has shown.

The CCP wasn’t kidding about increasing its emissions, though: Beijing is currently bringing more coal-fired power plants online just between now and 2025 than the United States has in total.

According to Global Energy Monitor’s February 2021 briefing (pdf), the CCP built more than three times as much coal-power capacity as the rest of the world combined in 2020. And it already has about half of all the world’s coal power capacity, according to Global Energy Monitor’s “Boom and Bust 2020: Tracking the Global Coal Plant Pipeline.”

Already, China emits more than twice as much CO2 as the United States, according to data from the Global Carbon Project. Its emissions are rising meteorically even as U.S. emissions and emissions from other Western nations continue to plunge.

In 2021, Americans released about 5 billion tons of CO2, while China released about 11.5 billion. If current trends continue, the CCP may release more CO2 than the rest of the world combined in the not-too-distant future.

Think about this. If one was truly concerned about CO2 emissions producing “climate hell,” as world leaders claimed at the latest UN “climate” summit in Egypt that I attended, they would be panicking, not celebrating.

Moving Production

Again, all of the production being moved out of the West and into China will result in vastly more CO2 entering the atmosphere than if that production had remained in the United States, Canada, or Europe.

And yet, Western governments, tax-funded climate activists, UN leaders, and their media allies all celebrated and continue to celebrate the Paris Agreement and subsequent follow-ups as a huge success in saving the climate. Perhaps Donald Trump was on to something when, in 2012, he wrote on Twitter,

“The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”

That’s exactly what happened, of course, as electricity rates got pushed higher and higher over time. In 1975, electricity was averaging around 3 cents per kilowatt hour, helping U.S. industry remain competitive globally. By 2010, thanks in part to Obama’s policies, it had tripled. And by 2021, it was approaching 15 cents.

For perspective, electricity prices in China are about half that.

There are many reasons for the shifting of production from the United States to China—many of them directly related to U.S. policy—but one key factor has been the cost of energy.

Yet higher energy prices were openly touted as a policy objective by Obama. As he made clear in a 2008 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, “under my plan … electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”

Later that year, he expressed similar sentiments as gas prices soared to around $4, saying only that he would have “preferred” a “gradual adjustment” instead.

Faced with higher labor costs and a tougher regulatory environment, American companies and entrepreneurs were already struggling to keep production in the United States amid a rigged global trading regime benefiting the CCP at America’s expense.

Soaring energy costs in many cases pushed firms over the edge, forcing them to shift production to China or shut down in the face of Chinese competition.

Again, if you truly believe CO2 is pollution, the worst possible outcome of “climate” negotiations would be to transfer even more production to China, where CO2 emissions per unit of economic production are massively higher.

But this is precisely the result of the much-celebrated UN “climate” process.

The shift into so-called “renewable energy” being engineered by the Biden administration and federal policymakers has been and will continue to be a huge boon to the CCP, too—and not just because it will force prices higher while making the U.S. energy grid more unstable.

Almost 80 percent of solar cells produced in 2019 were made in China, according to Bloomberg data (pdf). The CCP dominates production in the wind sector and battery industries as well. It also controls the supply chain for rare-earth materials needed to produce all of these “green energy” products.

The U.S. government, for its part, is offering massive subsidies to these CCP-dominated industrial sectors while forcing Americans into dependence on them through regulations, mandates, subsidies, and other policies. How this is supposed to help the environment is never made clear.

For some perspective on the economic carnage inflicted on America by Obama’s Paris scheme, which he claimed was an “executive agreement” and thus not subject to Senate ratification as required by the Constitution, the Heritage Foundation crunched the numbers in a 2016 study.

Among other findings, the conservative-leaning think tank said Obama’s Paris pledges would increase electricity costs for a family of four between 13 and 20 percent annually while vaporizing almost half a million jobs, including around 200,000 in manufacturing.

That damage translates to about $20,000 in lost income for American families by 2035 and a reduction in GDP of over $2.5 trillion.

Who Benefits?

Who benefits from all this? Certainly not the “climate.” Again, shipping U.S. industry to China will result in more CO2 in the atmosphere, not less. And in any case, based on the UN’s own debunked “models,” complete elimination of all U.S. CO2 emissions would result in virtually no reduction in global temperatures.

According to a peer-reviewed paper by Dr. Bjorn Lomborg published in the Global Policy Journal, even if all the significant pledges made in Paris were fulfilled, global temperatures would be just 0.05 degrees C (0.086 degrees F) cooler by 2100—a statistically insignificant rounding error.

The big winner, of course, was the CCP, which has been laughing all the way to the bank as it absorbs the factories, jobs, and wealth production that U.S. and other Western authorities are shutting down to “save the climate.”

This appears to be deliberate, as statements by leading officials in the Obama administration and the UN have made clear.

Obama’s “Science Czar” John Holdren openly advocated a de-industrialization of the United States in his 1973 book “Human Ecology.”

“A massive campaign must be launched to restore a high-quality environment in North America and to de-develop the United States,” Holdren and his co-authors wrote. “De-development means bringing our economic system (especially patterns of consumption) into line with the realities of ecology.”

Then consider seemingly bizarre comments made by then-UN Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Christiana Figueres.

Speaking to Bloomberg a few months after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed his unsettling admiration for the CCP, Figueres claimed that the regime in Beijing—overseeing about one third of global CO2 output—was “doing it right” on climate policy.

In separate comments while pushing for major climate policies, Figueres also suggested the goal of “climate” policy was really economic transformation.

“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution,” she said on Feb. 4, 2015.

Five years before those comments, one of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s top officials, Ottmar Edenhofer, revealed a similar agenda in comments to Germany’s NZZ Online.

“One must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy,” he said. “One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore.”

Wealth redistribution? Changing the economic model of the world? De-developing the United States? And here Americans are being told this is about “saving the climate.”

Remember, too, that when Trump withdrew from the Paris agreement, climate alarmists from around the world declared that Beijing was the new global “leader” of the effort to save the climate—the same regime that oversees the most CO2 emissions, is building coal plants faster than they can be counted, and that promised to keep increasing CO2 emissions until 2030.

If this is really about saving the climate from CO2, how can the CCP be the new leader? It’s beyond absurd.

Despite all this, the Biden administration continues to intensify “cooperation” on “climate action” and the Paris Agreement with Beijing, no doubt causing amusement and joy among members of the CCP’s Politburo.

It’s not just China that benefits. In fact, congressional researchers discovered that state-backed Russian energy interests were funding U.S. “green” groups opposed to U.S. energy via a shell company in Bermuda called Klein Ltd.

The regime in Venezuela, too, is laughing all the way to the bank as the Biden administration sabotages U.S. energy and begs the Maduro dictatorship to send oil to America.

To be clear, I don’t begrudge the CO2 emissions of China or anyone else. In fact, many scientists have told me that more of this “gas of life” would be enormously beneficial for the planet and humanity.

Retired Princeton physics professor Dr. William Happer, who served as Trump’s climate adviser, told me years ago at a climate conference we both spoke at that the planet needed more CO2 and that plants were designed to live in an atmosphere with quite a bit more CO2 than the planet currently has.

Plus, human emissions of CO2 make up a fraction of 1 percent of all the so-called “greenhouse gases” present naturally in the atmosphere.

To summarize, if one truly believes that CO2 is bad for the climate, shipping U.S. production and industry to China is the worst possible way to deal with it. Logically, then, the policymakers behind this must have an ulterior motive.

Of course, the CCP loves the Paris deal: They do nothing but build more coal plants to power the industries and factories fleeing America for China as the U.S. government forces the United States to commit economic suicide.

This isn’t just an economic or “climate” issue, either. As the United States is “de-developed,” the economic destruction produces a major threat to national security. A strong military can’t be funded without a strong economy, obviously.

It’s time for lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives to shut down the administration’s “climate” policies that do nothing but expand CCP CO2 emissions and harm the United States.

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