I couldn’t think of a clever title for this article, and maybe it’s because I don’t really care. I don’t even care about devising an interesting hook to bring the reader in. I’m going to be blunt here in this article about guns, in regard to the recent tragedy that happened literally seventy miles west from where I live. A lone gunman opened fire on a local school, killing 22 people before being gunned down by a border patrol agent. Last I checked, his grandmother was killed, but I’ve received mixed reports about that.
When I first read about the story yesterday while on break at work, I thought there had to be a mistake in the report, because I first heard that nineteen people were injured, and about ten seconds later, it was that nineteen people were killed. I couldn’t believe it, and told my dad quickly, especially given the shooting wasn’t very far away this time.
As per usual, the left has practically set itself on fire over this, demanding more action on gun control, claiming that “this could have been prevented”. I certainly agree, it could certainly have been prevented, but it wouldn’t be by Steve Kerr’s ridiculous suggestion, which would be to remove police from schools. My solution, until we have a revival in this country, would be to arm those schools to the teeth. Ever wonder why there are far more incidents of school shootings than there are, say, shootings at a military base? Or a gun store? Or heck, even a shooting range? Because if you tried to walk up to a military base, armed to the teeth, guns blazing, you would be lit up like a Christmas tree faster than Beta O’Rourke can say, “Take your guns away!”
These shooters are cowards; the suspect himself was bullied, left alone, and preferred to be alone. He was a loner, and quite frankly, a loser. It’s not to say there is no sympathy for him at all, I can certainly relate to the whole “I’m invisible to the world” idea, and I know how it can affect you. But, this young man chose a dark path, and it was all in his doing. But he was a loser, and could never actually stand up to a real fight. If he could, he would probably have tried a bigger target, and if he was interested in bigger, better things, he wouldn’t have considered just killing people in the first place. But he didn’t have anyone in his life who challenged him to be a better man; from what I hear, there’s no father in his picture, only a mom who despised him. Cowards, naturally, will go for targets that they know can’t fight back. It’s how people like him find power and control, because they don’t have it anywhere else.
What would you have us do? Background checks? We already do those. I’m getting really tired of hearing this talking point, “We need laws with stricter background checks!” All that is, is a cover for, “we need to start removing certain firearms from people” and those firearms are AR15-style rifles, and pretty soon, every type of modern weapon, including pistols. That’s just the reality of what they want, and the reason this must be made into a big deal, is because in the founding of this country was the essential, foundational principle that you are responsible for your homestead and your livelihood, not the government. It was never the government’s job to tell you what car to drive, where to live, who to marry, what job to have, where you go, what you buy, how many children you will have, and where you go to worship.
With that foundational principle comes the responsibility of taking care of these things yourself. In other words, you are left free, but no one ever said freedom didn’t come without a price, without consequences, consequences which the founders absolutely believed were worth the cost. Part of that responsibility is to protect what is yours. If you build it, you own it, it’s up to you to protect it. It’s that plain and simple, and this is part of the reason for the right to bear arms.
The other reason is that the founding fathers understood history, and boy did that second amendment come at the right time. Not long after this was the rise of Marxist Communism and Socialism, which came to a head in the twentieth century. No political or governmental system in the last two centuries has killed more people than Communism, which is an estimated 94 million people, and Hitler’s socialism killed an estimated 20 million people (apart from the war). In each of these cases, we have two commonalities. One, it was the government that did this, not the people. The second thing is that these are citizens, not military combatants attempting to overthrow the government. And why were they so successful? Because the populace had no defense against its Communist government.
If it wasn’t for these essential principles, ingrained into our Constitution, where would America be now? Sure, it’s on the downfall, but without this country being founded on a Constitutional Republic (not a democracy!), there’s little doubt that we would be a full-fledged Communist country, if not some strange hybrid of it like in China. If the founders could return during the rise of the Soviet Union to see the fruits of their labors, they would be tempted to think of themselves as prophets of the modern era.
The simple point I’m making here is this: our founders understood that to ensure a population remains free, to ensure it cannot be enslaved as has happened repeatedly over the centuries, the population must be armed, and able to defend itself, not simply from foreign threats, but domestic ones too. How can it be that you can honestly look into the history of western society, just in the last century, and not conclude that the state can and often does, overstep its bounds, as it is always apt to do, and must be checked? I cannot fathom how anyone cannot see this. History has proven that the weapon of mass destruction has, by far, always been the state. It was always kings, emperors and dictators who did the most damage to the human race than any other group of people.
That all being said, I was pondering this morning on this whole issue. It’s perhaps far too late for me to try and say that I’m not trying to politicize this whole thing, and that I’m not responding in the flesh, with a need to fight back against leftists and their poor attempts to emotionalize us into siding with them. It’s far too late in this article for me to try and imply that my purpose here is not to argue at a time when we ought to be mourning, and praying for the families. But as Steve Deace said on today’s program, the left simply won’t let us mourn.
Before I continue, I will just say this, that my heart absolutely breaks for the families. I have and continue to pray for them. I don’t make my praying life very public, so that’s probably why you see little of it on social media, if anything at all. I do not want to have to write something like this, but obviously, I have to, because there are certain people, and sometimes I wonder if such people are in my own circle of friends, who think my responses to this shooting are cold, heartless, thoughtless and come from some deeply-rooted, “‘Merica! Guns and freedom!” mantra that is absolutely absurd. Just simply absurd!
So, let me just finish this with what I believe about the right to bear arms. My belief that we have the right to bear arms is not because of the second amendment. It never comes from that. You want to know where it comes from? It actually comes from Scripture. Paul tells men to love their wives (Ephesians 5:25-28). We are to love our wives as Christ loved the church. Christ is thus our example of how to love, and how did Christ love? Sacrificially. He gave himself for his bride, and in the same way, us men are to give ourselves for our wives, and our families. Part of that sacrifice is to protect, to put ourselves in harm’s way to ensure they are safe. Christ assuredly does this for us when he battles against pharisaical teachings that attempt to lead his disciples astray, and he also does this by protecting his children from eternal death on the cross.
Now of course, neither you nor I could take someone’s sins upon ourselves. Thus, how can we protect like Christ does, from death? By literally protecting them from being hurt. Perhaps I am stretching this application, but the essential point here is that we are called to give ourselves for our families, and as Christians, we are called to give ourselves for others. Now of course, I’m not a husband at the time of writing this, nor do I have children. Thus, how can this text apply to me? A silly objection, really. Because I am not a husband, should I have no regard for modesty, or should it be fine for me to fornicate, since, having no wife, I could thus not commit adultery? Of course not. The reality is, even as a bachelor, I am to behave with the same intentions of a married man, the intentions to honor and protect.
But even if we set aside Ephesians 5, we have Isaiah 1:17, where we are commanded to do justice, correct oppression, plead the widow’s cause, and Jeremiah gives us the same command (Jeremiah 22:3).
“Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,” does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man according to his work?” -Proverbs 24:11-12.
Here we have the same command, to take action in preventing further death and bloodshed. That is, to protect those being oppressed. And look at verse 12; there is a warning here, that those who say make excuses not to, who say, “We did not know” or perhaps, “I didn’t think it was my duty as a Christian to be a fighter” will be held accountable, because they do know, they simply are unwilling to do it. Psalm 82:3-4 likewise have a call to do justice and protect, “Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”
These are but a few of the countless examples of Scripture’s command, which, when you boil it down, comes down to this: love your neighbor as you love yourself. Yes, loving our neighbor is sharing the gospel, we all agree to that. The problem is, a lot of you don’t want to believe loving your neighbor is oftentimes saving them from literal death, and sometimes that means violence against someone who wants to hurt them. As we don’t want to come face to face with the ‘dark side’ of God’s sovereign will in suffering (that He ordains it to His purpose and will), so we don’t want to come face to face with the ‘dark side’ of loving our neighbor. This is why I find it absolutely appalling when I see these cheesy Christian movies where someone’s dying, and the hero Christian’s immediate goal is not to save the man’s life, but to just share the gospel with him. Look, I get the idea, their eternal state is more important than their present, but the reality is that this kind of messaging teaches us that it’s more valuable in moments of crisis (and often moments when the desperate aren’t even thinking straight) to share the gospel, than it is to literally save someone’s life.
I hate to say it, but there is just simply a sissification of Christian men in our culture. We seem to think in this culture Christian manliness is all about being really nice, non-confrontational, and to be walking doormats. Certainly, we are called to be meek and gentle, but let’s not forget the same Jesus who told us to be innocent as doves told us to be wise as serpents (Matthew 10:16).
That is to say, we are to be kind, gentle, and we are not to be mischievous. But we are also not to be gullible, easily swayed, or in no way controversial. Nor are we to be squishy and withdrawn. We are to stand boldly with the call of the gospel, even if it offends people. We see examples of the apostles over and over directly rebuking, sometimes with harsh scorn, people for their false teachings, and Jesus himself is literally flipping tables and striking people with a whip, in righteous anger. Is there never a place for righteous anger in our lives? Of course there is! When justice is not served, when idols take the place of godly worship, righteous anger, and righteous rebuke are in order.
I believe Christians are to be meek, gentle and kind, but they are also to know when to put their foot down and get serious. This is exemplified in the prophets, the patriarchs, the apostles and Christ himself.
Now as I said, we are made to be free, and by that I mean, free from human oppression. We are never free from God’s purposes over us. There is a stark difference between serving men and serving God, and the service to God is of utmost importance. As Peter said in Acts 4, that we must obey God and not men. My pastor, when preaching on this passage, took time to explain that we Christians are not to use this command as an excuse to be deliberately defiant, and to be freedom-loving rebels who don’t listen to anyone, full of pride and self-indulgence, and we must be willing to obey certain government commands, so long as they don’t preclude us from preaching Christ.
Without going into the full detail, I completely agreed with him. I don’t believe in autonomous freedom. I believe we are each held accountable to God for what we do. I am not some super-duper American, wearing American flag underwear, MAGA hats, running around with guns everywhere all gung-ho. That’s patently absurd, and it is idolatry for Christians to value autonomous freedom over the biblical view of freedom, and there is a difference between the two. Autonomous freedom puts far too much emphasis on the individual, that they are left to believe they aren’t accountable to anyone or anything. Biblical freedom recognizes that we are in the light of God, and as a result, held accountable to Him to obey Him, and love our neighbor as ourselves.
And that, my friends, is exactly why I carry a gun. It’s exactly why I am a strong advocate of carrying. It’s why I want women to carry a firearm. I don’t often say this, but I’ll say it now, it often scares me to think about the women I know in my life potentially being attacked, and nothing gives me solace like the comfort of knowing they are self-aware, and able to protect themselves. This has nothing to do with it making me more manly. I don’t get some great sense of manhood when I carry a gun, and I don’t believe carrying a gun makes you a man by any stretch of the imagination. I carry a gun into church every Sunday, and it is not to protect myself. It’s to protect the people there. I am not a part of the “gun culture”. I have three pistols and one AR-15. That’s it. Though I’d like another AR-15 (one specific for longer ranges), it’s not a priority for me right now. I have other things more important to me. Right now, I sleep well knowing I can confidently defend my home, and anyone else if the need arises.
I wrote this article specifically to explain my view on the second amendment, in light of the recent shooting. My comments regarding the shooting have nothing to do with wanting to protect precious right-winged, corporate media, such as Fox News, or the NRA. I am not interested in either, and I don’t pay attention to either. I am not a right-winger. I am a Christian. The right happens to coincide with Christianity more often, but the right is not innocent of its own sins that are simply irreconcilable to God. And one such issue that happens to put me in agreement with the right is the gun issue. Whether we like it or not, they’re right: people have the right to defend their homes and families. Those children should have been protected, and they weren’t. They were left sitting ducks because of some idiot idea that putting “No guns” signs out on the front lawn will stop shooters.
Guys, that doesn’t work. Like I said in the open to this, the reason why shooters don’t try this stuff at a military base, or places where guns are the prima facie, is obvious. Cowardly, wicked murderers don’t want to get their brains blown out before they commit their cowardly acts of murder.
But at the end of the day, it must always be said that the answer to this is the gospel. Why did this happen? Look into the history of this shooter. You’ll find no surprise. No father in his life, a deadbeat mom, clearly a dysfunctional family. The reality is that this man, like all of us, was a sinner, prone to sin, prone to idolatry, like all of us. The family is a guardian, to place a child into the right environment. The family is, in a sense, a sacrament of grace from God to lead a child into the right way as they grow up. Remove that sacrament, and the results vary. Often times like this young man, and never are they good.
The left is constantly harping right now, “We must do something!” They’re certainly right about that. Something must be done. But that something is not what they want, and not what they mean. That something is to preach the gospel, to point people to the One who can change them, teach them to value life, and see it as God does, precious, made in His image, and thus valuable, worthy of our respect and protection. But in the meantime, until we are willing to do that, we must arm ourselves, and be ready for the worst.
Finding The Balance 