i think it's time to write a bit of my thought process down about guns. they seem to be a big topic these days, from the government down to everyday people.
(personally, i don't like guns at all. i wish they could all be banned, from the government down to the kids, but i know that's completely unrealistic in this fallen world. worldwide peace is only going to come when Jesus returns.)
now, i don't have any end-all answer to the debate of banning guns, but here's what's been mulling in my mind as i hear more discussion on the topic.
so let me get this straight so far, we have the most guns per capita (most people say they have guns to protect themselves), and we are also the most dead nation in the world because of these same 'protective' weapons.... hmmm...
- we're experiencing more and more mass shootings like at the Connecticut elementary school and the Colorado movie theater and the Wisconsin Sikh temple... an excellent overview of mass shootings here in the US can be found at this link: mass shootings map
- and just this January, there was another senseless, horrific shooting in New Mexico. a 15-yr-old boy shot his mother, his 3 siblings (ages 9, 5, and 2), and his father. he had also contemplated killing his 12-yr-old girlfriend's family, as well as going to walmart to shoot a bunch of people there. 3 what in the world?! the county sheriff hit the nail on the head when he said this: "there seems to be a devaluation of life in america." 4 he argues, rightly, that schools and faith-based organizations should be doing more in the prevention of this. and i would add that families need to do more groundwork to teach non-violence.
how'd we get here?
what is it about humans that makes us ever want to kill another person? or hurt them.. why does it feel good to get someone back or to be stronger than someone else? here are some ideas:
1. plain ole ego. it's all about me. back to the Garden of Eden when Eve wanted to be like God. she and Adam threw away the words God had said in favor of what tickled their egos and their self-importance. God had been clear: eat from that one tree and you will die. they chose to gamble with death, just like all of us since then. we feel invincible. we think we can take care of ourselves. we think we're number one.
2. fear. despite acting like we're number one and we're invincible, we really are afraid of everything. Americans especially. Americans must be some of the most fearful people in the world. we're afraid of germs, afraid of our neighbors, afraid of the rest of the world, afraid of growing old, afraid of sickness, afraid of death, afraid of ghosts, afraid of confrontations, afraid of the weather... and in the same breath, we constantly test the limits and step to the edges, kind of as a coward's way of proving we're not afraid. we watch scary movies, we ride crazy roller-coasters, we eat ourselves into un-health, we drink alcohol till we puke, we spend the night in graveyards telling 'ghost stories,' we yell obscenities at the t.v. from the safety of our couch, we run around town with guns in our pockets to prove we're tough .......... it all comes back to fear.
3. anger. sometimes fear comes out as anger. sometimes circumstances breed anger, like financial troubles or broken families. sometimes people are angry just because it gives them something to do.
4. video game violence. yep, i said it.
basically, most Americans have too much time on their hands. we watch hours of t.v., our kids play hours of video games. and it's ridiculous to think that we can fill our minds with violence hour after hour and not be affected. like my husband always says, "companies wouldn't spend billions of dollars on advertising if it didn't affect our minds and our actions." the thing about video games now is a) how REAL they look, b) that you play them in FIRST PERSON, running along with a gun in your hands, c) how INVOLVED the storyline is (why do you think people get so mad when they lose?!), and d) how MISLEADING it is to die over and over again or kill others without real consequences.
you think this doesn't affect your kid when they sit absorbed in the game for hours?? then you're not in touch with reality.
if you read the article about the boy who killed his family (3), you'd notice that the sheriff talked about how the boy "gushed to police about his love for violent video games during the interrogation... he told police he loved to play Modern Warfare and Grand Theft Auto." red flag!!!
today as i ran errands, i was listening to the radio station my husband had left on in the car: Christian talk radio. they were talking briefly about the gun issue. granted, i think the issue being discussed in government has been about automatic weapons, but these guys were discussing just any guns at all.
the show host clearly seemed to be pro-gun, against any gun-banning. they were discussing whether or not it's ever ok for a Christian to have a gun in their house 'for safety,' and what happens if a burglar comes into the house at night. they mentioned a Christian leader who said that Christians shouldn't have a gun for 'safety,' because then you run the risk of killing someone who hasn't heard the gospel. the talk show host kind of snorted at that and said this: "when a burglar is in your house, that is not the time to share the gospel."
that disturbed me.
what if that is EXACTLY the time you are supposed to share the gospel, or even lead that person to Christ, or to be a different kind of example, instead of holding a gun to their face and shooting them dead in the name of 'protecting your family?'
it brings to memory true stories i've heard of Christians from WWII who won over their captors by sharing the gospel - hardened nazi killers who had only evil in their minds... changed by GOD in the presence of someone who cared more for the nazi's soul than for their own safety.
or how about the Chinese girl who was imprisoned just for being a Christian, who, though almost starving herself, spent her days voluntarily washing other prisoners' cells and sharing the gospel with them... her example caused the guards to ask her about her faith.
or i think of the countless stories i've read in the Voice of the Martyrs magazine, about modern day Christians who are killed for believing in Jesus, but whose last words before death caused their killers to later repent and become strong Christians themselves.
what if those Christians had met their attackers at the door with a gun?
what if Ananias in Acts 9, had met Saul, a serious Christian-killer, at his door with a gun? there would have been no Paul, and think of how many people were saved after hearing his words, both in his day and up to ours!
i don't think it is necessarily wrong for a Christian to own a gun, maybe for minor bits of hunting or something (even though i eat some meat, it's hard for me to think of actually shooting an animal...). i don't know the answer to what we should do across the board when it comes to guns.
i DO know we have a violence problem in this country, which i think is a family/morality problem at its core.
and i DO believe that automatic weapons are seriously unnecessary for normal people to have.
when it comes down to it for me, if i picture Jesus living as my neighbor in 2013, i don't picture Him with a gun under His pillow.
1 cnn - US vs the world in gun violence
2 joe manchin
3 family shooting
4 sheriff talks about family shooting
(personally, i don't like guns at all. i wish they could all be banned, from the government down to the kids, but i know that's completely unrealistic in this fallen world. worldwide peace is only going to come when Jesus returns.)
now, i don't have any end-all answer to the debate of banning guns, but here's what's been mulling in my mind as i hear more discussion on the topic.
show me the facts
first of all, here are some stats and pieces of info i have run across in recent weeks. links to my references are below.
- dateline said in the US, 36 people are killed with guns every day. that's more people dead than there are hours in the day!
- last year, 9,000 people were killed with guns in the US. 1 this is the highest rate in all 'industrialized nations.' other similar countries have stats in the hundreds, while we are at multiple thousands!!! and a suspiciously correlating fact: the US has the 'highest rate of gun ownership in the world, with 88.8 guns per 100 people' (Serbia is next, with 58.2). 1
so let me get this straight so far, we have the most guns per capita (most people say they have guns to protect themselves), and we are also the most dead nation in the world because of these same 'protective' weapons.... hmmm...
- we're experiencing more and more mass shootings like at the Connecticut elementary school and the Colorado movie theater and the Wisconsin Sikh temple... an excellent overview of mass shootings here in the US can be found at this link: mass shootings map
over 3/4 of these killers had legal weapons!
after the shooting in Connecticut this last December, everyone was talking about weapons and if some should be banned. even a staunch pro-gun-er named Joe Manchin changed his tune and made these comments: "i never thought i'd see the day when i would see children and babies slaughtered in america... i think seeing the massacre of so many innocent children, it's changed america... never before have we seen our babies slaughtered." (i can't help but interject here that he is wrong, because we have been slaughtering our babies for decades through abortion... why only outrage now??!) he thinks even the NRA might lighten up a bit on its argument against banning at least some semi-automatic guns. 2 (a few weeks ago i was in a conversation with someone who has been involved in violence most of his life, as a pimp and drug dealer who used guns, and even he said there's no need for anyone to have an automatic weapon.)- and just this January, there was another senseless, horrific shooting in New Mexico. a 15-yr-old boy shot his mother, his 3 siblings (ages 9, 5, and 2), and his father. he had also contemplated killing his 12-yr-old girlfriend's family, as well as going to walmart to shoot a bunch of people there. 3 what in the world?! the county sheriff hit the nail on the head when he said this: "there seems to be a devaluation of life in america." 4 he argues, rightly, that schools and faith-based organizations should be doing more in the prevention of this. and i would add that families need to do more groundwork to teach non-violence.
how'd we get here?
what is it about humans that makes us ever want to kill another person? or hurt them.. why does it feel good to get someone back or to be stronger than someone else? here are some ideas:
1. plain ole ego. it's all about me. back to the Garden of Eden when Eve wanted to be like God. she and Adam threw away the words God had said in favor of what tickled their egos and their self-importance. God had been clear: eat from that one tree and you will die. they chose to gamble with death, just like all of us since then. we feel invincible. we think we can take care of ourselves. we think we're number one.
2. fear. despite acting like we're number one and we're invincible, we really are afraid of everything. Americans especially. Americans must be some of the most fearful people in the world. we're afraid of germs, afraid of our neighbors, afraid of the rest of the world, afraid of growing old, afraid of sickness, afraid of death, afraid of ghosts, afraid of confrontations, afraid of the weather... and in the same breath, we constantly test the limits and step to the edges, kind of as a coward's way of proving we're not afraid. we watch scary movies, we ride crazy roller-coasters, we eat ourselves into un-health, we drink alcohol till we puke, we spend the night in graveyards telling 'ghost stories,' we yell obscenities at the t.v. from the safety of our couch, we run around town with guns in our pockets to prove we're tough .......... it all comes back to fear.
3. anger. sometimes fear comes out as anger. sometimes circumstances breed anger, like financial troubles or broken families. sometimes people are angry just because it gives them something to do.
4. video game violence. yep, i said it.
basically, most Americans have too much time on their hands. we watch hours of t.v., our kids play hours of video games. and it's ridiculous to think that we can fill our minds with violence hour after hour and not be affected. like my husband always says, "companies wouldn't spend billions of dollars on advertising if it didn't affect our minds and our actions." the thing about video games now is a) how REAL they look, b) that you play them in FIRST PERSON, running along with a gun in your hands, c) how INVOLVED the storyline is (why do you think people get so mad when they lose?!), and d) how MISLEADING it is to die over and over again or kill others without real consequences.
you think this doesn't affect your kid when they sit absorbed in the game for hours?? then you're not in touch with reality.
if you read the article about the boy who killed his family (3), you'd notice that the sheriff talked about how the boy "gushed to police about his love for violent video games during the interrogation... he told police he loved to play Modern Warfare and Grand Theft Auto." red flag!!!
a Christian response
today as i ran errands, i was listening to the radio station my husband had left on in the car: Christian talk radio. they were talking briefly about the gun issue. granted, i think the issue being discussed in government has been about automatic weapons, but these guys were discussing just any guns at all.
the show host clearly seemed to be pro-gun, against any gun-banning. they were discussing whether or not it's ever ok for a Christian to have a gun in their house 'for safety,' and what happens if a burglar comes into the house at night. they mentioned a Christian leader who said that Christians shouldn't have a gun for 'safety,' because then you run the risk of killing someone who hasn't heard the gospel. the talk show host kind of snorted at that and said this: "when a burglar is in your house, that is not the time to share the gospel."
that disturbed me.
what if that is EXACTLY the time you are supposed to share the gospel, or even lead that person to Christ, or to be a different kind of example, instead of holding a gun to their face and shooting them dead in the name of 'protecting your family?'
it brings to memory true stories i've heard of Christians from WWII who won over their captors by sharing the gospel - hardened nazi killers who had only evil in their minds... changed by GOD in the presence of someone who cared more for the nazi's soul than for their own safety.
or how about the Chinese girl who was imprisoned just for being a Christian, who, though almost starving herself, spent her days voluntarily washing other prisoners' cells and sharing the gospel with them... her example caused the guards to ask her about her faith.
or i think of the countless stories i've read in the Voice of the Martyrs magazine, about modern day Christians who are killed for believing in Jesus, but whose last words before death caused their killers to later repent and become strong Christians themselves.
what if those Christians had met their attackers at the door with a gun?
what if Ananias in Acts 9, had met Saul, a serious Christian-killer, at his door with a gun? there would have been no Paul, and think of how many people were saved after hearing his words, both in his day and up to ours!
i don't think it is necessarily wrong for a Christian to own a gun, maybe for minor bits of hunting or something (even though i eat some meat, it's hard for me to think of actually shooting an animal...). i don't know the answer to what we should do across the board when it comes to guns.
i DO know we have a violence problem in this country, which i think is a family/morality problem at its core.
and i DO believe that automatic weapons are seriously unnecessary for normal people to have.
when it comes down to it for me, if i picture Jesus living as my neighbor in 2013, i don't picture Him with a gun under His pillow.
1 cnn - US vs the world in gun violence
2 joe manchin
3 family shooting
4 sheriff talks about family shooting
Thanks for the post. I appreciate the way you try to look at the different aspects rather than jumping on one bandwagon or the other.
ReplyDeleteChallenging...gun violence is so tragic... how do you stop criminals with guns, without guns... Martin Luther King Jr. did it with love...and was killed by a gun. So tough... what a world. As you can tell, I don't have the answers either.
ReplyDeleteHow amazing those Christians who truly cared about their persecutors (neighbors) more than there own lives! Lord, please have mercy on us American Christians. Change us, please.
And then I think, "What would have come of Nazi Germany if it were not for guns in the hands of good guys?"... of course, if there were no bad guys with guns, then.... well, then people would've been using knives or whatever else... even our human kids use wounding tools. At the elementary level, the weapon of choice is usually words... so sad. so tough...
ReplyDelete