One of those pre-packaged posts is showing up all over social media. It compares Honduras to Switzerland on the matter of gun ownership and murder rates. I have marked "like" on it for several friends even though I knew that anti-gun advocates could seriously challenge it. There are too many variables involved to do a direct comparison; that much is true. But it is also true that it raises a matter worth talking about so I marked "like". Some 'counter posts' to it have given it a 'pants on fire' liars award. I would like to present the counter posts people with a hypocrites award of some sort for only pointing out flaws in logic if it suits their cause.
I am still waiting for them to give a liars award to media outlets that cover up innumerable instances when lives are saved and murders prevented because some citizen was armed. They get a solid gold hypocrites award for never pointing out that proposed new gun laws, if they had been on the books, would have done absolutely nothing to prevent the mass murders of recent years. After the Sandy Hook School massacre the proposed new law would have made background checks mandatory on all private firearm sales. The public seems blissfully unaware that background checks are already required of all sales by dealers and that the new law would have made you a criminal for giving a family member a shotgun to go pheasant hunting. The weapons used at Sandy Hook were purchased by the perpetrator's mother and she had a background check. (Not to mention that the perpetrator murdered her before killing all the others at the school.) Yet those in Congress who voted against this irrelevant and useless proposed law were accused of being cold hearted toward all the children and teachers killed at Sandy Hook. If this is not hypocrisy then hypocrisy does not exist. One armed guard in that school would have saved 22 lives.
But that solution doesn't fit the 'ideal world' envisioned by liberal progressives.
The push for 'universal background checks' on all private sales of firearms should be understood for what it really is and not as a crime prevention measure because those bent on crime will get their weapons legally if they can or illegally if they cannot, just like they do now. No, the push for background checks is very much a part of the total liberal, progressive effort to control people. This was behind the "Affordable Care Act" (Obama Care) and behind every major piece of legislation Obama and his allies put forward -- control! Their 'solution' to the breakdown in society is control by an elite. And who is more qualified than we are? they say, and they really believe it! A well known Christian in the 1970's clearly saw this coming and he described it as the death wish of modern humanism, the desire to beat to death the Christian base of our forms and freedoms. Then to substitute an imposed order by a manipulating, authoritarian elite.
This is why the election of "better" politicians only postpones, not prevents, the inevitable breakdown. A massive shift in public attitudes about God, His moral Laws and His Son Jesus Christ would produce again a consensus in America that embraces wide freedoms without freedom turning to chaos. BUT, and this is a very big qualification, God will not bless any effort to promote His Kingdom that has as its primary purpose the saving of American civilization as important as that may be. Any motive less than the glory of God is a corrupt motive and unworthy of the people of God. America is experiencing a form of judgment short of the ultimate judgments on nations in the Great Tribulation.
Of all the titanic freedoms without chaos that the Christian consensus produced in America the right to be armed is seen by thoughtful historians and political scientists as "an insurance policy that the Founders bought to prevent tyranny". I agree. But I also see that armed citizens without moral absolutes and the Fear of God cannot save themselves from the increasing breakdown. I have been a vocal advocate all my adult life for the principle in the Second Amendment yet I have never obtained a concealed carry permit. I may yet do so but I have hesitated for several reasons. My situation is somewhat unique. I see myself as closely related to the five missionaries who allowed themselves to be murdered in the jungles of Ecuador in January 1956. They had a rifle in their little airplane but the souls of their killers and the souls of all the tribe they came to reach were more important than their own lives. As one trying to be a faithful minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ I must balance the desire to prevent Muslim (and other) terrorists from murdering people with the ultimate goal of seeing them turn to Christ. It is very easy now for believers to see only the first and forget the second. "They overcame the devil by the Blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death." (Rev. 12:11) I cannot stress too much that I am speaking only of myself here and not urging a universal policy in this regard,
If I had a concealed carry permit I would probably never use it to save my own life, only the lives of others. For that reason I may still obtain one. On a more practical level, I have not wanted the continual fear of "have I carried this into someplace where I could get into legal trouble for having it?" The banks and other places who post the little sign that indicates "no arms allowed here" - I hate to say this but its true - are nothing but idiots. Someone bent on crime will ignore it and the people you will want in the event of a crime will be unarmed. Idiots! There is no other word for it.
No matter that pacifists have tried to explain it away, Jesus did approve of at least some prudent measures of self defense in Luke 22:36. "If you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one." Just don't make it your first resort. You already have angelic protection. (Matthew 26:50-54)
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