Tuesday, January 22, 2013

The dark side of guns

First, let me say what regular readers, Twitter followers and Facebook friends already know: when it comes to Second Amendment rights for Americans, I'm well-nigh libertarian. I think not only is gun ownership a right, it's a darned good idea. I'm often heard to say "When seconds count, the police are minutes away." As a Christian, while I accept the urge to turn my cheek to the insulting blows of enemies, I also accept the Bible's pro-life ethic in affirming the use of whatever force necessary to protect life, including deadly force.

More, I find the gun-control lobby's arguments to be puerile, asinine, superficial, absurd, and often hypocritical. They're easily dismantled, and often have been. Rightly so.

What is more, "Guns don't kill people, people kill people" is absolutely correct, as stated. People were killing people long before guns were even dreamt of. Ask Abel's grieving parents.

Having said all that...

The one thing all of us Second-Amendment pro-gun types need to deal with is the fact that guns do pose their own unique risk. I have in mind something other than the specter of youngsters getting a hold of a handgun, and killing themselves and others. That nightmare is easily remedied by gun safes or other similar measures.

What I have in mind is the ability of a firearm to deal death (A) in an instant, (B) from a distance, and (C) with no recourse. If the weapon is a fist, a knife, a rock, a brick, it can still be deadly. But not as quickly, and not as irremediably. There are self-defense measures available to give folks a chance in a hand-to-hand encounter. There are no self-defense classes for being shot at, from close range. Only guys in movies can knock bullets aside with swords.

A man cannot stand across a room and strangle a woman. But a woman can stand across a room and murder a man with a single, well-aimed shot.

A gun can turn a momentary rage into murder. Fly into a rage, pick up a gun, pull a trigger, the person's dead, the rage subsides — the person's still dead.

For instance, take two stories I saw the day I wrote this. A man went to his estranged wife's house for a 16th birthday party; the couple argued; he shot her and himself dead. Bang, over.

Elsewhere, a fifteen-year-old boy apparently shot both of his parents and his three siblings dead. Pubescent rage? Maybe. Whatever it was, when it subsided, they were all dead. Any chance he could have beaten them all to death, or knifed them all to death? Not likely.

Now at this point a gun-grabber might be thinking, "You're so close! Give in to the dark side." Yeah, on that: not a chance.

The simple and decisive counter is that there IS no law, and there CAN BE no law, that would have prevented either incident — unless it be a law authorizing the confiscation of every last firearm in possession. And that idea is sheer idiocy. First, it couldn't be done. More, it shouldn't be done. It would leave yet more innocent, law-abiding citizens vulnerable to criminals...and to governmental stormtroopers. So that's a non-starter.

All this brings us back to this: once again, the problem is human nature. And that's a problem that no law can remedy.

What America needs is what Britain needs, which is what Israel needs, which is what Switzerland needs, which is what South Africa needs, which is what every tribe and nation and people needs. We need something that will transform our natures, that will take a violent woman or man who is bent on conquest and theft, and will transform him or her into one who loves and gives.

What we all need is to know God. What we need is the world-tilting good news of Jesus Christ. Only Jesus Christ can redeem a lawless man or woman, make him right with God, and transform his nature (Titus 2:11-15; 3:4-7).

So here's the irony. That is what we need; and that is what is opposed by most American gun-grabbers, and increasingly suppressed by most office-holding gun-grabbers.

Unbelief always is, in the final analysis, suicidal.

But then that's hardly breaking news. Read Genesis 3.

20 comments:

coldwell said...

Amen and Amen.

JackW said...

It sounds like the heart of the problem is the problem of the heart.

Kerry James Allen said...

And wouldn't you know it, in the providence of God Dan goes to Houston, where the annual NRA convention will be held on May 2-5. We of Chicago and environs envy you with "godly jealousy!" (2 Cor.11:2, out of context, of course.)

Marie said...

So true. Guns simply make it easier to kill people.

That's BAD if a bad guy want to kills someone. But it's GOOD if we need to defend ourselves.

I am no match against anyone who surprised me. I also can't outrun anybody. I might win a fist fight or wrestling match with another woman. But most aggressive attackers are male.

I need something that "equalizes" me against a surpriser, a fast person, and a stronger or male person. That's a gun.

So the worst thing about a gun is also the best thing. It makes it easier for me to kill someone.

DJP said...

Marie, very well-said. Thank you.

Steve Drake said...

Not wishing to tread on the departed memory of the sad and tragic life of Rodney King, but "Can't we all just get along?" is the hopeful raison d'etre of the gun-grabber crowd. A blissful, ephemeral mantra that is false on its premise. Wishful thinking is no deterrent to the true evil that man can perpetrate on his fellow-man, a cruelty that knows no bounds.

WDO said...

Any comment on the view that as
A) My salvation is assured
and
B) An intruder's is unlikely
that the proper course of action for the Christian is to accept the potential of death to give said intruder a further chance of being drawn to salvation?

Just so you know I'm commenting in good-faith, I do have a cocked-and-locked 1911 in the bedside drawer (no kids). But frankly since I've heard that, I'm wavering on using it. And I know enough to know that if I'm wavering on using it, I need to lock it up.

DJP said...

Fair enough. From Deut. 29:29, I take it that God doesn't hold me morally accountable for acting on the basis of information that I both do not and cannot have, such as what you suggest. I do care about the very thing you're pointing at, but if someone's menacing my family, I do not feel obliged to ask the Evangelism Explosion question before defending them.

I do think it's worth saying that we are authorized to use whatever force necessary to defend life, up to death. The thought I've heard expressed (make sure you don't leave a second story) is not, to my mind, a Christian thought.

Let me be clear. I AM NOT saying that a Christian defending his family should try to do like the Lone Ranger, and aim for the gun in the attacker's hand, or his knee. That's just not realistic, and is likely to get a person killed. The wrong person.

I AM saying that our imperative is to defend, not to kill. Killing is not the goal, though it may be a necessary corollary to the goal.

Hope that's helpful.

ccm2361 said...

Well said!
As Oliver Cromwell said: Put your trust in the Lord, but mind to keep your powder dry.

Mizz Harpy said...

I second what Marie said. I worry whenever I go out cycling and wonder if pepper spray really works.

This section from the Song of Solomon has always stood out to me, "Behold, it is Solomon’s couch,
With sixty valiant men around it,
Of the valiant of Israel. They all hold swords, being expert in war.
Every man has his sword on his thigh because of fear in the night." (Songs 3:7-8)

It's a strange, yet not so strange, passage to have in the middle of a beautiful love story.

ccm2361 said...

Mizz Harpy
Pepper spray is wonderfully effective. Having been a cop, one of the requirements to carry pepper spray, is you must be sprayed with it. (So you understand its effects)

Mizz Harpy said...

@ccm2361, I believe you but that's also the problem. I got a bit on my face by accident and wasn't too impressed. I guess it's only effective if it gets in the eyes? I've remember reading somewhere that some humans are not very sensitive to pepper spray.

David said...

Thanks for the interesting post. However, from the perspective here in the UK (although maybe not in Northern Ireland) we see things not a little differently.

All Christians, conservative or otherwise would be classed as 'gun grabbers' here. I'm glad to say that regular police officers don't carry guns because they don't need to. Tightening of the law is welcomed almost universally, because we really are working towards the 'sheer idiocy' of 'the confiscation of every last firearm in possession'- particularly hand guns. In fact we're now working on the next problem- knife crime. Possession of a knife in a public place is now a criminal offence in the UK. And it's working.

So here are some of my thoughts about guns-
Your ABC points are the very reason not to own a gun. They are far too easy to use without thinking- but the bigger problem is suicide. The chances of a home-owned gun being used for suicide must be astronomically higher than the chance of a gunman invading your home, bent on killing your family. But the solution actually works against the point of owning a gun. If guns are well locked up, how are you going to get them out quick enough when that gunman bursts in- to kill your family-? And do you keep it loaded? If it's ready loaded it's more dangerous again. As far as I can figure out, the only way way you would use a locked-up unloaded gun is for a premeditated end- to deliberately kill yourself or someone else.

I do have another objection as well- the seduction of guns. When I was a student I visited a Christian brother in California, and he took me to his local gun store. He picked up a handgun and holding it as if to aim, he said, "I luuuuv guns." Now that scared me!

OK I'm from the UK, it's different here, and in many ways I feel that my words will fall on deaf ears. Pandora's box has been opened in the US, and it seems to many that the solution to the 'gun problem' is more guns. I think that's too bad. It looks from here that you're actually heading towards (back!) to a Hatfields & McCoys era!

Despite all I've said I appreciate your closing comments. I live on an island in the north of Scotland, and no one here has a burglar alarm installed in there home let alone keep a gun. However, in spite of this there is still hatred, strife, broken families and broken lives. We desperately need a Saviour to change our hearts and save us from our sin.

David

David said...

Thanks for the interesting post. However, from the perspective here in the UK (although maybe not in Northern Ireland) we see things not a little differently.

All Christians, conservative or otherwise would be classed as 'gun grabbers' here. I'm glad to say that regular police officers don't carry guns because they don't need to. Tightening of the law is welcomed almost universally, because we really are working towards the 'sheer idiocy' of 'the confiscation of every last firearm in possession'- particularly hand guns. In fact we're now working on the next problem- knife crime. Possession of a knife in a public place is now a criminal offence in the UK. And it's working.

So here are some of my thoughts about guns-
Your ABC points are the very reason not to own a gun. They are far too easy to use without thinking- but the bigger problem is suicide. The chances of a home-owned gun being used for suicide must be astronomically higher than the chance of a gunman invading your home, bent on killing your family. But the solution actually works against the point of owning a gun. If guns are well locked up, how are you going to get them out quick enough when that gunman bursts in- to kill your family-? And do you keep it loaded? If it's ready loaded it's more dangerous again. As far as I can figure out, the only way way you would use a locked-up unloaded gun is for a premeditated end- to deliberately kill yourself or someone else.

I do have another objection as well- the seduction of guns. When I was a student I visited a Christian brother in California, and he took me to his local gun store. He picked up a handgun and holding it as if to aim, he said, "I luuuuv guns." Now that scared me!

OK I'm from the UK, it's different here, and in many ways I feel that my words will fall on deaf ears. Pandora's box has been opened in the US, and it seems to many that the solution to the 'gun problem' is more guns. I think that's too bad. It looks from here that you're actually heading towards (back!) to a Hatfields & McCoys era!

Despite all I've said I appreciate your closing comments. I live on an island in the north of Scotland, and no one here has a burglar alarm installed in there home let alone keep a gun. However, in spite of this there is still hatred, strife, broken families and broken lives. We desperately need a Saviour to change our hearts and save us from our sin.

David

David said...

Thanks for the interesting post. However, from the perspective here in the UK (although maybe not in Northern Ireland) we see things not a little differently.

All Christians, conservative or otherwise would be classed as 'gun grabbers' here. I'm glad to say that regular police officers don't carry guns because they don't need to. Tightening of the law is welcomed almost universally, because we really are working towards the 'sheer idiocy' of 'the confiscation of every last firearm in possession'- particularly hand guns. In fact we're now working on the next problem- knife crime. Possession of a knife in a public place is now a criminal offence in the UK. And it's working.

So here are some of my thoughts about guns-
Your ABC points are the very reason not to own a gun. They are far too easy to use without thinking- but the bigger problem is suicide. The chances of a home-owned gun being used for suicide must be astronomically higher than the chance of a gunman invading your home, bent on killing your family. But the solution actually works against the point of owning a gun. If guns are well locked up, how are you going to get them out quick enough when that gunman bursts in- to kill your family-? And do you keep it loaded? If it's ready loaded it's more dangerous again. As far as I can figure out, the only way way you would use a locked-up unloaded gun is for a premeditated end- to deliberately kill yourself or someone else.

I do have another objection as well- the seduction of guns. When I was a student I visited a Christian brother in California, and he took me to his local gun store. He picked up a handgun and holding it as if to aim, he said, "I luuuuv guns." Now that scared me!

OK I'm from the UK, it's different here, and in many ways I feel that my words will fall on deaf ears. Pandora's box has been opened in the US, and it seems to many that the solution to the 'gun problem' is more guns. I think that's too bad. It looks from here that you're actually heading towards (back!) to a Hatfields & McCoys era!

Despite all I've said I appreciate your closing comments. I live on an island in the north of Scotland, and no one here has a burglar alarm installed in there home let alone keep a gun. However, in spite of this there is still hatred, strife, broken families and broken lives. We desperately need a Saviour to change our hearts and save us from our sin.

David

David said...

Thanks for the interesting post. However, from the perspective here in the UK (although maybe not in Northern Ireland) we see things not a little differently.

All Christians, conservative or otherwise would be classed as 'gun grabbers' here. I'm glad to say that regular police officers don't carry guns because they don't need to. Tightening of the law is welcomed almost universally, because we really are working towards the 'sheer idiocy' of 'the confiscation of every last firearm in possession'- particularly hand guns. In fact we're now working on the next problem- knife crime. Possession of a knife in a public place is now a criminal offence in the UK. And it's working.

So here are some of my thoughts about guns-
Your ABC points are the very reason not to own a gun. They are far too easy to use without thinking- but the bigger problem is suicide. The chances of a home-owned gun being used for suicide must be astronomically higher than the chance of a gunman invading your home, bent on killing your family. But the solution actually works against the point of owning a gun. If guns are well locked up, how are you going to get them out quick enough when that gunman bursts in- to kill your family-? And do you keep it loaded? If it's ready loaded it's more dangerous again. As far as I can figure out, the only way way you would use a locked-up unloaded gun is for a premeditated end- to deliberately kill yourself or someone else.

I do have another objection as well- the seduction of guns. When I was a student I visited a Christian brother in California, and he took me to his local gun store. He picked up a handgun and holding it as if to aim, he said, "I luuuuv guns." Now that scared me!

OK I'm from the UK, it's different here, and in many ways I feel that my words will fall on deaf ears. Pandora's box has been opened in the US, and it seems to many that the solution to the 'gun problem' is more guns. I think that's too bad. It looks from here that you're actually heading towards (back!) to a Hatfields & McCoys era!

Despite all I've said I appreciate your closing comments. I live on an island in the north of Scotland, and no one here has a burglar alarm installed in there home let alone keep a gun. However, in spite of this there is still hatred, strife, broken families and broken lives. We desperately need a Saviour to change our hearts and save us from our sin.

David

David said...

Thanks for the interesting post. However, from the perspective here in the UK (although maybe not in Northern Ireland) we see things not a little differently.

All Christians, conservative or otherwise would be classed as 'gun grabbers' here. I'm glad to say that regular police officers don't carry guns because they don't need to. Tightening of the law is welcomed almost universally, because we really are working towards the 'sheer idiocy' of 'the confiscation of every last firearm in possession'- particularly hand guns. In fact we're now working on the next problem- knife crime. Possession of a knife in a public place is now a criminal offence in the UK. And it's working.

So here are some of my thoughts about guns-
Your ABC points are the very reason not to own a gun. They are far too easy to use without thinking- but the bigger problem is suicide. The chances of a home-owned gun being used for suicide must be astronomically higher than the chance of a gunman invading your home, bent on killing your family. But the solution actually works against the point of owning a gun. If guns are well locked up, how are you going to get them out quick enough when that gunman bursts in- to kill your family-? And do you keep it loaded? If it's ready loaded it's more dangerous again. As far as I can figure out, the only way way you would use a locked-up unloaded gun is for a premeditated end- to deliberately kill yourself or someone else.

I do have another objection as well- the seduction of guns. When I was a student I visited a Christian brother in California, and he took me to his local gun store. He picked up a handgun and holding it as if to aim, he said, "I luuuuv guns." Now that scared me!

OK I'm from the UK, it's different here, and in many ways I feel that my words will fall on deaf ears. Pandora's box has been opened in the US, and it seems to many that the solution to the 'gun problem' is more guns. I think that's too bad. It looks from here that you're actually heading towards (back!) to a Hatfields & McCoys era!

Despite all I've said I appreciate your closing comments. I live on an island in the north of Scotland, and no one here has a burglar alarm installed in there home let alone keep a gun. However, in spite of this there is still hatred, strife, broken families and broken lives. We desperately need a Saviour to change our hearts and save us from our sin.

David

ccm2361 said...

David
God Bless you!
While the world absolutely needs a Savior in a big way; we must also acknowledge that we live in a wicked & immoral generation. I am a Christian and gun owner. I prefer to put my trust in the Lord, but I mind to keep my powder dry,(or pistol handy) as Oliver Cromwell said..To me the big question is...
Am I a follower of Christ who happens to love guns? or a lover of guns who happens to follow Christ. Identity is important.

From talking to some of my friends in the UK, I know that criminals there operate in broad daylight with a boldness that is almost unheard of here in the colonies. (except maybe in New York City, Chicago & DC)
Criminals here in the US don't pull half the brazen acts the their UK counterparts think nothing of. Why? the thought of a bullet from their intended victim.

David said...

Sorry about the multiple posts. I thought something had gone wrong. :)

LeeC said...

A well thought out post David. thank you for your insights.

I admit that I am in Dans camp on this for a variety of reasons though.

One thing I think you might find interesting though is a look into the age of the Hatfields and McCoys.

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/69687_604300899584819_1561393376_n.jpg,