In the wake of the Sandy Hook Elm shootings I was asked to join a Facebook page titled “A reasoned Approach to Gun Control”. Here are my thoughts on the issue of the day. I hope they seem reasoned and balanced.
I think until we begin to teach that all life is sacred from womb to tomb, we will just be re-hashing the same old same old. Was the life of any of those beautiful souls worth any more or less than any other child? The problem is a systemic devaluation on human life across the board. If we take God and His laws out of society, we only make room for evil to take His place. The fifth commandment presupposes there is a God who loves us enough to show us the way to live.
Our laws, our culture, our media, and many of our video games, laugh at the idea that there even is a God who has the right to tell us what to do. If this killer did not use guns he could have just as easily bombed the school, if not a bomb then fire or poison or whatever else a madman can conceive in a warped and angry mind.
The 2nd amendment was put into place so we the people could fend off tyranny if our government got out of control. I don’t believe for a second that we need assault rifles for home defense or hunting, but we may need to be somewhat equally matched should our government ever declare war on its own citizens (Waco, Ruby Ridge, etc.). I don’t like either side of the argument. But I think the answer is a return to the Judeo-Christian value system not gun control. We need to instruct ourselves and others about the sanctity of human life.
Our own president does not understand this value system. As a senator he would not vote against partial birth abortion, he would not even vote to save the lives of babies that survived an abortion, were born, and were outside their mother’s womb already. Perhaps it was a hard lesson for him to stand there at Newtown, CT. and try to articulate the depth of sorrow for loss of innocent lives. Yet for me I saw a man who is deeply involved in and supportive of the culture of death trying to grapple with things which he must consider to be “not above his pay grade†since when asked, he thought the question of when life began was above his pay grade. A society that allows the killing of unborn children must and will systematically devalue human life throughout.
It offends me that people want to ban guns rather than ban killing. It offends my sense of freedom that a madman’s actions will infringe on my right to responsibly live out my citizenship and my 2nd amendment rights. Let’s not be too hasty to give even more power to those who do not value human life. If our president can’t see that killing a child in the womb is wrong because they are innocent and have God given intrinsic dignity, value, and a right to life, if he cannot see that allowing an abortion survivor to die because its parents do not “want†it is wrong, then I’m not so sure he wouldn’t feel free to turn the sites on me and others like me someday.
Gun control is not the answer. Love is the answer. God is love. God’s law is the answer. Hug your children close and teach them in the ways of the lord.