1Corinthians 13 4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.8 Love never fails.
I don’t want to add to the controversy in regard to “gun control” but I do want to express a few things in regard to same. First and foremost, I admit that I do not understand all of the nuances of this issue. I would like to add that I don’t believe that anyone truly does. We are all the victim of our own experiences. Secondly, the problem is much bigger than one specific issue(i.e. gun control, video game violence, etc). Thirdly, the world has changed. Some see these changes for the better, some for the worse. There has always been change for each progressive generation throughout history regardless of nationality or creed. We are most familiar with the changes in our lifetime. One thing that has changed is the ability to reach out to hundreds, thousands, of people with propaganda of any kind by simply posting something on the internet. In past generations, planes would drop pamphlets with information (often true, often erroneous) so that masses of people could be reached. Now, all it takes is a computer and a keyboard or even just a smartphone. Because we are saturated with so much “information” we are all susceptible to falsehood and subtle changes in our viewpoint because of that “information.” My opinion is that we really know less now than we did 100 years ago because so much information is worse than having no information at all. Just because some things appear to be true and are accepted by the masses does not mean that they are true. Just look at the average German citizen during WW2.
Much has been said, and I believe rightly so about the absurdity of thinking that access to guns is the problem at hand in this current climate of “change”. We need to look no further than the prohibition period where the “outlawing” of ownership of alcohol only led to the entrepreneurship of a criminal element to supply the masses with alcohol. The flip side of that coin has also been articulated by many with the concern of the citizenry at not being able to defend themselves from attacks by various means, including threat to personal property and family. This is a valid concern. Part of my daughter’s extended family are from Brazil, where the possession of firearms is illegal for the bulk of the citizenry. Most of her family members who reside there have had intruders to break into their homes and many have beenrobbed at GUNPOINT. How? The criminal element has availed themselves of the opportunity to purchase firearms from the other criminal entrepreneurs who deal in illegal arms. By making people defenseless from attack, it adds an incentive (and market) for those who wish to exploit others to be able to take advantage of people at their weakest for personal gain.
The bottom line is that we need a viable way to defend ourselves. We will never get beyond that. That is why there will always be a need for law enforcement. Enforcement implies force. The police FORCE people to operate within the law. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that without force, people would break the law. Guns in the home FORCE people to take that into consideration before an attempt is made to invade a home. My ex-wife works as a counselor/case manager within the federal prison system. She has stated many times that robbers and thieves (your average home invader) have told her that they would pass on a home where they knew that the occupants possessed firearms. Enough said.
There is the problem of school violence. Does the fact that our citizenry has access to guns contribute to this problem and make it worse? Probably. Should there potentially be some form of regulation on who can own a gun? Possibly. Be aware however that once a precedent of regulation is set, there is an agenda to push for absolution of weaponry being owned by the citizenry and the results of not being able to own a firearm would create an even greater problem. A defenseless society is a vulnerable society. The only reason this is even being “considered” is because it has been so long since our nation has had to deal with a threat from without. We haven’t faced potential invasion as a lot of the nations of the world have. Would we even be “blaming access to guns” if we had? I think not. Our founding fathers would not have even entertained such non-sense (presumably because invasion of their homeland by others was fresh on their mind). The bottom line is that you don’t solve one problem by creating an even bigger one.
What is the solution?
I don’t think there are any clear-cut answers. But what I do know is that we should not consider eliminating a means (guns) which in turn would create a bigger problem. As has been stated by many others much more eloquently that I would ever be able to posture, we don’t have a gun problem, we have a people problem. We have a heart problem. Man has always failed in his/her various attempts to control situations from the outside. We need to foster change from within. This means we need to look at the heart. Our heart. Our heart issue as a nation has resulted in a reluctance to take responsibility for oneself. We expect someone else to do it (the government or some force outside of ourselves). Mental health counseling by trained clinicians in school should possibly be made a priority but the cost and potential liability issues would be a barrier to this. Once again, we are back to the heart issue. Our focus on blaming someone else has resulted in a society marked by fears of a lawsuit and liability (I will exploit you to get something for me society). This has often resulted in school systems who cannot discipline, programs that cannot be effective, truths that cannot be spoken. To teach others to focus on individual responsibility would be too much of a monetary liability. Teachers and workers who care often have their hands tied and are not able to do what they KNOW would be effective because of our “lawsuit happy” society.
Working as a youth pastor taught me that young people usually respond to caring and love. We need to be more diligent to foster love for the “outliers.” Those on the fringe. Those who are different. We need to teach our children to love the unlovely. To do this, they must first learn to love themselves. To love themselves often means they need help seeing themselves as they really are, wonderful creations by a God who loves them and made them uniquely for a specific purpose that they have the joy of pursuing. The only way they can listen to the unpleasant and the untidy honesty of another fringe loner is to know who they are themselves. Love still fosters change. Love casts out fear. Much of the rhetoric that I hear in these marches and protests is based on fear. Fear is a learned behavior that can only be remedied by love. The reality is that there will always be some form of “gun.” There will always be another “means” that will be the object of fear (i.e. drugs, alcohol, knives, guns, gangs, sex). As each successive generation lives, there will always be something to fear. Whatever the object of that fear happens to be, it is usually NOT the problem.
The heart is the problem. When things are not as they should be, we should look within, not without. I believe Dr. Martin Luther King is one of the greatest men of the 20th century and of all time. He didn’t see guns, knives, ropes, or jails as the problems within society. All had been used to hurt his people on a wide scale. He didn’t march to eliminate them. I believe that he saw the problem for what it is. It is a problem of the heart. Hearts are the issue. As long as they are, even necessary things can become a “means.”
