“Evil Free Zones”
October 3, 2015 Leave a comment
As water reflects the face, so one’s life reflects the heart. Proverbs 27:19
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Why would a Kingdom of God centered blog write about gun control? For the reason that the Spirit of Lawlessness pulls the trigger of a gun and also pulls on multiple political triggers in a Democracy.
For the reason that the Spirit of Lawlessness involves malignant narcissism which can be characterized by an unsubmitted will, the essence of lawlessness and the earmark of evil.
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Within hours after the shooting in Roseburg Oregon at Umpqua Community College President Obama went to his shooting range (the bully pulpit) and began posting targets of the 2nd Amendment.
The president projected that we as a nation are making a political decision to support gun violence: “This is a political choice that we make to allow this to happen every few months in America.” He went on to say, again projecting, that we a nation have become “numbed” by these events, that “Somehow this has become routine”. And, what caught my attention even more so during his remarks, “We collectively are answerable to those families who lose their loved ones because of our inaction.” (I will not show any video of Obama. He is not worthy your time.)
No, President Obama, we are not collectively responsible for what happens. I am NOT responsible for the Fast and Furious “event” murder of a border patrol agent during your administration’s gun-running operation under DOJ Eric Holder (a program initially created to generate 2nd Amendment opposition in its wake). And, I am NOT responsible for the murder of American Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans by your State Department’s dereliction of duty.
An individual, whether it be Chris Mercer-Harper or Eric Holder or Hillary Clinton, is responsible for his own behavior and not the American people as regarded with your projected ennui. And, it is apparent that some of the electorate and some your administration (Lois Lerner, Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder, to name just a few) may be just as lawless as you are Mr. President with your disregard for immigration laws.
Trigger warning: Obama’s crass politicizing and professorial shaming of the nation from the bully pulpit is the “routine” that we have become accustomed to. He’s pulling on the emotional triggers of many.
Obama’s invocation of the use of a political process – our unwieldy Democracy – to create a pretense of public safety was decidedly meant to corral in-the-moment public concern, anger and even a rush-to-judgment conviction. And, as Obama stated, he “will politicize” this sad and heartfelt event and, therefore, seek to turn the emotional reactions into a bold-faced law. Yet, even a passionate pseudo-democratic plea for authorization to amend law and make us feel good in the moment can never effect moral change and remove the lawlessness in the hearts of men or from our society.
Obama’s rhetoric in much of his speeches uses a well-known Collective device called the “Goldstein Effect” so as to align our focus with his. It’s a given: Obama and Schumer Democrats will project an incident of one evil gun user onto all gun owners. The anti-gun mouth runners will provide the “Two Minutes Hate” directed at the object of their loathing-the person with a gun.
Whether its guns, money, land or your business, the Collective very much seeks to take away your private property. Your right to be a gun owner and your right to protect yourself is of no value to them. So, they entomb you and your children in a “Gun Free Zone” (and thereby making you totally dependent on LEOs that this administration will not defend).
And, what law/s would stop a Chris Mercer-Harper or an Eric Holder or a Hillary Clinton from doing what they want to do anyway? Lawlessness prevails in the hearts of some men, whether on the street or in the White House.
Instead of carte blanche additions of more useless gun laws and the correlated loss of freedom there should be a serious debate and reflection about underlying causes of gun violence. Sadly, the social media format is “routinely” hype, hyperbole and ad hominem and not a debate forum. And, Obama is social media all the time.
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Something to think about from Matthew’s Gospel Chapter 26, vs. 50-52: In the garden of Gethsemane, when soldiers approached to take Jesus into custody and to the High Priest Caiaphas, a disciple pulled out his sword and cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant. Jesus said, “Put your sword back in its place.”
Jesus, at this point in time, knew that his “hour” had come and that he had to proceed without resisting. Prior to that time Jesus must have also known that Peter was carrying a sword in his belt. Jesus did not tell him to take off the sword and get rid of it. He knew the sword was in “its place.”
“Put your sword back to where it belongs!” Jesus said to the disciple, “People who use the sword die by the sword!”
With a group of possibly twelve centurions standing nearby waiting to arrest Jesus I would have no doubt that the soldiers, fully armored and carrying swords, knew exactly what Jesus meant. And what Jesus said may have been a common saying among the soldiers of that time.
The understanding I get from this passage is that if you live “by the sword”-with the understanding that conflicts, whether internal or external, are only resolved by violent means to an end-then those who do so will meet a violent end.
God’s Kingdom purposes are not accomplished through violence or the preceding unsubmitted will of those that created the conflict in the first place.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for theirs is the Kingdom of God.”
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At some point Chris Harper-Mercer turned away from looking into spiritual truth and disengaged from it and reality, perhaps by spending extended amounts of time alone in a darkened room on 4chan or on some just as enthralling and dehumanizing internet site.
Harper-Mercer’s deed appears to be a reflection of his time spent alone and online and a growing sense of powerlessness that he was “encouraged’ online to reverse with force.
A quotation from his Facebook account simply read: “When all the pleasures of the world have diluted, the only thing left that is pure is power.”
Dr. M. Scott Peck author of People of the Lie: the Hope for Healing Human Evil wrote, “… the only power that Satan has is through human belief in its lies.” Therein advances the evil that we must confront and be free of.
“As water reflects the face, so one’s life reflects the heart.” Proverbs 27:19
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Related:
“I’m sure the gunman realized there really wasn’t much there to stop him,” said Coleman, a former police chief at Texas A&M in San Antonio. “In today’s environment, you need armed police officers on these campuses in my opinion.”
“Time to talk about gun free zones”
“Gun-free zones presume the good intentions of those entering the zone. And the overwhelming majority have such good intentions. But for those who have bad intentions, gun-free zones turn schools and other locations into shooting galleries. The good people are unarmed, the evil person is armed.”
-William A. Jacobson, clinical professor of law at Cornell Law School and publisher of Legal Insurrection website.
Gun-free zones put “good people … at the mercy of evil people”
Mental Illness or Moral Illness or a Life Well-Lit
The Moral Arithmetic of Lawlessness
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Added: 10-4-2015
This astounding finding should be an integral part of the gun violence debate:
Robert Whitaker author of Anatomy of an Epidemic asks the question, here paraphrased…
Is there a correlation between the increase of prescribed psychotropic medications over the past twenty-five years and the current epidemic of disabling mental illness? He notes that the disabled mentally ill place a significant burden on society.
Cindy Wity 