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Real Gun Control Is Hitting What You Aim At

Recently, the nation has been struck by a number of senseless murders by psychotic individuals shooting fellow students, co-workers, or in one horrible case, little children in a daycare center. Predictably, the anti-gun folks, who will never be satisfied until all private ownership of firearms is outlawed, are screaming for more gun control legislation.

  • Brian M. Abshire
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Recently, the nation has been struck by a number of senseless murders by psychotic individuals shooting fellow students, co-workers, or in one horrible case, little children in a daycare center. Predictably, the anti-gun folks, who will never be satisfied until all private ownership of firearms is outlawed, are screaming for more gun control legislation. Janet Reno is calling for gun registration and licensing, invariably the first step to gun confiscation. Never mind that all these criminal acts were already illegal under existing laws. Never mind that laws cannot stop madmen from their perfidy. The liberal media again makes the law-abiding gun owner to be the cause of the problem.

The Hypocrisy of Anti-Gun Fanatics
The hypocrisy of anti-gun fanatics is unbelievable. In California, where concealed-carry permits are legal, you have to be a Hollywood star or liberal gun-hating politician to get permission to carry your weapon outside your home. One of our Lefty Legislators, who two hours after a recent attack on a Jewish community center came out wanting to pass legislation licensing all firearm owners and banning all weapons that can hold more than 10 rounds, herself carries a concealed weapon. Of course, she is avidly against the average citizen having the same right she has. She believes she needs a firearm to protect herself, but we poor proles are left to a harsh word and stern look for our self-defense. (A number of Californian Christians are actually now committed to asking God to send some miscreant, preferably with a politically correct weapon such as a pointy stick, to accost this lady, forcing her actually to use her weapon. Though they wish her no harm, they think that her actually having to use a firearm in self-defense would destroy her credibility in denying the rest of us the same right.)

Game Preserves for Vicious Predators
The reality is that in all these tragic shootings, all it would have taken would have been one armed citizen to have stopped any of these slaughters. Yes, that's right. Mr. Wacko enters a public place to start his shooting rampage and one armed citizen who knows how to focus on the front sight and squeeze the trigger is all that is needed to ruin the bad guy's whole day. Don't liberal politicians understand that by making certain places "gun-free" zones all they have done is make them game preserves for vicious predators?

It Looks Like a Conspiracy
I am not a conspiracy nut, but sometimes I wonder if the liberal politicians and media have a vested interest regarding outlawing firearms. Why is there never mention of the more than two million times a year when private citizens use firearms to protect themselves from rape, robbery and murder? How come they consistently ignore the fact that when a state allows its citizens to carry concealed weapons, the crime rates goes down? Why does my local newspaper neglect to mention that when a private citizen captured a bad guy that he did it with the help of a firearm? How come school killings make national press, when incidents of armed citizens preventing a school massacre go unmentioned? Why is it that the wealthy liberal elite, who can afford to live in exclusive neighborhoods with armed security guards to protect them from vicious anti-social types, want to forbid me and my neighbors from the only means we have to defend ourselves against those same criminals? Why do they fear normal, law-abiding people who have never committed a violent act in their lives, from owning firearms? And is anyone else slightly disturbed that while Hollywood stars continue to finance and vocally support anti-gun legislation, they make billions of dollars a year making movies where the hero settles all his problems with a gun?

Gun-Control Messiahs
The answer, of course, is that the firearms issue is not about safety, but about power. Politicians and the liberal elite are convinced at the presuppositional level that the key to utopia is the Messianic State. The State therefore must have all the power, and the citizens, while free to wallow in immorality, must be controlled in every other area "for their own good." People must not be allowed private ownership of firearms because Statist religion does not trust people to take care of themselves. Hence, the real issue is not gun control, but people control. Armed citizens are a threat to the politicos' quest for power. No matter that our Founding Fathers were insistent that the best defense against political tyranny was an armed citizenry. That was the eighteenth century and of course irrelevant today. Now just when did George Washington, Samuel Adams, John Adams, et. al., suddenly become right-wing militia nuts?

Massive Gun Control Leads to Genocide
It needs to be remembered, constantly, that every major genocidal action of the past hundred years was conducted by national governments against their own citizens. And the first step to genocide was always disarming the people.1

The Turks, Germans, Soviets, Chinese, Cambodians and others first took away their own citizens' firearms and then murdered them by the millions. Conservatively, 56 million people have been slaughtered by their own national governments, in this century alone. Compared to the modern Humanist State, Ghengis Khan and the Mongol hordes were pikers.

A History Lesson
I know what some people are going to say: "We are not Turkey, Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia. This is America, after all. Why should we fear our own government?" Well, two good reasons. First, did anyone in Germany in the early 1930's see the death camps coming in the 1940's? Did the Russian people know what the Bolsheviks had in store for them? One has to have a little appreciation of history to know that both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia had considerable support in Western nations initially. Both had some American academics praising these "reform" movements. The point is, we don't always know what is going to happen down the road in ten or twenty years. And with such a poor track record, we cannot allow the Secular State to have a monopoly on firearms.

Second, let us not forget that even in the United States, we have had our own little holocaust going on against the most helpless of our citizens, unborn babies, for the past 26 years. Liberal politicians, wicked doctors and ungodly women have conspired together to murder more than 35 million babies since 1973, all with the protection of the courts, armed policemen and federal marshals. All it took was for one Supreme Court decision to eliminate the civil rights of an entire group of American citizens. Literally overnight, unborn babies became subject to the most barbaric forms of torture and murder. Their bodies are even used in medical experiments. Who says that the horrors of Nazi Germany cannot happen here? They already are! What other group can lose it rights overnight if it suits some humanist agenda? And in the words of the theme song to Cops, "Whatcha gonna do when they come for YOU?"

Necessity of Biblical Law
Let us not be naive. If the source of law is the will of man, then when that will changes, so also will the law. What was unthinkable a decade ago is now the norm. Ever think you'd be guilty of a crime for using the term "faggot"? True, it is not a nice word; but if the word is ugly, then the deed is an abomination. Yet within my lifetime, what used to be something so disgusting that normal people felt nothing but revulsion at even the thought of it, has now become the subject of prime-time comedies and cries for legislation to "protect" this poor, persecuted minority (Interior decorators of the world, unite!) Without God's law as the higher law to which all other laws must submit, we are at the mercy of ungodly men who have and will enforce their ever-changing "values" on the rest of us. Without the anchor of God's law, literally nothing is beyond the pale. All it takes is time and the inclination.

Fears of the Nanny State
The liberal elite fear and hate guns simply because they undermine their control of the power state. The liberal elite have an agenda and are totally committed to using the power of the press, legislature, police and even the armed forces to impose that agenda on everyone else. They cannot imagine self-governed men, taking personal responsibility for their own welfare and safety. They want power, and armed citizens are a threat to that power. They are contemptuous that free men can live their lives without the Nanny State to tell them how to spend their time and money, raise their children, or even what to eat! They and only they know what is good for all us poor little slaves.

Liberals Love to Ignore Evidence
Let there be no mistake about this. They don't really give a dam (French word referring to the smallest and least significant coin) about people's safety. They ignore all the evidence that private ownership of firearms prevents rapes, robberies and murders; and they continue to pass laws forbidding private citizens from carrying weapons. They don't care that the poorest people in our society are the ones most in need of protection, so they ban inexpensive weapons. They will not support gun safety programs in schools or actual shooting leagues that might remove some of the mystery and glamour of firearms to children. Further, though any reasonable police officer will tell you that he can't protect you (only investigate if you are the victim of a violent crime), the Liberal Elite will continue to insist that only the police and armed forces should be armed. The reason is for this is simple: right now, they control both, but if the people are armed, this is a threat to their power.

Godly Gun Control = Criminal Control
Self-governed men do not use firearms to commit violence against other lawful citizens. They don't pull out guns to settle personal grudges. They don't kill their family members or go on shooting sprees against their co-workers. They certainly don't murder innocent children. Self-governed men work hard, serve their communities, pay their taxes and just want to be left alone. They take responsibility for providing for their families, and protecting their families.

Real gun control would be eliminating the criminal class that commits most of the violent crimes in our country. Real gun control would be recognizing that armed citizens are the best defense against wickedness in the streets and in the halls of congress. Real gun control means giving power to the people, not an elite.

Finally, real gun control is hitting what you aim at.

(For a free tape, "The Bible and Self-Defense" and "Gun-Proofing Your Kids," contact Brian at [email protected] or call Reformed Heritage Church at (209)544-1572 between 0900-1700 PCT.)

Notes

1. Turkey established gun control in 1911. From 1915 to 1917, 1.5 million Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were exterminated. The Soviet Union established gun control in 1929. From 1929 to 1953, 20 million political dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were exterminated. Germany established gun control in 1938. From 1939 to 1945, 13 million Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, mentally ill people, and other "mongrelized peoples," unable to defend themselves, were exterminated. China established gun control in 1935. From 1948 to 1952, 20 million political dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were exterminated. Guatemala established gun control in 1964. From 1964 to 1981, 100,000 Mayan Indians, unable to defend themselves, were exterminated. Uganda established gun control in 1970. From 1971 to 1979, 300,000 Christians, unable to defend themselves, were exterminated. Cambodia established gun control in 1956. From 1975 to 1977, 1 million "educated people," unable to defend themselves, were exterminated. Does anyone else see a pattern here?


  • Brian M. Abshire

Rev. Brian Abshire, Ph.D. is currently a Teaching Elder associated with Hanover Presbytery. Along with his pastoral duties, he is also the director for the International Institute for Christian Culture, has served as an adjunct instructor in Religious Studies at Park University and is a visiting Professor of Comparative Religion at Whitefield College.

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