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Under an "odd news" link I found an Associated Press story about the semi-humorous upcoming "bring your gun to church day" being planned by Pastor Ken Pagano of the New Bethel Church in Louisville, Ky. Pagano says he scheduled the event, a week before Independence Day, as a celebration of the nation's founding and of the Second Amendment. The AP provided a broad discussion of the separation of church and gun — in the context of last week's murder of Dr. George Tiller, an abortion provider who was shot in the head while ushering at his own house of worship.
Pagano said the church will require visitors to unload their pieces, that the event will celebrate liberty and heritage. The raffling-off of a handgun will raise money for charity.
"Firearms can be evil and they can be useful," Pagano said.
The AP, oddly, quotes Pastor John Phillips, who was shot while preaching at his former church in Arkansas in the 1980s. Presumably unarmed during the sermon in which he was attacked, Phillips denounces New Bethel's event: "A church is designated as a safe haven ... It is unconscionable to me to think that a church would be a place that you would even want to bring a weapon."
Unfortunately, none of them — Pagano, Phillips or the AP — gets it. And we see one more incarnation of the gun laws/gun rights debate begun from an intellectually dishonest (or maybe just plain stupid) foundation.
Phillips declares churches as a safe haven yet, from my research, I found just one place on this earth at which Phillips has ever been shot: His church. It is possible that Phillips is so devoutly religious and peaceful that he would sooner accept his own murder than to fight back with violence; that sentiment is principled and noble, but not all men share it, and no man has the right to convey it upon another.
In this goofy, off-beat story, the AP insists on quoting a rare victim of a church-shooting incident: Phillips. Conspicuously, Tiller was unavailable for comment: He was dead, killed in his "designated safe haven." Had Tiller been armed at the time of his attack, it is possible that he would have survived it. He was unarmed, and he died last Sunday. The man who shot him was quite armed, and is still alive and unharmed.
Sadly, Pagano's actions are the most egregious because he is acting under the guise of celebrating gun rights, while he voluntarily surrenders the moral and intellectual high ground that gun rights supports should never surrender.
He says guns "can be evil" and he says that — for safety — his church is requiring parishioners to unload their weapons outside.
He's wrong on the first part: Guns are no more capable of evil than a can of soda pop. They can be used for evil, but evil is only achieved when a competent being makes a knowing choice to do undeserved and unnecessary harm to another. A gun is a hunk of metal, perfected by men to serve as a tool. That tool can be used for evil, but cannot itself be evil.
And he's near insane on the second part. His event mixes most of the ingredients for a tremendous tragedy. If some maniac — like the one who shot Phillips 20 years ago, or the one who shot Tiller last week — enters New Bethel Church with a gun and picks out targets, the entire congregation could be armed yet powerless. Even 200 people with guns are not very effective, if they have no bullets.
Lawmakers act with alleged "good intentions" when they pass statutes banning guns from schools, courthouses and bars. At school, our children shouldn't have to worry about someone carrying a gun! Courthouses are places of government business; we don't want anyone to fret about getting shot there! Bars are places of intoxication and wrong-mindedness, where men and women lose their cognition and common sense. We can't let drunks carry guns.
The real tragedy in these arguments is that anyone believes them. Some don't think self-defense is a right. But most do, and those who do, and still buy into the notion that schools should be "gun free zones" because kids "shouldn't have to worry about that," those people do far more harm than they will ever know.
For it is those folks — the ones who believe in the Second Amendment, but think there are "common-sense," and "reasonable" exceptions — it is they who will allow for its destruction. It is those men who allow Second Amendment opponents to nibble away at their rights, assuming the likes of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin, Timothy McVeigh, John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, et al will be bound by the same rules as John Q. American. Inanimate objects like guns are incapable of evil — but men, clearly, are not.
If a man is willing to violate the rules and the law to commit murder, it is foolish to think he will not violate the rules and the law to carry a gun into a "gun-free zone." Until gun rights owners stop leaving their intellectual and moral ammunition at home, the battle to defend our freedom will remain difficult to win.
Pagano said the church will require visitors to unload their pieces, that the event will celebrate liberty and heritage. The raffling-off of a handgun will raise money for charity.
"Firearms can be evil and they can be useful," Pagano said.
The AP, oddly, quotes Pastor John Phillips, who was shot while preaching at his former church in Arkansas in the 1980s. Presumably unarmed during the sermon in which he was attacked, Phillips denounces New Bethel's event: "A church is designated as a safe haven ... It is unconscionable to me to think that a church would be a place that you would even want to bring a weapon."
Unfortunately, none of them — Pagano, Phillips or the AP — gets it. And we see one more incarnation of the gun laws/gun rights debate begun from an intellectually dishonest (or maybe just plain stupid) foundation.
Phillips declares churches as a safe haven yet, from my research, I found just one place on this earth at which Phillips has ever been shot: His church. It is possible that Phillips is so devoutly religious and peaceful that he would sooner accept his own murder than to fight back with violence; that sentiment is principled and noble, but not all men share it, and no man has the right to convey it upon another.
In this goofy, off-beat story, the AP insists on quoting a rare victim of a church-shooting incident: Phillips. Conspicuously, Tiller was unavailable for comment: He was dead, killed in his "designated safe haven." Had Tiller been armed at the time of his attack, it is possible that he would have survived it. He was unarmed, and he died last Sunday. The man who shot him was quite armed, and is still alive and unharmed.
Sadly, Pagano's actions are the most egregious because he is acting under the guise of celebrating gun rights, while he voluntarily surrenders the moral and intellectual high ground that gun rights supports should never surrender.
He says guns "can be evil" and he says that — for safety — his church is requiring parishioners to unload their weapons outside.
He's wrong on the first part: Guns are no more capable of evil than a can of soda pop. They can be used for evil, but evil is only achieved when a competent being makes a knowing choice to do undeserved and unnecessary harm to another. A gun is a hunk of metal, perfected by men to serve as a tool. That tool can be used for evil, but cannot itself be evil.
And he's near insane on the second part. His event mixes most of the ingredients for a tremendous tragedy. If some maniac — like the one who shot Phillips 20 years ago, or the one who shot Tiller last week — enters New Bethel Church with a gun and picks out targets, the entire congregation could be armed yet powerless. Even 200 people with guns are not very effective, if they have no bullets.
Lawmakers act with alleged "good intentions" when they pass statutes banning guns from schools, courthouses and bars. At school, our children shouldn't have to worry about someone carrying a gun! Courthouses are places of government business; we don't want anyone to fret about getting shot there! Bars are places of intoxication and wrong-mindedness, where men and women lose their cognition and common sense. We can't let drunks carry guns.
The real tragedy in these arguments is that anyone believes them. Some don't think self-defense is a right. But most do, and those who do, and still buy into the notion that schools should be "gun free zones" because kids "shouldn't have to worry about that," those people do far more harm than they will ever know.
For it is those folks — the ones who believe in the Second Amendment, but think there are "common-sense," and "reasonable" exceptions — it is they who will allow for its destruction. It is those men who allow Second Amendment opponents to nibble away at their rights, assuming the likes of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin, Timothy McVeigh, John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, et al will be bound by the same rules as John Q. American. Inanimate objects like guns are incapable of evil — but men, clearly, are not.
If a man is willing to violate the rules and the law to commit murder, it is foolish to think he will not violate the rules and the law to carry a gun into a "gun-free zone." Until gun rights owners stop leaving their intellectual and moral ammunition at home, the battle to defend our freedom will remain difficult to win.
2 comments:
I absolutely believe that guns don't kill people. People kill people.
But you want to know what pisses me off about conservative gun supporters?
It's that through your other "small government" policy positions, you make treating mental illness, depression and other causes of gun injury extremely difficult. If you won't give us the funding to treat the cause, then we'll start trying to treat the symptoms. i.e. guns.
But failing to see the long-term effect of an action is pretty much the MO of a conservative. So I shouldn't be surprised.
The New Apostolic Reformation branch of the Assemblies of God has been preaching “another Jesus” for quite some time now — their teachings bear very little resemblance to anything found in the Bible.
There’s a ditch on both sides of the road — these guys are every bit as heretical as churches who encourage gay marriage, and they have the potential to do just as much harm, if not more.
Just google “New Apostolic Reformation”, “transformations”, or “joel’s army” and see for yourself.
Here’s what St. Paul said about people who preach another gospel:
“But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.” Galatians 1:8, 9
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