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You know that whole thing about beating swords into plowshares? Yeah, well Pastor Robert Brooks of the Victory Baptist Church in Orem, Utah isn’t down with that. You have to be a pretty hardy type to move deep in the heart of LDS country to establish a Baptist church anyway, so the former police officer was more than up to the task when a drugged up would-be church invader made an assault on the door over the weekend . . .

But Brooks wasn’t just defending some pews and a few hymnals. The house of worship is also where he and his family live. So when he heard a ruckus late Friday night, he went to investigate. We get the story from ksl.com:

“He was at this door trying to beat into it and pull on it, and I came around the corner (and) was standing down there in the parking lot addressing him,” Brooks said.

But Austin Stokes would not respond to the pastor’s commands to stop, so Brooks pulled his gun.

That’s when Pastor Brooks aimed a frickin’ laser beam at him.

“The only thing I actually heard him say — when he saw the laser — was ‘Oh, no,’ and then he began to comply,” Brooks said. “I didn’t know what he was, I didn’t know what he was capable of doing and I knew with family downstairs, I wanted to keep them safe.”

Guess the sight of a laser fixed on your sternum tends to focus the mind no matter what chemical accelerants are pumping through the circulatory system. Stokes is now spending a little quality time in the local graybar hotel, but Brooks is taking a Christian attitude toward him.

Pastor Brooks says he didn’t bring up the incident during his sermon on Sunday, but again said he welcomes the suspect or anyone else having difficulty in their life, to join with him here.

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33 COMMENTS

    • Maybe, but you can also conceivably defend yourself with a rock. Personally, I’d still want the maximum advantage against someone seeking to rob me of my life and endanger the lives of my family.

        • I didn’t equate anything with anything, I was making a point about how you are going to want the maximum advantage in that situation regardless of what can be considered the ‘bare minimum’ of what it takes to defend yourself.

        • comparatively speaking, yes. a handgun isn’t designed to be your primary defense tool; it’s designed to be easily portable so you always have a weapon on you, to buy time until you can get to your shotgun or rifle.

    • I propose we run this by a variety of police departments and see how they feel facing criminals with nothing but a laser pointer. The day they agree with you I’ll consider doing the same.

    • Since you don’t need “assault weapons” or “extended” magazines for defense I’m sure the police will turn all theirs in. What use do they have for “weapons of warfare”.

    • Did anyone ever say you couldn’t?

      Handguns have their pros and cons, big scary black rifles have their pros and cons, shotguns have their pros and cons. Handguns are an excellent self defense weapon, and again have many advantages over a rifle or shotgun, but handgun calibers are typically less effective than rifle calibers, you typically get more recoil with a handgun making follow up shots harder, and handgun rounds can penetrate further through drywall than certain .223 rounds (assuming this is accurate; scroll down a bit to the ballistic gel pictures: http://ammo.ar15.com/project/Self_Defense_Ammo_FAQ/index.htm) — which probably isn’t a huge deal but still something to take into consideration.

      • Not really my point. Lately people have been ranting that ARs and “extended” mats aren’t for defense they are only for “killing lots of people quickly”. If that’s the case police don’t need them. When is the last time any local PD had to “kill a lot of people quickly”.

  1. Biblically, a rock was the first tool used to murder an innocent person. What was the first tool ie weapon used to defend the innocent and kill an attacker? Anyone up on the Bible stories?

    • I had always assumed Moses used his bare hands, but turns out it is not defined. …so my round about answer is the man makes the differance, the tool is only an instrument of his will. But I like your question and will try to find a real answer.

    • The first murder was done with the jawbone of an ass. Cain slew Able.

      Moses killed the Egyptian with his bare hands. He was trained (as a member of the royal family) in all things.

      The only instance I can think of offhand of protecting an innocent was Peter attacking a guard of the Pharisees to protect Jesus. He missed and instead of cleaving his head, cut off his ear. He used a sword. Not well, but he tried.

      • No weapon is mentioned in English translations when Cain slew Abel.My commentary in ETZ HAYIM doesn’t give any Talmudic indication of a weapon translated or interpolated from Hebrew. The first non-military killings with weapons are when Abram rescues his nephew Lot from the 4 kings in Genesis 14. The text doesn’t mention specific weapons, but we know that sickle-swords,spears,daggers, throw-sticks(boomerangs),bows,clubs, and slings were all in use by this time(2000-1800 B.C.)
        No weapon is mentioned when Moses (justifiably) killed the Egyptian. The jawbone was Sampson’s weapon when he killed 1000 Philistines.

      • RKFlorida….You ass. Cain slew abel with a rock. It was Samson: “Judges 15:16 And Samson said, With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men.”

  2. In the modern version of Les Mis, the Bishop guns down Jean Valjean for stealing from the church. It is a lot shorter than the old version.

    • + a million.

      My dad is a pastor, and he keeps a Remington 870 under his bed for “home defense”…in a locked case with the shells in a different room. I have a feeling even if he had time to get to it, he wouldn’t ever cap somebody.

    • As a survivor of a hell fire and brimstone Southern Baptist upbringing I’ll have to give you a big amen on that. All the preachers I knew at least owned a shotgun. Quite a few were veterans and most were hunters.

  3. Guess the sight of a laser fixed on your sternum tends to focus the mind no matter what chemical accelerants are pumping through the circulatory system
    Perhaps, but the laser also needs to be backed up by lead . . . just in case the mind fails to focus.

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