After another mass shooting, Parkland activists sought momentum. In Texas, the response has been different.
God bless Texas . . .
Though those associated with the Parkland movement saw another grim opportunity to seek change and to gather momentum for gun control because of the Sante Fe attack, the shootings came with the reality that each community chooses to grieve — and respond — in a different way.
Organizers began to trickle into Santa Fe — some dispatched by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, a gun-control group — almost immediately after the shootings last week in a subtle effort to console, offer help and discuss the politics of guns. Parkland students and other activists reached out but have kept a distance, sensing a lukewarm reception.
There has been little support for calls for gun control in this rural Texas town. Many do not blame guns for the tragedy, and this particular shooting lacks the obvious warning signs and suspicions that someone should have done something more to prevent it. Santa Fe has been grieving in private, a response more typical of such shootings than the burst of activism that happened after Parkland.
“subtle”
North Queensland feral pig hunt sparks online furore
Outrage in Oz . . .
Hill MP Shane Knuth posted a photo of himself and Kennedy MP Bob Katter with a mound of dead pigs at the Currajah Hotel in Innisfail at the weekend and the response was immediate.
While North Queenslanders, who see pig hunting not only as a right of passage but a necessity on the land, praised the event, outraged southerners voiced their disgust, accusing the hunters of “murder”.
They called the hunters vile, disgusting and horrible and said the pigs should be left alone.
Instead of shooting them, it was suggested that they could all be relocated to a fence in agricultural property, somewhere.
My Project ChildSafe Story: Raised to Respect Firearms
It happens every day in every state. And it isn’t that hard . . .
Moms worry. We worry if our kids are with us or without us. Worries about firearms, regardless of whether we own any, are similar to worries any parent has when raising children in a world full of powerful tools – from cars to bikes to power tools. It is possible to raise children to respect firearms, as well as use them safely. Here’s how.
Preparing kids to have adventures in life means raising them with tools. Raising kids around firearms often gets very serious. And while we have remain serious with firearms, it doesn’t mean we can’t have fun. So here are some thoughts on raising kids who respect firearms and the role they can play in our adventures in life.
When we become gun owners, we accept that there are certain things we will have to do: lock guns in safes, supervise children if firearms are present in the home and teach youngsters to respect them.
Christians, leave your guns at home — God doesn’t want idols in his churches
Some people prefer to live and worship in gun-free zones. Let them . . .
As an evangelical Christian who does not own a gun, I am appalled at the idea of believers being encouraged to bring their firearms with them when they go to church. (“At a church security seminar: Guns, God and ‘get those heads up’ when you pray,” May 22)
The gun lobby has once again crossed the line by suggesting, if not demanding, that there’s got to be a new “god” in the church that wields ultimate power over death. His name is “gun,” and “he” alone knows what’s best for you and your safety.
We are to believe that somewhere hidden in the authoritative word of God, we are remiss if we now come to worship unarmed. And all the while, with our eyes wide open during prayer and our minds far removed from God in case a shooter begins opening fire, we pretend to worship Him, instead really worshiping the guns that we believe keep us safe.
The Secret Service has known keys to preventing school shootings since 2002, but few schools use their research
Job 1: hire competent school administrators and law enforcement officers who aren’t content to listen in safety as people die . . .
Two months after the Columbine tragedy in 1999, experts from the US Department of Education and the US Secret Service collaborated to study the “school shooter” phenomenon. They published the study on their findings in 2002. The study focused on examining the thinking, planning and other behaviors of students who carried out school attacks. Particular attention was given to identifying pre-attack behaviors and communications that might be detectable — or “knowable” — and could help prevent future attacks. …
Following the publication of the Secret Service study on school shootings, my research on averted school shootings found that schools that prevented a shooting had done some of the things recommended by the Secret Service.
The case in Florida shows that many of these recommendations were followed and people spoke up when they saw something wrong. The issue is whether authorities need more power to intervene once they have been made aware of a potential threat, or whether they just need to do a better job with the power they already have.
This is how liberals think gun control works. pic.twitter.com/DeESLmdkzN
— A Libertarian Future (@LibertarianFutr) May 26, 2018
Those feral hogs will do a lot of damage…and can be dangerous.
As to church idols…watch the cars in the parking lot…the dresses…the hats…the watches…
+1….. Anybody who routinely carries a gun, sees it like one would see a good pair of shoes or a fully charged cell phone battery. IOW a piece of everyday defensive equipment and hardly an idol. Idiot preacher must have missed the part where mass shooters were stopped by brave unarmed parishioners tackling the badguy or the badguy being shot by armed Christians….. Maybe he’s content to have his flock slaughtered while he doesn’t lift a finger but that’s hardly the action of a good shepherd. I wonder what his views are on money and health of his church? Given what the bible says about money, I’m sure he’s just fine telling his flock to keep their wallets at home too. /sarc/
Sounds like the same church guy that refuses to take his kid to the hospital because God is gonna fix everything. Wouldn’t want to offend god by helping yourself or getting help. Why do we have police at all if all we have to do is sit back and pray?
“…watch the cars in the parking lot…the dresses…the hats…the watches…”
Bingo. I have seen too many congregations that call themselves “Christians” who value the almighty dollar over their loyalty to God. These congregations tend to only preach those passages that support their personal and political ideology, and they almost always gloss over those passages that are inconvenient to that non-religious belief system. Not 24 hours ago I had a conversation with a relative who lives in DC who bragged about the rich and powerful who attend her church. She further bragged about how they use the church for political activism and as a public forum to show their [politically correct] “righteousness”. It is insane. The Democrat Party Platform and Christianity are opposing values. You would think they get that. Anyhow, I am sometimes asked why I don’t go to church, and I almost always say that I will attend church when I find a church that obeys the teachings they profess to obey.
And on a similar note, in today’s world where Christians are being slaughtered and/or marginalized all over the world, why in the world would a Christian allow themselves to be disarmed? It sure sounds like a recipe for another holocaust. Perhaps they ought to learn the lessons of history, such as the time when Nazi’s disarmed Jews and subsequently murdered millions.
“Instead of shooting them, it was suggested that they could all be relocated to a fence in agricultural property, somewhere.”
This is how progs work. No real solution, just ‘make it go away’. Someone else’s problem. “over there, somewhere…”
Most of these wankers don’t understand the connection between farming, crops and the food they are eating.
Stupid argument! Guns as idols? What this non-biblically thinking person does not realize is you can make anything an idol! Including a anti gun agenda. Don’t pretend you know Gods Word and go on to defend a nihilistic lifestyle!
The baseless arguement. What evidence does that person have to suggest that is the case with 2a people worshiping the guns? It’s like their broken little brain ran behind the rat, down the hole, til they found the one point extreme enough that it would make everyone a little dumber who was exposed to it. In doing so also proving they have never read the word of God in multiple ways.
“And all the while, with our eyes wide open during prayer and our minds far removed from God in case a shooter begins opening fire, we pretend to worship Him, instead really worshiping the guns that we believe keep us safe.”
I’m going to dispense with any thoughtful analysis of this nonsensical conflation, mis-statement of fact, not to mention the whole Jesus thing of Luke 22:36, in which one is admonished to sell their cloak, and buy a sword.
I would offer the good pastor a position in our first unarmed platoon in some mideast s-hole. Prayer and god will be their only armaments. Their entreaties to their deity will I’m sure protect them from his other adherents. Everybody else killed by Izlomb just didn’t know the magic prayer apparently.
This could have been written by the Lindisfarne monks . . . just before the Vikings came, killed them and then sacked the place . . .
I propose the Australians that don’t like hog hunting come up with an island off the coast, a 1 year visa for me, and $10 million US so I can start a feral hog resort sanctuary. Maybe throw in a few truckloads of beer a few female assistants.
They can then pay a bounty of $500 each live feral hog delivered to the island so these evil hunters can see the err if their ways.
I promise to keep my consumption of bacon, sausage, and smoked ribs to a point just shy of clogged arteries and a heart attack for that year.
A nice proposition, but pigs can swim long distances, which is how they got to continental America to begin with. When Columbus landed on San Salvador he released pigs there so they would feed and breed and provide a ready source of meat for future trips. They swam from there to other islands and then to Florida. James Cook also released pigs on all the islands he landed on in the Pacific.
I did not know that. I guess i’ll have to contain them all in the smoke house.
I think Arnold put it best: “Between your faith, and my Glock 9mm, I’ll take my Glock.”
“Instead of shooting them, it was suggested that they could all be relocated to a fence in agricultural property, somewhere.”
These are the same people who think we should supply deer condoms to manage the herd. The problem is the solutions they’re comfortable with, won’t work, and the solutions that will work, they’re not comfortable with.
It’s the same with “gun violence”, or really “violence” which is what we should be concerned with. And the solution is the same: grow up enough to care more about the results you get, than feeling good about how you get them.
This is, in the end, their problem with guns & gun violence. They’re uncomfortable with anyone but themselves wielding that kind of power. So uncomfortable, they’re OK with people dying — so long as it’s other people — so they can feel better. Shockingly, the people selected to die often have different priorities.
We see this with all kinds of hunting and trapping. People growing up nowhere near the animals whose only reference is Wind in the Willows, Babe or some Saturday morning cartoon not realizing how devastating these animals can be to crops, other animals, property etc.
When the worse they’ve had to deal with is a “cute” fox/raccoon knocking over garbage cans problem I guess it’s hard for them to separate Destructive Feral Hog with Babe or Mental “Throat Ripper Mc****face” Badger with wise old Mr. Badger.
They’ve never woken up to a chicken coop after Mr Fox has found a way in or had a raccoon show it’s teeth to their kids or seen what coyote can do to pets etc.
Those people should stay the hell out of the debates on hunting methods, culls, population control etc. Should… so naturally they are the loudest and most opinionated.
I call it the Disney syndrome.
Oh, the city refugees who settle in the PA Poconos are hilarious this way.
Nobody needs a gun, or why you need a garage / shed with all that stuff in it, or… God help them, sometimes one of them will even get the .22 varmint / plinking gun. The chipmonk taking out your bird feeder, again. Grey squirrels.
The city folks are impervious to any argument from acutal fats until their personal kicking-dog becomes raptor-chow (Decent eagle population in that part of the world, now. “Environmental recovery” means *all* the critters think it’s their home again.), or they lose a windshield to a wild turkey (Recovery laws are a bit … um … dependent on which LEO responds. You want a good ole boy. Common courtesy to drop off a drumstick later, if you live close.) or their whole freaking garden goes away the day before they were about to harvest. Kitchen gardens there start with a fortification project. Then you build beds and plant stuff … that is, if you want to grow anything and keep it.
The funniest are the ones wound up when the deer eat the evergreen shrubs they landscaped around the house. There’s a reason those are non-native. Yeah, great climate fit for the area. Environmental fit, not so much.
NY is interesting where the up-staters have over-all a bitter accommodation with down-state on wildlife. When down-state leaves enough holes in the laws and enforcement, up-staters are content-enough to do like The Larid’s rural stewards from the old country. You say “gameskeeper”, we say “poacher”, let’s call it the same and leave each other alone.
The NY people who hunt will tolerate stupid gun laws as long as there’s a work-around. The dowstaters want no guns, no hunting, and none of those deplorable upstaters, if they could get their way. So, they make laws and so on that let them pretend. Upstaters let them pretend.
So, “no rifles.” But long-ish barrel “shotguns”, with optics firing rifled slugs are the thing around here. Rifled sabot rounds … I’d never heard of them until I hung out in NY upstate. Standard thing, and this isn’t hunting with a “rifle” how…?
Downstate gets to pretend they stealth-banned hunting, and upstate gets to pretend they can still do what they want, exactly like they were actual citizens. Everybody gets to pretend they won, while they lose.
NYS politics in a nutshell.
That was very good….
“The gun lobby has once again crossed the line by suggesting, if not demanding, that there’s got to be a new “god” in the church that wields ultimate power over death…”
maybe stop projecting so much
It really surprises me that so many would fall for this lie mad up out of thin air.
What the “gun lobby” actually says is something like, “There are legitimate uses for guns.” And there are.
But this is turned into a lie by the gun grabbers, who can’t point to anything said by the “gun lobby” to back up their claims.
Unfortunately, there are more than enough Americans who have turned their thinking ability off, and instead wait to be told what to think.
And we are going down because of it.
Good to hear about rural TX; what about urban TX?
Sadly, Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio have had population surges from California and other leftist states and have fallen to the left.
I wonder if the preachers who are opposed to guns as a means of self defense buy health insurance, fire extinguishers, property insurance, and wear their seat belts. After all isn’t it all a matter of “God’s will”? If I get sick I go to the doctor and pray that God will help the doc do a good job. I wear my seat belt and don’t do stupid stuff when I drive and trust the rest to God. I lock my doors and have a .45 ready to teach sinners the reason for those locks. We’re taught that we shouldn’t tempt God by doing dumb things and then expect Him to bail us out. Sin and stupidity have consequences.
I am a man of faith and firmly believe that I am called to provide for and defend my family. I will defend the innocent in the best way that I can. I will try to do the right things in life. I know that we all pick out the parts of the Bible that we agree with and argue about or ignore the rest, but I believe that God gave us the means to act for good. Sam Colt gave us the tools.
Amen!
Christ was clear in Luke 22/36, and by his actions, that being Christian is about being peaceful and not being a pacifist .
In that SS study, while people who end up doing school shootings tend to feel isolated, alienated, bullied, and have suffered unredeemed losses recently. It’s almost like it’s people under stress, who can’t find useful options for themselves might break, and do random things, some horrible.
Meanwhile, even the few socially-based “programs” to prevent school shootings do the opposite of mitigating things like isolatin, alienation and so on. Let’s divide, surveil, and alienate people more with searches, bans, and name-calling. Let’s treat everybody like they’ve already gone whack-job.
It’s like they’re doing everything they can to keep the tragedies going; like they like having the issue, and don’t care how many (of your) lives it costs.
/FWIW,
There was a huge spontaneous discussion on this post Columbine on the Slashdot site. Of Course, that discussion was misrepresented as saying things like: “Oh, it wasn’t the whack-job’s fault.” and similar. No, that wasn’t it at all. More like: “The whack-jobs chose how they broke. BUT, what drove them to break? What kept everyone else from seeing it coming?”
I’d expect this material to be misrepresented now, by any of our astroturfing trolls. “Depends on what the meaning of ‘smart’ is, I suppose.” ( Yeah, that was blatant, and obnoxious under that other article. Do they pay you good, for what you do?)
No, that’s not what the kids talking about Columbine said. Of course, there was a scandal about it anyway.
Most interesting a few folks and one of the Slashdot moderators attempted to assemble the discussions into a book. They mangled managing the IP rights and privacy of the people who participated. And, of course, they blew the PR — the book was pre-slimed by people who had kinda, sorta heard some talking-points BadThink to say it contained. (Sound familiar? How’d they do this without TheJournolist?)
Those discussions are an important artifact and resource, if someone would look at them honestly.
The working title for the book — “Welcome to the Hellmouth” — was an intentional Buffy reference. The Hellmouth is a place where evil kind of flows into the world, so there’s more of that there, messing with the world. There’s all that weirdness at Buffy’s high school because it’s built on a Hellmouth. Aren’t they all.
That’s one theme of the Slashdot discussions — schools as an experience of imposed evil, like the Hellmouth metaphor. The running theme of Buffy was really how people confront evil when they’re aware that’s what’s going on. Evil is present. Someone can let them-self be seduced, corrupted, bludgeoned, cowed. Or they can rise to meet it, to become better than they were, to perhaps be equal to the problem. “The hardest thing about this world is living in it.” … if you know what’s going on, and choose to live morally.
The Slashdot discussions wove in and around these themes. The “this sucks” was very much in context. (BTW, no you’re not a nerd, a bullied one, an outcast because you work at Google … now that we have nerd-chic, computer weenies are the new preppies.)
To be “The Man in the Arean” is a choice. Or, the other theme of Buffy, it isn’t your plumbing, your color, your species or even your soul that determines whether you are a hero or not. It’s the choice to do what you can, especially when it may not be enough.
Like charging a gun for the sake of your kids, when that’s all you’ve got. There’s no gender to that. Like believing enough in other people that you choose in general to cultivate their character and empower them; you choose to see people as noble in general, and evil as specific. The anti gunners do seem to believe exactly the opposite, don’t they? Who knew Mothers Against The Fallen World are really Calvinists?
http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trsorbonnespeech.html
‘Instead of shooting them, it was suggested that they could all be relocated to a fence in agricultural property, somewhere.’
Because a slow agonizing death from starvation and disease is so much better than a quick death by gunshot.
A note to Christian Anti-Gunners, from a Christian Man who takes responsibility to provide for his family the most important thing – protection.
When there is a natural disaster, EMP, CME, civil unrest, civil war, Russian/Chinese invasion, or just scumbag encounters you’ll remember this when they are raping and killing you, your wife, and children…
“But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.”
1 Timothy 5:8 KJV
“And he found a new jawbone of an ass, and put forth his hand, and took it, and slew a thousand men therewith. And Samson said, With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men.”
Judges 15:15-16 KJV
“And all this assembly shall know that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give you into our hands.”
1 Samuel 17:47 KJV
“Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord deceitfully, and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood.”
Jeremiah 48:10 KJV
“Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight: My goodness, and my fortress; my high tower, and my deliverer; my shield, and he in whom I trust; who subdueth my people under me.”
Psalms 144:1-2 KJV
“Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.”
Luke 22:36 KJV
America is a government of the people for the people by the people ( the people are the authority ), and the 2A is for self defense against criminals, tyranny, and invasion. So don’t neglect your responsibility to protect your family and society if you are a Godley man.
Thomas Jefferson: “that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; that they are entitled to freedom of person; freedom of religion; freedom of property; and freedom of the press.”
“For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.”
Romans 13:4 KJV
Carry everywhere you can and at all times be at the ready. Don’t trust in your gun, but for God to give you the Victory.
King David said:
“Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the Lord our God.”
Psalms 20:7 KJV
Yet….
“Is not this David, of whom they sang one to another in dances, saying, Saul slew his thousands, and David his ten thousands?”
1 Samuel 29:5 KJV
Godly Men/Women have no desire to kill, but a responsibility to defend against all aggressors.
Shalom.
Not much to add…my church is mightily armed. Hammond,IN 1ST Baptist. Don’t want a gun? Die and (maybe!) meet your maker. Most of the anti-gun idiots are heretics and/or apostates.
I notice some folks on here criticizing pacifism, saying prayers are not all you need, and referencing the article, mentioning that other things are idols (such as reputation and expensive things). However, in trying to understand the fellow’s thinking, I have a feeling that he has been anti-gun for a while, and uses he beliefs to justify this. In other words, it’s not as if he was well armed, but then came to believe in the words of Jesus only, and gave up his arms. Rather, he believes (for an unknown length of time) in the words of Jesus, happens to be “anti-gun”, and therefore is using one to justify the other. This doesn’t support/oppose the truth of his religious beliefs, nor his beliefs about gun ownership. It simply means that it’s one way of justifying two elements of belief with one another.
A common method of denying the usefulness of guns for defense, as we’ve all seen, is to imply that gun owners simply like the feeling of power, want to feel tough, feel more manly with guns, are addicted to guns, etc. I belief those are false, but that is an excuse for disarmament. This guy is assuming that those statements are true, so calling guns idols is a way of appealing to people with his religious views. Someone with those same religious views could also see guns simply as tools and consistent with Christianity, but this guy has been anti-gun, so he will likely not see it that way.
Action plan: Expose people like him to normal, responsible, reasonable, every-day gun carriers, and show him the statistics related to how many people who carry a gun without being fixated on it save their lives and the lives of their family members. Once the fallacies are removed, he might not see guns as idols and contrary to his ideology.
Of Hoggs and pigs .
School shootings and project Orion
I, too, am a born again Christian saved by the amazing grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. I agree with the no gun church guy. God will protect us. Therefore, I am ripping my seat belts out of my cars, taking all the locks off house doors, cancelling my insurance policies, getting rid of my eye and ear protection at work, no more vitamins or doctor visits, etc. No more false idols of protection for me. And I will cut out the verse Nehemiah 4:9 from my Bible.
Do you still worship the false idols known as smoke detectors and fire extinguishers? They don’t give you power over death, you heretic. Get them out of your house.