What do the supreme court ruling on guns and the martyrdom of missionaries have to do with each other? Noël and I watched Beyond Gates of Splendor, the documentary version of End of the Spear, the story of the martyrdom of Jim Elliot, Peter Fleming, Ed McCully, Roger Youderian, and Nate Saint in Ecuador in 1956. That same day we heard that the Supreme Court decided in favor of the right of Americans to keep firearms at home for self-defense. Here’s the connection. The missionaries had guns when they were speared to death. One of them shot the gun into the air, it appears, as he was killed, rather than shooting the natives. They had agreed to do this. The reason was simple and staggeringly Christlike: The natives are not ready for heaven. We are. I suspect the same could be said for almost anyone who breaks into my house. There are other reasons why I have never owned a firearm and do not have one in my house. But that reason moves me deeply. I hope you don’t use your economic stimulus check to buy a gun. Better to find some missionaries like this and support them. Esther 3:13-14 - Letters were sent by couriers to all the king’s provinces to destroy, to kill and to annihilate all the Jews, both young and old, women and children, in one day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, and to seize their possessions as plunder.14 A copy of the edict to be issued as law in every province was published to all the peoples so that they should be ready for this day.
Esther 1:19 - If it pleases the king, let a royal edict be issued by him and let it be written in the laws of Persia and Media so that it cannot be repealed, that Vashti may no longer come into the presence of King Ahasuerus, and let the king give her royal position to another who is more worthy than she.
Esther 8:8 - Now you write to the Jews as you see fit, in the king’s name, and seal it with the king’s signet ring; for a decree which is written in the name of the king and sealed with the king’s signet ring may not be revoked.
Esther 8:11 - In them the king granted the Jews who were in each and every city the right to assemble and to defend their lives, to destroy, to kill and to annihilate the entire army of any people or province which might attack them, including children and women, and to plunder their spoil,12 on one day in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month (that is, the month Adar).13 A copy of the edict to be issued as law in each and every province was published to all the peoples, so that the Jews would be ready for this day to avenge themselves on their enemies.
Esther 9:5 - Thus the Jews struck all their enemies with the sword, killing and destroying; and they did what they pleased to those who hated them.
Nehemiah 4 - 13 then I stationed men in the lowest parts of the space behind the wall, the exposed places, and I stationed the people in families with their swords, spears and bows…16 From that day on, half of my servants carried on the work while half of them held the spears, the shields, the bows and the breastplates; and the captains were behind the whole house of Judah.17 Those who were rebuilding the wall and those who carried burdens took their load with one hand doing the work and the other holding a weapon. 18 As for the builders, each wore his sword girded at his side as he built, while the trumpeter stood near me…21 So we carried on the work with half of them holding spearsfrom dawn until the stars appeared.
Luke 22:35-38-35 And He said to them, “When I sent you out without money belt and bag and sandals, you did not lack anything, did you?” They said, “No, nothing.”36 And He said to them, “But now, whoever has a money belt is to take it along, likewise also a bag, and whoever has no sword is to sell his coat and buy one. 37 For I tell you that this which is written must be fulfilled in Me, ‘And He was numbered with transgressors’; for that which refers to Me has its fulfillment.” 38 They said, “Lord, look, here are two swords.” And He said to them, “It is enough.”
Rom. 13:4 - for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.
Wayne Grudem- "The verses discussed above…Luke 22:36-38…give significant support for the idea that Jesus wanted his disciples to have an effective weapon to use in self-defense." Wayne Grudem, Politics According to the Bible: A Comprehensive Resource for Understanding Modern Political Issues in Light of Scripture (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), 203.
Alan Hultberg - concerning Luke 22:36, "In contrast to His earlier instructions to depend on the kindness of others when preaching, Jesus now required His disciples to provide for themselves, including for their defense against enemies. He was in effect telling His disciples that their message would be met with hostility." Alan Hultberg, “Luke,” in The Apologetics Study Bible, ed. Ted Cabal (Nashville, TN: Holman, 2007), 1558.
Matt. 5:39 - But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.
Elliot Johnson, Professor (retired) Dallas Theological Seminary- “Because an assault involves slapping someone on the left cheek, slapping them on the right cheek involves merely an insult. Thus, these verses are not saying that a believer cannot exercise self-defense when physically attacked. Rather, the context has to do with not retaliating when personally insulted. Three illustrations follow showing the believer how to follow this principle.”
Granville Sharp- (10 November 1735 – 6 July 1813) was one of the first English campaigners for the abolition of the slave trade. He also involved himself in trying to correct other social injustices. "No Englishman can be truly loyal who opposed the principles of English law whereby the people are required to have arms of defence in peace, for mutual as well as private defence…The laws of England always required the people to be armed, and not only armed, but to be expert inarms." Les Adams,The Second Amendment Primer: A Citizen’s Guidebook to the History, Sources, and Authorities for the Constitutional Guarantee of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (NY: Skyhorse, 2013), 63.
“The Constitution, the Second Amendment was never absolute,” Biden said to reporters…“You couldn’t buy a cannon when the Second Amendment was passed and you couldn’t go out and purchase a lot of weapons,” he said. Biden recalled a briefing he had when he was a senator on bullet calibers and the damage they caused to the human body. “The 22 caliber bullet will lodge in the lungs and we can get it out,” Biden said. “A 9 mm bullet blows the lung out of the body.” “The idea of a high caliber weapon, there is no rationale for it in terms of self-protection, hunting,” he said. Biden also referred to a quote from Thomas Jefferson who said “the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants,” tying it in with his argument about the Second Amendment. “There was a while there, where people were saying, you know, the tree of liberty is watered with the blood of patriots, and what we have to do is to be able take on the government when they are wrong,” Biden said. Biden argued in order for citizens to hold the government accountable with equal levels of force, Americans would have to own a fighter jet or a tank. “To do that you need an F-15, you need an Abrams tank,” he said, suggesting it was an outrageous idea…“I know that it makes no sense to be able to be able to purchase something that can fire up to 300 rounds,” he said. Biden told reporters he spent over three hours and 40 minutes with the grieving families of the school shooting victims in Ulvada, Texas, on Sunday. “I’m going to continue to push and we’ll see how this works,” he said.
Two professors Donald S. Lutz and Charles S. Hynemanwho reviewed an estimated 15,000 items, and closely read 2,200 books, pamphlets, newspaper articles, and monographs with explicitly political content between 1760 and 1805. They reduced this to 916 items, about one-third of all public political writings longer than 2,000 words. From these items, Lutz and Hyneman identified 3,154 references to other sources.
The source most often identified by the founding fathers was the Bible, which accounted for 34 percent of all citations.
The fifth book of the Bible, Deuteronomy, because of its heavy emphasis on biblical law, was referred to frequently…The most cited thinkers were not deists and philosophers, but conservative legal and political thinkers who often were also Christians.
Baron Charles Montesquieu leads this list with 8.3 percent of all citations, followed closely by Sir William Blackstone with 7.9 percent, and John Locke with 2.9 percent.
Donald S. Lutz, “The Relative Influence of European Writers on Late Eighteenth-Century American Political Thought,” American Political Science Review 78, no. 1 (March 1984): 189-97; idem,The Origins of American Constitutionalism (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1988), 141-43; Charles S. Hyneman and Donald S. Lutz, American Political Writing During the Founding Era 1760-1805, 2 vols. (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1983). Declaration of Independence -
“the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,”
“we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,”
“they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,”
“appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions,”
“with firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence.” John Dickinson - one of the Constitution's signers, defined an inalienable right as one "...which God gave to you and which no inferior power has the right to take away." John Dickinson, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, ed. R.T.H. Halsey (New York: The Outlook Company, 1903), xlii.
John Adams- America's second President "Rights [are] antecedent to all earthly government; Rights...cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; Rights [are] derived from the great Legislature of the universe." John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, ed. Charles Francis Adams, 10 vols. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1856), 3:449.
Janet Reno- “You are part of a government that has given its people more freedom…than any other government in the history of the world.” Speech by Attorney General Janet Reno, Newark, New Jersey, May 5, 1995. Quoted in James Bovard, “Waco Must Get a Hearing,” Wall Street Journal, May 15, 1995.
Walter Williams - Jefferson said, “What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.” George Mason explained, “(T)o disarm the people (is) the best and most effectual way to enslave them.” Noah Webster elaborated: “Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed. ... The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive.” Walter Williams, “Americans Today, Founders At Odds,” online: www.ocregister.com, accessed 15 September 2010, 1.
George Mason - 1725 – October 7, 1792 was a Virginia planter and politician, and a delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787. The Virginia Declaration of Rights, which Mason principally authored, served as a basis for the United States Bill of Rights, of which he has been deemed the father. – “Forty years ago, when the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually, by totally disusing and neglecting the militia…Who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers.” http://www.stephenhalbrook.com/articles/rewriting.html
Thomas Jefferson - proposed drafts of the Virginia Constitution in 1764 – "No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms." The Virginia Constitution of 1776, First Draft by Jefferson, [before June 13, 1776], in Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 1:344. Transcription available at Founders Online.
Joseph Story - (September 18, 1779 – September 10, 1845) was an American lawyer and jurist who served on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1811 to 1845. "The next amendment is: ‘A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.’ The importance of this article will scarcely be doubted by any persons, who have duly reflected upon the subject…The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them…There is certainly no small danger, that indifference may lead to disgust, and disgust to contempt; and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause of our national bill of rights." Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (Boston, MA: Hilliard, Gray, 1833), 3:746-747, sections 1889-1890.
THE END GAME
R. J. Rummel - Professor of Political Science of the University of Hawaii, Death by Government (1994). He coins a term “democide” for the harm and the murder governments have done to their own people. He calculates democide at two hundred and sixty-two million. In other words, two hundred and sixty-two million people in human history have died, not through natural causes but have died at the hands of their own government. Rummel says just to give perspective on this incredible murder by government, if all of the bodies were laid head to toe, of these two hundred and sixty-two million people with the average height being about five foot, it would circle the earth ten times.
Dan. 7:21, 23-21 I kept looking, and that horn was waging war with the saints and overpowering them…23 Thus he said: ‘The fourth beast will be a fourth kingdom on the earth, which will be different from all the other kingdoms and will devour the whole earth and tread it down and crush it.’
Rev. 13:16-18- 16 And he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and the slaves, to be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, 17 and he provides that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name. 18 Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for the number is that of a man; and his number is six hundred and sixty-six.
TCS Wire. 5-24-22
Speaking to a panel at the World Economic Forum (WEF), Australian eSafety commissioner and WEF member Julie Inman Grant told panellists that they might need to recalibrate people’s human rights online. “We are finding ourselves in a place where we have increased polarization everywhere, and everything feels binary when it doesn’t need to be. So, I think we’re going to have to think of a recalibration of a whole range of human rights that are playing out online,” Grant said, smiling. “You know, from freedom of speech to the freedom to not be free from online violence, or the right of data protection to the right to child dignity.”
Rahm Emanuel - “You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” John Lott - fellow in law and economics at the University of Chicago School of Law, and the author of "More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws" (University of Chicago Press, 1998). by John R. Lott Jr. from the Wall Street Journal
“More Gun Controls? They Haven't Worked in the Past"
Gun availability has never before been as restricted as it is now. As late as 1967, it was possible for a 13-year-old virtually anywhere in the U.S. to walk into a hardware store and buy a rifle. Few states even had age restrictions for buying handguns from a store. Buying a rifle through the mail was easy. Private transfers of guns to juveniles were also unrestricted.
But nowhere were guns more common than at schools. Until 1969, virtually every public high school in New York City had a shooting club. High-school students carried their guns to school on the subways in the morning, turned them over to their homeroom teacher or the gym coach and retrieved them after school for target practice. The federal government even gave students rifles and paid for their ammunition. Students regularly competed in citywide shooting contests, with the winners being awarded university scholarships.
Since the 1960s, however, the growth of federal gun control has been dramatic. Federal gun laws, which contained 19,907 words in 1960, have more than quadrupled to 88,413 words today. By contrast, in 1930 all federal gun-control laws amounted to only 3,571 words.
The growth in state laws has kept pace. By 1997 California's gun-control statutes contained an incredible 158,643 words -- nearly as many as the King James version of the New Testament -- and still another 12 statutes are being considered in this legislative session. Even "gun friendly" states like Texas have lengthy gun-control provisions. None of this even begins to include the burgeoning local regulations on everything from licensing to mandatory gun locks…
But would stricter laws at least reduce crime by taking guns out of the hands of criminals? Not one academic study has shown that waiting periods and background checks have reduced crime or youth violence. The Brady bill, widely touted by its supporters as a landmark in gun control, has produced virtually no convictions in five years. And no wonder: Disarming potential victims (those likely to obey the gun laws) relative to criminals (those who almost by definition will not obey such laws) makes crime more attractive and more likely.
This commonsense observation is backed by the available statistical evidence. Gun-control laws have noticeably reduced gun ownership in some states, with the result that for each 1% reduction in gun ownership there was a 3% increase in violent crime. Nationally, gun-ownership rates throughout the 1960s and '70s remained fairly constant, while the rates of violent crime skyrocketed. In the 1990s, gun ownership has grown at the same time as we have witnessed dramatic reductions in crime.
Yet with no academic evidence that gun regulations prevent crime, and plenty of indications that they actually encourage it, we nonetheless are now debating which new gun control laws to pass. With that in mind, 290 scholars from institutions as diverse as Harvard, Stanford, Northwestern, the University of Pennsylvania and UCLA released an open letter to Congress yesterday stating that the proposed new gun laws are ill-advised: "With the 20,000 gun laws already on the books, we advise Congress, before enacting yet more new laws, to investigate whether many of the existing laws may have contributed to the problems we currently face."
It thus would appear that at the very least gun-control advocates face something of a dilemma. If guns are the problem, why was it that when guns were really accessible, even inside schools by students, we didn't have the problems that plague us now?
https://www.tysknews.com/Depts/2nd_Amend/they_haven%27t_worked.htm Decline in prosecutions - “In 2013, there were 5,082 cases referred by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, contrasting with the 6,791 cases during the final year of George W. Bush’s administration, accord to data the Times obtained from the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys.” https://www.newsmax.com/us/gun-prosecutions-obama-decline/2014/07/24/id/584608/
