Having new thoughts. Great tragedy. Our hearts and prayers go out to the families involved. But don’t YOU be scared. The enemy of your soul would like to imprision you and traumatize you without even a real gun.

I have been surprised by the ensuing debate. Someone this time, I am seeing it is one sided. I do understand people’s impatience. I do understand why people want gun control. HOwever, let’s just wait a mintue or two. Remember what happened at 911? Remember the hate and the refusal to think? And remember how a peice of legislation was pushed through without people actually thinking — until later. Only to find that rights were imperiled. And the Constitution violated.

Slow down. Don’t be pushed by fear. Let’s have a prayerful discussion.

I did notice the two small tidbits of information in the avalanche of calls for gun control (indeed whole news shows devoted almost exclusively to the one side of the one issue.) Someone said: in 10 years of the ban on assualt weapons, there was no statistical reduction in the death rate. Also, if one considers what the founders of the Constitution had in mind, it was specifically military weapons; they wanted citizens to be able to protect themselves from the government and be able to mount a militia for war.

I understand the modern sensibilities that will ridicule the idea ” more Bibles in classrooms! However, let’s wait a minute for more reasoned discourse. What about that? We can never make enough laws to keep every tragedy, or every whacked out young man, down. We could, however, work toward a moral consensus. We could work toward a great altruism. We could becoming a more loving, less violent society. The only way we can do that is to turn to God. Sociologist, Sorokin argued this in the 1950s: altruism is rooted in supra-conscious experience. History suggests that during colonial times, when most men had weapons, that nevertheless, the murder rate was miniscule. Who, trained by the New England Primer, that one should return a neighbor’s lost cow, who daily sang the praises of God, and who lived in a community of this sort, would flip out and go on a shooting rampage. Comparative Psychology notices that Hutterites have almost no mental illness among them.

“We need more Bibles in schools” is emblematic for the need to get at the root of the problem, socially, morally, and spiritually.

Ravi Zacharias quotes inmates’ view:
My heart goes back to Angola Prison in Baton Rouge where I met such people whose savagery took them to that destination. It was interesting to see a Bible in every cell and to hear many talk of how it had become their only means of life and hope. Someone with me said, “If we had more Bibles in our schools maybe we would need less of them here.” To the skeptic and the despiser of belief in God, I know what they will respond. I am quite convinced that the one who argues against this ends up playing God and is ultimately unable to defend any absolutes. Hate is the opposite of love and while one breathes death, the other breathes life. That is what we need to be addressing here. The seeds of hate sooner or later bear fruit in murder and destruction. Killers are not born in a moment. Deep beneath brews thinking and the animus that in a moment is uncorked. We are living in a society that nurtures hate on many sides with the result that lawlessness triumphs.

May the Lord bless the families of Newtown, and your family, and all the families of the earth.