Neighborhood Ministries

People wring their hands and wonder what to do. The politicians and media come up with the obvious. Background checks-Practically all these mass shooters either obtained the guns illegally or had no record that would have stopped the sale, even with a background check. Take away everyone’s guns-The only guns you get are the ones of innocent people trying to protect themselves. Once they are disarmed, the criminals have a field day. Crime and violence escalate quickly. Most mass shootings take place in places where guns aren’t allowed. The shooters know that when they pick their targets. They don’t want to be interrupted by people with guns.  The guy in Texas wasn’t wearing a bullet-proof vest because he wanted to make a fashion statement. Once they are over, the investigations usually reveal a long trail so obvious a blind man could have followed it. The guy in Texas was a typical shooter. He was a loner, who felt no one cared. He was often bullied, then constantly in trouble, then labeled a trouble-maker, then spread his anger all over the social media, but at each stage, nobody listened. What would it take to get their attention? He bragged about doing something big, displayed his guns for all to see, but nobody listened. He killed his grandmother and broadcast that, but nobody listened. There is only one thing left. The more people he killed, the more people would pay attention, and they did.  By then it was too late. Why did he have to go that far before someone listened? In the beginning, all that was needed was for someone to show him they cared. One person or a small group could have stopped it at any point if they had only listened. The farther it goes, the harder it is to stop.

While I don’t encourage people to carry guns, I don’t believe that limiting gun ownership will solve the problem. The shooter at Columbine High School had a variety of bombs in the school that he was going to set off after he shot a lot of people. Fortunately, he was stopped before he could set them off. Outlawing guns would not have stopped him. If he could not have gotten the guns, he probably would have still tried to set off the bombs. We need to stop the people that are going to do these things. The media played up the fact that this was totally unexpected, and no one knew about it until it happened. However, the shooter had broadcast that he was going to do something like that for almost two years, but no one paid any attention to him. On his way to school that day, he told a friend he met to turn around and go home because he should not go to school that day. Most school shooters have left a long trail of warnings which no one paid any attention to. A lot of incidents you have never heard about, have not happened because someone stopped to listen. In fact, the shooters are usually loners who were bullied or ignored and feel this is their way to get noticed. We need to reach these people before they reach the point of violence.

While liberal politicians and the media blame conservatives for the increased violence, they continue to spew hate speech fueling anger that leads to violence. They called on their followers to drive President Trump’s followers out of restaurants and businesses and accused him of all kinds of crimes with no proof. They conducted all kinds of investigations but could not find evidence of wrongdoing, solely to discredit him. While he is not perfect, he at least tried to help the American people. Liberals accuse the police of brutality and call for defunding the police. As a result, cities are reducing their police force and pulling them out of predominantly Black areas, which hurts Blacks, it doesn’t help them. In addition, it causes distrust of police, so citizens no longer cooperate with police to help them catch criminals. As police forces are reduced and people no longer support the police, it enables criminals to commit more crimes, without fear of being caught. While there are police that exceed their authority, they are a small minority. People need to work with government to get fair and impartial laws and work with police to help them catch and prosecute criminals to reduce crime.

Gun opponents continue to rail against gun ownership after each mass shooting but few noted that gun violence is far less in areas with reduced restrictions on gun ownership. As more people own guns, criminals are more cautious about confronting people who might be armed. By contrast, the rate of gun violence is far higher in areas with increased restrictions where fewer people own guns, and criminals feel safer confronting people. In addition, rates of violence using knives and now acid are rising as criminals turn to other means when guns aren’t available. Great Britain first restricted carrying knives and now they are seeking to ban carrying corrosive acid in public. Taking guns away from innocent people will not solve the problem since criminals will still have guns. People are easy prey when they cannot defend themselves. You have to understand the real cause of a problem before you can solve it.

Up until President Obama, America has generally been a strong ally of Israel. President Obama however, openly supported the Palestinians, and they knew we would not defend Israel, so they openly attacked Israel. On the other hand, Israel had relative, though not total peace, during President Trump’s term because he made it clear that to attack Israel would invite us to defend them, so the Palestinians were afraid to attack Israel openly. President Biden now says he supports Israel (though he has openly condemned Israel in the past) but he continues to send money (our tax dollars) to support the terrorists and he has assured the Palestinians that he will not defend Israel if they are attacked. As a result, the Palestinians have been more open in attacking Israel. Israel is our only secure friend in the Middle East and has a fantastic intelligence network that we need to control the spread of terrorism. However, Israel is not only a strategic ally, it is also our spiritual parent. Christianity rose out of Judaism and it shares our love of God, though many Jews have not yet recognized Jesus as Lord. God promised Abraham that He would bless those that blessed Abraham and curse those that cursed him. As a result, we dare not abandon the children of Abraham.

Liberals say that Israel should stop attacking its neighbors. Every time Israel agrees to a cease fire, its neighbors attack it again. Its neighbors are firing rockets at population centers targeting innocent civilians, not at military targets, in violation of international law. It has been reported that over 4000 rockets have been fired at Israel in the last 10 days. Israel has built up strong defenses which enable them to stop many of those rockets, but they can not stop all of them. They have had to try to destroy the rocket launchers to stop the flow of rockets but the Palestinians have moved their rocket launchers into residential areas and have placed them next to schools and hospitals so they can claim that Israel is attacking civilians. That is an open violation of International law and an obvious demonstration that they don’t care about their own people and willingly put them in danger just for the publicity, but the United Nations has refused to step in because it is dominated by The Arab nations backed by Russia and China and is biased against Israel. Israel always warns Arab civilians of an attack so they can flee the area, but it also gives the Palestinians an opportunity to move their rocket launchers, which has made it difficult for Israel to protect itself.