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http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55700
Guns, the devil and God
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Posted: May 16, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By David Kupelian
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© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
"Why don't you pick up that gun and blow your brains out?"
"You could kill a whole lot of people with that gun."
"Why not shoot her right now? That would shut her up!"
These are the sorts of vile mental suggestions many people experience from within their own minds when they see a gun.
That's right. Dark thoughts and impulses, too horrible to dwell upon or even acknowledge, occur to many of us at the mere sight of a firearm or a naked blade. When we see the firearm, we sense the presence of evil – so naturally we assume the gun is its source, when actually the gun's close proximity caused our own buried, angry, violent tendencies to surface for a moment.
Thus, many people who "dislike" or "are afraid of" guns are actually afraid of what they might do if they had a loaded firearm in their hand. And I'm not talking about criminal types here. I'm talking about "nice" people – nice on the outside, and lots of buried and perhaps unrecognized rage inside. Again, the presence of the gun simply causes his or her own dark, angry propensities to "stir a little" deep down inside.
But the reality of all this is too heavy and "negative" for many of us to face, so we instantly and unconsciously project our own buried violence onto the gun – as though an inanimate hunk of metal could somehow be evil.
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Obviously, a loaded handgun has great potential for destruction and havoc. At the mere squeeze of a trigger there can be murder, suicide, terrorism. Even without pulling the trigger, the gun represents the magic ticket to armed robbery, forcible rape and every other form of coercion. For a person with lots of anger, albeit buried, a gun represents the shortest distance between two points – between the suppressed violent nature within him or her and the maximum expression of that nature. Therefore, the mere sight of a gun excites that dark part of us, causing it to beckon wordlessly, "Use me!"
Let's examine this admittedly scary subject a little more closely.
Have you ever stood close to the edge of a cliff, or out on a balcony of a high building? Did you notice that some "force" almost seemed to want to pull you over the edge? Most of us have experienced something like this phenomenon – a momentary loss of balance, an unexplainable fear, some mysterious pull toward the edge. We have a moment of disorientation and fear, then we pull back to safety.
I've experienced it. Last year after driving five hours to Portland, Ore., to be a guest on Fox News I checked into my hotel room, unpacked, checked over the room, then stepped out onto the balcony. As I approached the railing and looked out at the cityscape and then gazed down several stories to the ground, I noticed a distinct pull, along with a slight disorientation, as though I was losing my balance. I recovered right away and realized I was so tired and frazzled from a long day that my mind was vulnerable to the "pull" of dark forces. So I took the hint and rested a bit, until I had recovered my strength and mental focus.
In this life, the malevolent intelligence we call "evil" is constantly scanning each of us for opportunities to tempt or even destroy us. As the Good Book puts it, "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour" (1 Peter 5:8 KJV). In critical moments of the sort I'm describing, evil seizes the opportunity to give us a mental "shove." Unfortunately, for some people that "shove" is strong enough – especially after a lifetime of giving in to anger, judgment and despair – to pull them over the edge.
We'll never know how many "suicides," in which people fell off a cliff or a balcony, occurred this way – not because of a premeditated suicide plan, but because they were vulnerable to the opportunistic impulse of evil.
Similarly, how many head-on auto accidents occur every year because someone inexplicably crosses the center line to crash at high speed into another car, having succumbed to a wordless, instantaneous mental suggestion from hell? All in a timeless fraction of a second the message impresses itself on your mind: "Crash your car into that one coming your way. Life sucks. Go out with a major bang! Everyone will be shocked! You have the power! Just do it! Do it now!"
Does this scare you? If so – if this description resonates with you even a little bit – it's only because you have the same problem to some degree. Don't fret. We're all in the same boat. We're all subject to the "dark side" of the force. It's called being "born in sin." But some of us honestly face it, and quietly call out to God for help, and His help comes. Others live in denial – until tragedy and death end it all. (This is the central theme of "Spiderman 3," by the way.)
In any event, this same phenomenon is at work with firearms, because of the potential guns provide for immediate and ultimate destruction. Guns literally bring to the surface of the mind the suppressed potential for violence that exists inside every angry person.
Again, there is more than one way this discomfort around guns can be experienced. A sincere person who is uncomfortable around guns will probably be able to deduce that the problem is within him and not with the inanimate firearm. He's already on the path to getting better.
Unfortunately, many people who hate/fear guns never allow themselves to come face-to-face with the real problem – themselves. No sooner does their own suppressed anger react to the sight or even the thought of a gun, than they turn that angry emotional response into something more "acceptable" – like fear. After all, on the "niceness" scale, fear is a lot nicer than hatred.
The problem is, after our buried anger is effortlessly transformed into "fear of guns," that fear easily turns into false righteousness: "I don't like guns and have no need for them. I'm a peaceful, non-violent person and wouldn't ever shoot anyone for any reason."
Some take this "righteousness" even further: "God protects me; I don't need guns. I have faith he'll never put me in a position where I need to shoot someone." Good thing none of the Bible's Old Testament heroes like David or Joshua thought like that. They were required by God to kill many people. Who can say what will be required of us in this journey called life – whether or not we may be called on to defend ourselves or our families from a dangerous enemy?
Of course, there are many angry people who love guns. The world seems to be full of pumped-up jihadists who crave weapons, the bigger and more lethal the better; drug lords who use guns to murder judges and mayors and anyone else who gets in their way; gangbangers who pack heat so they can kill members of rival gangs; and every variety of criminal who, of course, take pains to procure the tools of their illegal trade – guns.
Unlike those who hate/fear guns as a result of unconsciously projecting their own inner violence onto them, angry people who love guns are in love with their own hatred, which they see as righteousness! The Islamic jihadist thinks he's serving Allah by murdering innocents. And predators and psychopaths of every sort love their guns because that's where they get the means to overcome their intended victims.
The God side of guns
Obviously, guns allow evil to be expressed in a multitude of ways, just as any weapon does. Everybody understands this, so there's no need to say much more about it – except that these people need to be stopped.
But what does need to be said, and shouted from the rooftops, is that in the right hands firearms also enable real goodness and virtue to be manifested – right here, right now – by opposing evil and protecting the innocent.
I'm talking now about what I'll call true Americans – not those who criminally prey on others, but also not those whose cowardice or shallowness causes them to appease bullies and to blame inanimate objects for the evil in the world and within themselves.
Whether individually or in a war, the moral imperative to defend ourselves and others is the same. And just as we all share this fundamental and undeniable right to self-defense, it follows that we also share the right to the means of self-defense, or else that supposed right is just a bad joke.
Fortunately for us, the Constitution and Bill of Rights were written and adopted by strong, right-thinking people. And the Second Amendment spells out for all to see the right of Americans to "keep and bear arms," a fundamental right that "shall not be infringed."
Today, according to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, there are well over 200 million privately owned firearms in the U.S, including more than 65-70 million handguns. Approximately 45 percent of American households have firearms. That means we have 65-80 million American gun-owners, including 30-35 million owners of handguns.
This is a very, very good thing – we don't even realize how good it is. For just as it was true in our founders' day, it's true today that Americans need guns.
If you don't believe me, just consider the Virginia Tech disaster. Imagine Cho Seung-Hui walking into a classroom, threatening people with his guns, making them line up, preparing to shoot them. Now freeze-frame that scene and think for a moment: There isn't anyone or anything in this world that could have stopped Cho in his tracks at that point and averted the hellish slaughter that followed – except a single student or professor with a firearm, and trained to use it.