No greater love

As you probably can tell, I am ambivalent on the issue of gun control. I do not possess firearms, and I have no intention of ever obtaining a firearm. However, I do see that they can serve a purpose; I was in the military for over twelve years.

One of the things that bothers me the most about firearms is what is reported in this article:

http://www.dailycensored.com/gun-control-us-unlawful-wars-killed-100-million-americans-should-never-disarm/

"The data show ~20% of given populations who disarm to their governments are thereafter killed by those who disarmed them." That is not a comforting statistic.

Especially not when we live in a country in which police are known to have beaten helpless senior citizens, who say they feel threatened by paralyzed people in wheelchairs, and who shoot fleeing unarmed suspects in the back with impunity; a country whose soldiers and commissioned officers sexually assault and rape women both here and overseas, who beat and torture men and women whose only crime is resisting our illegal invasions of their countries, and who think the use of weapons of mass destruction to "liberate" people is their God-given right.

America has a long, sad history of direct and indirect genocide (e.g., the Indians, our African slaves, the "enemies" of our sock-puppet dictators). If the order is given to take your weapons, you can be assured that adequate forces will be assigned to accomplish the task. Do you think your neighbors are going to help you when the SWAT team arrives? If you do, just recall what happened to the Branch Davidians in Waco back in 1993. Nobody came to help; if anyone had, they would have been killed, too.

Some people say, "I Will Give Up My Gun When They Peel My Cold Dead Fingers From Around It." Believe me when I say in reply, "Yes, you will; and yes, they will."

The key to regaining our freedoms is contained in the difference between a soldier and a conscientious objector. Both are brave; both are willing to die for what they believe; one is also willing to kill, the other only to give his life. What did Jesus say about this subject?

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. -John 15:13 KJV

Lay down his life; not kill for his friends. Read some Medal of Honor citations @ http://www.cmohs.org/ Most if not all involve acts of courage in which someone was willing to lay down his life for his friends; whether or not he killed someone in the process was (or should have been) irrelevant.

The persons who signed our Declaration of Independence pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to their cause. They did not specifically pledge to kill anyone in the process. If we truly wish to be free, that's what we have to figure out how to do: how to obtain and secure our freedoms without resorting to violence, torture, and more killing.

The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house; we all should have learned by now the validity of that statement. If you doubt its validity, you need look no further than what you and your nation did in response to the provocation of 9/11. You're not going to roll back any of that by using more coercion and violence.

We must find another way.