MSNBC reports about Ken Pagano, pastor of New Bethel Church in Louisville, KY and his idea of celebrating Independence Day. His plan? He has invited his congregation to wear their firearms. It’s just a shame that they have to be unloaded.
However, there is criticism.
John Phillips, an Arkansas pastor who was shot twice while leading a service at his former church in 1986, said a house of worship is no place for firearms.
“A church is designated as a safe haven, it’s a place of worship,” said Phillips, who was shot by a church member’s relative for an unknown reason and still has a bullet lodged in his spine. “It is unconscionable to me to think that a church would be a place that you would even want to bring a weapon.”
Phillips spoke out against a bill before the Arkansas General Assembly that would have permitted the carrying of guns in that state’s churches. The bill failed in February.
And this got me thinking.
Of course, I’m glad that Mr. Phillips is alive and well and able to speak. It’s just a shame that he doesn’t realize a few inescapable facts. Number one is that guns actually deter crime. Sure enough, most mass shooting incidents occur in so-called “gun free zones”. There is a reason why schools and malls are popular targets for madmen bent on killing as many people as they can.
By limiting guns to only outside of the church, then the churches enter this target zone, someplace they don’t want to be.
Now, many would argue that guns in churches won’t actually prevent such crimes. Of course, they may have forgotten about Matthew Murray. Murray decided he wanted to go on a killing spree himself and armed himself accordingly.
On the morning of December 9, 2007, Murray entered the New Life Church and opened fire. He killed two and wounded three others. However, before he could hurt anyone else he was confronted by what the media termed as a security guard. In fact, it was a volunteer congregation member with her personally owned firearm. She shot Murray, who then killed himself.
There is nothing you can do to completely deter the insane. They will find a way to cause devastation. It is the presence of a firearm that makes it a fair fight for the forces of good. In the case of Mr. Phillips, the laws in Arkansas that made it illegal to carry a firearm into a church didn’t help him one bit. Criminals, by definition, don’t obey laws. Is a criminal going to think, “Well, I want to kill dozens in the church, but since guns are illegal, I’ll have to find something else”? Sorry, but it won’t happen.
Instead, leaving it up to the individual churches makes a lot more sense. Then, Mr. Phillips can have no guns in his church and Mr. Pagano can have them. See? Everyone wins.
Everyone except the mad men that is.
And the Albany Herald had a front page story about the commemoration of the Albany civil rights movement. It is hard to imagine being in a church in the 50s and 60s and being in danger. With all due respect to the non-violent movement for change, I would have been with those who thought that shooting back was simply self-defense. Dr. Condi Rice’s mother gave piano lessons to some of the young girls who were killed in church in Birmingham and I can’t watch that Tom Cruise movie about killing Hitler without think what good one rifle could have done.
On a related note, why is the NRA blowing up my phone with robo calls this week. How did I end up on that list.
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From what I understand, even Dr. King was approving of black people defending themselves from attack with a firearm…from a lethal attack. His idea of non-violence would really have been more of a non-aggression thing in that case, which is just as potent in my opinion