A COMMON THREAD

  On May 18, 1927, in Bath Township Michigan,  Andrew Kehoe killed 38 elementary school children, along with six adults, and injured 58 people. Kehoe first killed his wife, fire-bombed his farm and set off a major explosion in the Bath Consolidated School before committing suicide by detonating a final explosion in his truck. It is the deadliest school mass murder in United States history. On November 18, 1978, Jim Jones and more than 900 members of his People's Temple committed mass suicide in the jungle of Guyana. Most of the deaths were caused by drinking cyanide laced Kool-Aid and the rest by gunshot wounds. It is believed that many who died did not die willingly. A cult movement called Aum Shinrikyo released nerve gas into a Tokyo subway killing 12 people and wounding 5000 of which fifty of these were severely wounded on March 20, 1995. On September 11th 2001 nineteen hijackers crashed three airliners into both World Trade Center buildings in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington D.C. The fourth airliner was brought down in a field in Shanksville Pennsylvania by the courageous passengers on board, preventing a possible attack on the Capital building. A total of 2,996 people were killed (including 19 terrorists) and more than 6,000 others wounded. 

 On the night of 14 July 2016, a 19 ton cargo truck was driven deliberately into crowds of people celebrating Bastille Day in France resulting in the deaths of 86 people and the injury of 458 others by a Muslim terrorist. On 1 March 2014, a terrorist attack occurred inside the Kunming Railway Station in Kunming, Yunnan, China. At 9:20 PM , a group of eight knife-wielding men and women attacked passengers at the city's railway station. The attackers pulled out long knives and stabbed and slashed passengers. Police killed four of the assailants and captured one wounded female. The incident left 35 people dead, counting the 4 perpetrators, along with over 140 injured. On the night of 10-1-2017 a monster killed 58 innocent people and wounded 527 at a Las Vegas Country Music concert in Las Vegas with an assortment of rifles from his 32nd floor suite of the Mandalay Resort and Casino.

 I purposely listed seven different means by which terrorists have killed large numbers of people over the years going back to 1927. Bombs, poison, gas, airliners, a truck, knives and guns. I could list many examples of mass murder, or attempted mass murder, that were committed without a gun. There is one component that links all of these murderous acts together. Unmitigated evil. Call it mental illness or whatever but it is nothing but pure evil.  John 10:10 says "The thief cometh not, but that he may steal, and kill, and destroy: I came that they may have life, and may have [it] abundantly". The devil is a thief and a murderer. Over time he steals your spiritual life, your physical life, your joy and your soul. Andrew Kehoe, the Bath School bomber, left a sign on a fence in front of his farm which read, "Criminals are made, not born". No truer words were ever spoken. No one is born evil. Life is full of choices and enough of the wrong choices will carry you over to the dark side. So the problem is not guns, knives, trucks, poison, airliners, bombs, or poison gas. It is the evil in the hearts of men. You could remove every gun in America and it would not have stopped an evil multimillionaire from committing mass murder in Las Vegas. The government banned bump stocks but this law will not prevent someone that is a millionaire from getting them if they want them. He had the resources to buy bump stocks, guns and ammo overseas or illegally on the black market.

 The 2nd Amendment reaffirms a God given right that already existed from the beginning of our reign on earth. The right of personal self defense and the right of revolution. The thing that makes American's truly unique is this right. Guns are the only thing protecting us from the tyranny of the murderer, rapist, thieves and of our own government. The thing that angers the left more than anything is that they do not have total control over Americans. They have made tremendous progress toward that goal over the years but until they can take our guns away that total control will never come. God help us if they achieve their goal. Remember that America would not be a nation today without guns. We became a nation because of the British attempt to confiscate our guns and powder at Concord and we resisted. What makes us think that our liberty is less dear to this modern generation of American's than it was to our founding generation. I hope that I am as prepared to die defending liberty as they were.