Evil exists

I’ve thought VERY long about this and debated with myself over this, but I am still compelled. One day something like this is going to happen again and my daughter is going to ask me to explain something similar.

July 19^th I was at a drive in theatre with a very good friend watching a double feature of “The Dark Knight” and the “The Dark Knight Rises”. We had a wonderful time. The morning of July 20^th as I checked the news, we were all greeted with the news of a shooting in Aurora Colorado? As of now, 12 were murdered with a further 58 wounded. Facts are now readily available. There has since been another “mass” shooting in Oak Creek Wisconsin at a Sikh Temple, where a white supremacist shot and killed 6 people before taking his own life when confronted by police.

Before we go further, I want to express my condolences for the murdered and wounded and their families. I have and continue to pray that God brings you comfort during this trial. Secondly, I do not want to turn this into a firearm rights debate.

Evil exists

I have now been in the private security business for over 10 years; you will never be able to guess why someone has done something. Even when I have the perpetrator secured and interview them, their reasons are their own and often make sense to them and them alone. Theft is easy enough to understand, I’m talking about stalking, un-provoked assaults, falsely accusing someone of a sexual assault etc, etc.

In this instance, the murder committed acts of evil. His actions were premeditated. We must not excuse it, we must not try to make sense of it. There was a method to his madness and we need to focus on the madness and not his method. This individual chose to use firearms; there were many, MANY other ways this could have gone down. Banning firearms would not have prevented this. The UK and Australia have been trying that for years and shootings are an epidemic. Passing laws prevent nothing. A law is a vapor that does not exist unless someone is standing with a big stick in your immediate area ready to enforce it. Do not mistake me, laws are extremely important and should be adhered to, however, they prevent nothing. A determined individual will acquire what they want and find a way to carry out what they want to do. The last 20+ years and countless millions of dollars fighting the “War on Drugs” have proven that, people will find a way to get what they want / to do what they want. Prohibition in the US is another example of the fact that we cannot legislate morals or behavior. There are currently mass stabbings happening in China. Look into the “Akihabara Massacre” that took place in Japan. PEOPLE FIND A WAY. Firearms have sensationalized this incident.”Gun Crime” isn’t even in the top 20 of cause of death in the US. The top 10 from 10 – 1 are: Suicide, Various Kidney disease, Flu & pneumonia, Diabetes, Alzheimer’s, Accidents, Brain Disease, Lung Disease, Tumors, Heart Disease. Violence isn’t even close.

Evil must be confronted

It takes very few people to ruing something; in this case it took one. It takes A LOT more good to overcome and make a difference, the problem is that the good side is losing this war due to attrition. Jon Blunk, Matt McQuinn and Alex Teves. These three men doomed themselves by shielded their girlfriends, saving their lives.  “Intellectuals” today will want you to believe that there is no difference between men and women, when’s the last time a woman through herself in front of a bullet for her boyfriend or husband. These three did what I would have done. I’m not looking to start a he vs. she argument, just an observation. The argument has been made that if someone in the theatre was a concealed carry permit holder and legally carried a firearm, if they engaged the murderer it wouldn’t have made a difference due to his body armor. We don’t know that. While premeditated, this individual was rushed and sloppy. In the smoke and the “fog of war” we don’t know his mental state and how he would have reacted to meeting resistance instead of just slaughtering sheep. A responsible, armed, sheepdog might have gotten through his armor or through a break in it. It might have saved lives and injuries, it may have made him turn and run when met with resistance or it may have gotten them killed. I don’t know, but it would have been different. The Aurora shooter may have reacted similarly to the Oak Creek shooter, where when confronted with force in kind, he may have taken his own life, or at least stopped sooner. There have been a number of incidents in the US where concealed carry holders have intervened and stopped robberies / assaults in their tracks.  What you probably haven’t heard on the news is the instances where thugs like these were stopped cold in their tracks by responsible armed citizens. Like the 71 year old man who stopped 2 armed robbers at an internet café in Florida, or the 65 year old grandmother who stopped 5 men from robbing her jewelry store in California.

Society has grown soft and complacent.

It’s sad that people want to numb themselves with bad tv, bad food and pass their responsibilities off on to others. What’s more sad is that the reaction to these events is best explained by the individual the Aurora shooter wanted to emulate:

I just did what I do best. I took your little plan and I turned it on itself. Look what I did to this city with a few drums of gas and a couple of bullets. Hmmm? You know... You know what I've noticed? Nobody panics when things go "according to plan." Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it's all "part of the plan". But when I say that one little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds! 

-          “The Joker” from The Dark Knight, 2008

Nobody cares or takes up protest signs when soldiers are dying for no real reason. Nobody really cares that gang members are killing each other. We decry the means of tragedy but not the root cause. To an extent it’s how we treat all crime. People on the left side of the political spectrum would have you believe that an intimate object like a firearm or a knife influences people into committing horrid acts. These are the same folks that would have us believe that poverty causes crime. Both are incredibly flawed arguments on cause and effect. We want to believe that we have earned easy, trouble free lives that we should be able to live any way we want. This is the prevalent attitude and look where we are. We have rejected God and replaced His perfect law with feelings. We spend countless dollars on looking for life on other worlds, looking for a single cell as proof of other beings in the universe. However we celebrate that we can kill our own children before and (now) after birth. BUT that’s ok, it’s part of the plan. I don’t want to take responsibility for having sex and having a kid (the product of such an activity) would really cut into my sitting around time, I have to watch the Kardashian’s push their newest endorsement on me. It makes me sick.

in the end, the only things we have control over what we say, what we do and how we react to 

tragedy. I implore you to wait for actual facts after any event, and not what our 24/7 news cycle tries to fill its programming schedule with. ABC tried to tie the Aurora shooter with the Tea Party movement in the states, that was not factual. Another news agency said that the Aurora shooters mother stated “you’ve got the right guy” when asked if he was the shooter. Another fabrication, She answered the phone at 3am and said “you’ve got the right house” when asked if she was his mother. The number of shooters and the firearms used were widely misrepresented in the Oak Creek temple shooting. As a society we think ourselves “evolved” because we no longer execute murders and other degenerates for their actions. Will someone please tell me why the Earth is a better place if we keep the Aurora shooter alive? While he get’s three meals a day, medical, dental, shelter and all sorts of other amenities, how does this repair what he has done to his victims and their families? Do not let evil exist among you. It’s a mockery of the word Justice that this individual was not executed within a week of his capture. You can’t argue that he might be innocent and that we “don’t know for sure”. He was caught in the act.

I fear I may start to ramble if I continue this. One can’t help but feel passionate, or at least I can’t. So many thoughts come to mind it’s hard to order them into constructive conversation without jumping around.

I want my daughter to know that these will happen in the future. Life is tragic and after tragedy people ask “why would a loving God allow this to happen?” We have rejected God and spat in His face. I know my sins, my list is great, and our surprise should come when good things happen to any of us. This is the amazing part of God’s grace that He extends through us by Christ’s actions on the cross. Grace: God’s Rewards At Christ Expense. Salvation, forgiveness and mercy cannot be earned but they are freely given to us if we shun our own greed, pride and inequity and acknowledge Christ is the son of God. When we have such hope and amazing things waiting for us, what have we to fear from lone nut jobs such as these? I never thought I would, but I find myself praying for the Lord to take us up quickly so that this madness will end.

That being said. We cannot let fear be the prevailing force in our life. Christ came that we may have life more abundant, a life filled with joy. This joy surpasses understanding and brings peace in tragedy.  This is why I keep on about the sheepdog concept so much, in tragedy prepared person can bring hope and joy to the trampled and wounded. A wounded and bleeding person needs bandages as much as they need the bible. The cold need blankets, the lost need a map, the hungry need food. The poor and wounded will always be with us Jesus says, it's best to look after their Earthly needs in tandem with their eternal needs.