By Scott Tibbs, December 26, 2012
And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin. -- Jeremiah 32:35
I said on Facebook and Tumblr last week that I do not think it is fair to demonize people who are advocating gun control in the wake of the Sandy Hook school shooting as "politicizing" the tragedy. I disagree with more gun control and I find it counterproductive. However, I do not think that all of those who are advocating for gun control are doing so with bad motives. Many of them simply want to prevent this from happening again and are offering a solution. Those of us who disagree with that solution should not personally attack them.
I would draw a thick black line between those offering public policy solutions and those who exploit tragedy to score points against their political enemies. Lets' not forget how Leftists rushed to blame Sarah Palin after a madman trued to murder Gabby Giffords. Let's also not forget the Leftist political hacks who rushed to falsely blame a Tea Party activist for a mass shooting at a showing of The Dark Knight Rises this past summer, murdering his reputation and exposing him to harassment and a flood of death threats. This type of behavior is despicable and should be condemned in the strongest possible terms.
But when tragedy strikes, it is natural for people to look for ways to prevent it from happening again or at least make it less likely or mitigate the damage of a future tragedy. We saw it after both Hurricane Sandy and Hurricane Katrina, wondering what policies could be implemented to make storms like these less destructive. There is no reason that discussion should not take place in the wake of the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. It should take place in a way that is respectful to the victims, but it should not be silenced altogether.
This brings me to what should be an obvious inconsistency in our reaction to 20 children being murdered by a madman - the fact that many of us do not bat an eye at the wholesale slaughter of innocent babies in their mother's wombs every single day. On average, we murder over 3,200 babies every day in America. This is not meant to minimize the very real pain or the evil that took place on December 14, but in terms of magnitude of killing we are straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel.
When we murder 1.2 million babies a year, and when we have murdered over 50 million since laws against abortion were thrown out by the wicked Roe v. Wade decision, are we really surprised that we have so little respect for human life in our culture? When our children grow up thinking that murdering your own child is "reproductive choice" are we surprised they do not cherish life? Our consciences have been so seared by the bloodshed we allow to take place daily that we need to loudly and vigorously damn the evil men who would coldly gun down school children just so we can feel like we are human beings and not monsters.
If we want a culture that respects life, the answer is not disarming our population or getting rid of movies and video games where the "killing" is special effects or pixels on a computer screen where no one is actually hurt. No, we need to face our wickedness as a nation that has murdered several times more people than the Nazis did in the Holocaust - and we need to repent of this terrible evil.
