Gun ControlVic Biorseth, http://www.Thinking-Catholic-Strategic-Center.com Prepping the citizenry for herding via unconstitutional Gun Control legislation. Criminals, by definition, disobey laws. That’s what makes them criminals. They disobey existing laws, and they may reasonably be expected to disobey new laws, because they are criminals. Law abiding citizens, by definition, obey laws. That’s what makes them law abiding citizens. They obey existing laws, and they may reasonably be expected to obey new laws, because they are law abiding citizens. Therefore, gun control laws that restrict citizen gun ownership may reasonably be expected to increase the ratio of gun ownership among the criminal element, and to decrease it among the law abiding. What, then, is the true motivation of those who continually seek to disarm the sovereign American citizen via gun control laws? With remarkable consistency, statistics show higher incidents of crime where gun control laws are the strongest, and lower wherever gun control laws are the weakest, or non-existent. Is there an ulterior motive here? Let’s look a little closer. Amendment II; Constitution of the United States of America:
That’s pretty clear. The right is granted to The People, not to the State. In fact, the State is prohibited from infringing the right. What did it mean to be a “well regulated Militia”? Well, the Militia consisted of every able bodied man between the ages of 15 and 60 not inclusive. So, what did well regulated mean? To regulate was to make regular, meaning, orderly, disciplined and quite predictable, as in, to regulate a clock. In the context of human beings, to regulate them is to bring a person or body of persons to order; in military terms, it would mean to become well trained and “regular” in the military and martial arts. In the pre-Revolutionary period, in military parlance, regulation was near synonymous with training and drilling, with the goal of regulating or making regular. To this day, the term regular soldier is a military term that means, precisely, professional soldier. Not a conscript or draftee; not a militiaman; not a part-time soldier. All of these might become more regulated, but they could never or seldom hope to achieve the level of professionalism of the regular soldier unless and until they lived the life of a soldier full-time. In pre-Revolutionary times, the most awesome and feared soldier on any potential field of battle was the red-coated British Regular; he was referred to as a Regular because of his utter predictability. He would not only exhibit good order in his marching, uniform and equipment, but he could be absolutely counted upon to not break ranks under fire. Any unit of Regulars that would be put into the field by the British could be expected to be a virtual killing machine, because of their extreme regulation. They would be referred to as a well regulated military unit. So, in the language of the day, the authors of Amendment II intended the citizen-soldier – meaning, able bodied men aged between 16 and 59 to be well regulated, meaning, precisely, well trained in the use of military arms. I submit that one cannot become well trained in the use of military arms in the absence of military arms. Redefining Regulated, and Militia. Today’s gun control nuts never cracked open any dictionary from circa 1760s or 1770s, and they would have us believe that what the authors of Amendment II meant by the word regulated was ruled or controlled by the very State that was prohibited from infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms. And that militia no longer meant all able bodied men, but meant instead the various State National Guard units (which may be Federalized at any time by the stroke of a pen,) or Federal Reserve units. Thus, in their interpretation, regulated means under the command of the State or nation, and militia means members of National Guard or Reserve military units. We know from their own writings that that was not the intent of the authors. The concept of the citizen soldier involved the possibility of long periods of time when a large standing army would not be needed or could not be maintained. Our current National Guard and national Reserve military units represent only a tiny fraction of the able bodied men in America. The whole notion of the citizen soldier involves the ability to mobilize all able bodied men quickly, with a minimum of training required. Today, in America, I submit that that cannot be done. The reason may have less to do with gun control laws than with a gun control mindset. Generations of Americans have been raised with a gun control laws are always good, lack of gun control laws is always bad sense inculcated into them over a lifetime of preconditioning. The perceived social need for rigid gun control prevails in education, among leading academics and scholars, in the SLIMC, in the Democrat Party platform, and virtually in the very air we breath. In a similar manner, these same forces demonize the military, the one institution in which citizen skill at arms matters the most. The same Lefties and others who champion gun control laws are our greatest military detractors. Making military service unpopular is a proper step toward eventual total gun control. Where once military service was broadly seen as a duty and an honor, today it is seen, as publicly projected, as an oddity, a negative, even an evil. Anti-military and pro-gun control programs go hand-in-hand. They have the same authors and the same champions. Gun control nuts always seem to be anti-military nuts, and anti-military nuts always seem to be gun control nuts. No matter how technical or how professional our standing armed forces become, no matter how good our National Guard and Reserve units become, they are collectively less of a deterrent to foreign aggressors than a small professional force, like them, that is backed up by a whole nation full of armed and trained able bodied men. That’s the concept of the citizen soldier, or the militiaman. The concept is based on the Swiss model, where, theoretically, whatever else he might be, every man was also a soldier. Now, Switzerland is, militarily speaking, blessed with gigantic mountains, lots of caves and tunnels, and easily controllable very narrow passes and pathways through the mountains. Everywhere in Switzerland are opportune ambush points reminiscent of the pass of Thermopolae made famous by the heroic stand of a mere 300 Spartans against tens of thousands of Persians under Xerxes. But, as in many things, the blessing comes with a curse. Mountains are just as hard to get around in for the Swiss as for any invaders. So, to be ready, whoever is wherever he finds himself once an invasion begins must be prepared to fight at that moment, without waiting for any regulars or reserves to be called up. When the invader is in the pass is the time to act, not the time to communicate, or to plan, or to organize, or to train. Switzerland was forced by circumstance to become a nation of citizen soldiers. And they presented a good model for the rest of Western culture to emulate. Hitler, with all his mighty forces, fully aware that his tanks could only enter these narrow mountain passes one or two at a time, and that a massive blitzkrieg across any broad front in Switzerland was quite impossible, and that all Swiss men were also soldiers, never even tried to take tiny little Switzerland. The citizen-soldier concept, properly applied, is a military deterrent. For centuries, English kings ordered all commoners and peasants to practice diligently with the longbow. There arose in England a veritable “class” of proud men highly skilled at archery and well respected by their peers. When a nobleman had cause to “raise an army” he had access to vast numbers of skilled archers in his domain, who could not only hit what they aimed at, but could rapid fire as many as six aimed arrows per minute. The very existence of such numbers of skilled archers gave pause to would-be invaders. That kind of skill can only be developed over years of regular practice. That’s why we support such things as Boy Scouts of America, the National Rifle Association, various Trap and Skeet clubs, hunting, public ranges, private gun clubs, rifle, pistol and shotgun competitions, archery and so forth. Marksmanship of various kind is not only good for life-long development of individual self control and self discipline, but it also lays the most important piece of groundwork for possible future military training. Beginnings of citizen gun rights. The English Declaration Of Rights of 1689 reinforced the standing right of “Protestants” to not be disarmed, particularly since “Papists” were armed, and employed, in violation of standing law. It defined among those defined as “true, ancient and indubitable rights”, that, “Subjects which are Protestants, may have Arms for their Defense suitable to their Condition, and as allowed by Law.” That precedent would be used and quoted among the September 1768 Boston resolutions presented to the (British) Governor. “ … that the Subjects being Protestants, may have arms for their Defense … for the necessary Defense of the Community.” “ … every listed Soldier and other Householder (except Troopers, who by Law are otherwise to be provided) shall always be provided with a well fix’d Firelock, Musket, Accoutrements and Ammunition, as in said Law particularly mentioned, … ” The resolutions used the pending threat of war with France as an excuse to arm the citizenry, a ploy that fooled no one. The Governor, of course, rejected the resolutions out of hand, and three days later, British Regulars landed in Boston and took control of key strategic points, with no resistance. In December of that year, the English Parliament responded to the Boston resolutions with some resolutions of their own, which called for a Military Force to protect the King’s Civil Magistrate and other Officers of his Majesty’s Revenue, since the Colonists were so upset over this taxation without representation business. They further resolved that the September resolutions from Boston were “ … illegal, unconstitutional, and calculated to execute Sedition and Insurrection in his Majesty’s Province of Massachusetts-Bay.” Of course, things got worse. The Provincial Congress, John Hancock presiding, protested to Governor (and General) Gage about British Regulars invading private property, confiscating ammunition and leaving the Province in a state of defenselessness. Several tons of gun powder had been seized. Militiamen, under arms, began to gather in Boston, threatening to take the munitions back. There were multiple incidents of Regulars disarming Militiamen, but there were too many of them for it to be systematically done. There were cases of a group being disarmed by Regulars, who then encountered a larger group of Militiamen, who would take the arms back. So we can see that the American Experiment began under the specter of an all-powerful and ever increasingly unrepresentative government seeking to enforce rigid gun control on the citizenry, by unrepresentative law, and by superior force of arms. When only the State has the right to bear arms, and the citizens are denied the right to bear arms, what you have is a Police State.A Nation of Laws, or a Nation of Opinions. Gun control advocates, almost invariably, describe our Constitution as a “living, breathing, organic document” that may be changed, or whose meaning may be interpreted in new ways as new needs manifest themselves. Gun control opponents, almost invariably, describe our Constitution as a fixed legal document, written in English, which says very specific legal things. It is the foundational document in mind when we describe ourselves as a Nation of Laws. Thanks largely to the devastating effect that the Democrat Party has had on nominees to our Supreme Court and to the lower courts, we have degenerated, and are degenerating more, into a Nation of Personal Interpretations. Public politocrats, mediacrats, celebrocrats and even real live actual bureaucrats push gun control as a positive issue that “we the people” want. Perhaps “we” whispered in their ear or something. Every single time the polls close, we are told how “we” have spoken, not on whatever we specifically voted on, but on whatever the public speaker interprets our votes to have really meant. Political victory for a candidate or a Party is publicly hailed and interpreted as a People’s Statement on a war, or on gun control, or on any other issue-of-the-moment, other than the actual candidate or Party that won the most votes in the specific election. It’s a form of what they call spin. The predominant spin you will see regarding gun control is that we the people want more gun control, rather than less gun control. Note carefully how much gun control law is regulated rather than legislated. Note well how it is, or is not (or is selectively), enforced, and how cases involving gun control law are adjudicated. Note how many times some bureaucrat is able to make a personal judgment regarding whether an applicant, whether a dealer or a consumer, “needs” the variety or model of weapon applied for. Do we now have official Commissars Of Needs to determine for us what we really need? How nice. It is already illegal for convicted felons and mental incompetents to possess firearms, but that is not enough for the gun control nuts. They want gun control to address the kind of gun possessed, to launch international gun control efforts, and, eventually, for nobody anywhere to possess any firearms. Right. (Well, in their thinking, Utopia is possible.) Assault Rifles, and Saturday Night Specials. Note, in the 1768 Boston resolutions mentioned above, that the “ … well fix’d Firelock, Musket, Accoutrements and Ammunition … ” referred to what were considered to be the purely military assault rifles of the era. And the American Militiamen, the Minute-Men included, equipped themselves with the most modern military arms available at the time. From Brown Bess muskets to the newer “rifles” with actual rifled bores, with bayonets whenever possible. Modern military assault weapons all. Their use was intended to be military. The purpose of a militia is to be trained and fully prepared to serve as a military force on short notice. The only reason any of this should be surprising to you is if you might possibly have been miss-informed and mal-educated about it all your life. ”The founders never intended for private citizens to possess fully automatic weapons!” is most likely what you’ve heard most frequently, from many quarters. Sez who? If fully automatic weapons had been available, they would have been acquired and used by the militia, at the insistence of the founders. The only reason they weren’t mentioned is that they didn’t exist yet. Everyone involved, founders included, bent every effort to get hold of the very latest, best and most modern military weaponry available at the time. Saturday Night Special is a concocted myth alleging that, when someone has a fight with his wife, he goes out in a fit of anger on Saturday night to purchase a gun, with which to go home and murder his wife. Or someone else he’s miffed at. There are no statistics to back it up. It’s a dream. I have been unable to find a good description of one, as a weapon type. It’s a gun control tool of opportunity, pure and simple. You can’t even properly define exactly what a Saturday Night Special is, so, how, exactly, are we to legally restrict them? The answer is that the hidden intent of such a law is to be vague enough for opinionated and highly selective interpretation, enforcement and adjudication. If you define it as cheap, then, you do a disservice to the poor, in restricting them only, while those better off can still afford more expensive guns. No matter how poor it may operate or how cheap it may be, and even no matter how ineffective, it may still be more effective than an old, arthritic fist attached to a poor elderly person who couldn’t afford a better gun. Saturday Night Special gun control laws expressly operate against the poorest among us. For whatever reasons, the Left seems to despise the very notion of self defense, let alone national defense. What’s the answer? Maybe there isn’t one. America now has an overwhelming majority of young and middle-aged men who have never touched a gun and never experienced anything remotely similar to military discipline in their entire lives. And a high percentage, perhaps a majority, among them believe all the public gun control myths, and have no interest in guns or in marksmanship, or even in civil defense. I have written elsewhere in this site about how I would favor establishment of a permanent military draft, but not for the usual reasons. I think all young men should go into military service on their eighteenth birthday, for a period of two years, to be served somewhere as near as possible to their homes. This draft should be the easiest thing in the world to avoid. No one who does not want to serve should be required to serve. Only those who passed a real, rigid, rigorous 12th grade level educational exam, by international standards, would qualify for service in the first place. Right off the bat, that one requirement would disqualify the vast majority of 18 year old American young men. Over time, people would pay attention to where and by whom qualified service members had been educated, since they obviously did a better job than everyone else. It might put pressure on the entire American educational system for improvement. Hopefully over time those who refused service would become the minority, those who qualified physically and mentally might eventually become a majority, and service to country would again become a social norm in America. All veterans know that when you enter a military unit, you are assigned a weapon from that unit’s arsenal. It becomes your weapon. You sight it in, remember your sight-settings, and “own” the weapon while you are a member of the unit. If you get transferred, you turn in your weapon to the unit armorer, and get issued another one in your new unit. And you start all over again, sighting it in, setting your zero and so forth. All rifles shoot just a little differently. I would propose following the Swiss model. The first rifle issued becomes your property, forever, so long as you serve honorably. If and when you transfer to another unit, you take it with you. When you are discharged or retired, you take it home with you. With a supply of ammunition for it. Once a year, in the manner of the Swiss Schuttzenfest, or great annual shooting festival, you take your rifle to the local (and/or county, and/or State, and/or National) shooting competition, where you use up all your old, last-year’s ammunition in competitive shooting matches. Then you get issued a new batch of ammo and go home, hopefully with some kind of trophy. Will it ever happen? Pretty doubtful; but I can dream. Once upon a time, American men were, in general, all recognized as potential fearsome civil defenders. Today we are dependent entirely too much on all together far too few. The problem is that most of us don’t see any need to defend what we have here, or even recognize any threat to it all. Gun control myths have done that to us, and so has the silly, almost suicidal notion that nothing is ever worth fighting for. We have multiple generations of untested and un-conditioned men who don’t even know if they would qualify for service today, let alone if they could get through the rigors of military training. That the founders opposed gun control is clear and obvious. Ben Franklin once said that any government that cannot trust its people with guns cannot be trusted by its people. Yet here we are, with layers and layers of local, county, state and federal gun control laws, in direct violation of Amendment II of the Constitution. Thousands of them. The very concept of gun control is, to me, un-American. So, I have officially registered my determined opposition to gun control and related restrictions on us. The fact that more children are killed by lightning than by home gun accidents does not faze the media or the educators or the Dems. The fact that so many crimes are prevented in America on a regular basis just because of the mere presence of a gun in the hands of a law abiding citizen is censored by them. Women and minorities should take very careful note of attempts to disarm them. I don’t know where all of this will take us. We’ll see. Say an extra prayer tonight for those few who are out there somewhere defending us all.
Return to Web Site Log (Blog) page Return to HOME PAGE Build/Host/Maintain Your Own Personal Website using SBI! (Advertisement) CommentsDate: Sat Mar 14 22:31:17 2009
How do you square the Christian principles of turn the other cheek and do unto to others as you would have done to you with owning a gun? What is the real purpose of a gun if not only to kill? If you say it is for defense are you prepared to take a life? Do you believe Christ would support this? Date: Sun Mar 15 14:22:13 2009
Charlie: Quite often, indeed, most often, crime is thwarted by the mere presence of a deadly weapon in the hands of a victim without a single shot being fired, and without any blood being spilled. This is affirmed both by statistics regarding gun related incidents in America and by Christian Scripture – the Word of God. Yes, I believe our Lord would support this. The fact that our Lord quite voluntarily died for our redemption does not mean that we should allow ourselves or our household to be murdered for lesser causes, for mere worldly things. I believe you are referring to Mattew, as below: Matt 5:39-45 - But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; and if any one would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well; and if any one forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.Putting it into the proper historical-cultural context, our Lord was talking about the relationship between the normal citizen of conquered Palestine and the typical Roman soldier. Palestine had been made subject to Rome, and the authority of Rome was made manifest by the Roman soldier, who was a potentially very dangerous fellow; some of them were absolute brutes. They were the ones who would quite legally, after some legal process, execute you, and some few of them, if they thought they could get away with it, just might murder you for some trivial reason. The Roman law, imposed everywhere throughout the Empire, allowed the Roman soldier to press any non-Roman citizen in sight into his service, for one mile only, to carry his necessary equipment. This would include his heavier armor and weaponry, and his loot, taken in battle, which formed a sort of bonus addition to his regular pay. Often there might be one or more animals and even carts involved to carry it all, but usually not. If he was to march a very long distance, eventually he might have to sell much of what he had or convert it into something he could more easily carry through vast unpopulated areas; or, he might offer to feed and pay someone, as an employee, to go farther than one mile. But so long as people were around, he could press one or more of them into service each mile along the way. Now, if he slapped you, and you smiled and offered the other cheek, this astonishing thing might be taken by him as insolence. It would certainly be a surprise. If he pressed you to go one mile with him, and you happily went two, it would be a form of peaceful resistance, or editorial/rhetorical opposition, in the form of sarcastic over compliance. The soldier’s jaw would certainly drop, and he might be made to think about the injustice of the situation, and the calm bravery of this person. There was nothing wimpy about this quotation of our Lord in Matthew’s Gospel. To stand up and fight the soldiers of Rome was futile, and could only end in defeat and death. But a form of more peaceful résistance might mean eventual victory in hearts and minds, rather than in blood. He died for the Roman soldier, too. It must be remembered that the actual words that came down the mountain with Moses, directly interpreted, were not Thou shalt not kill, but rather, Thou shalt not do murder. Murder was interpreted by the ancient Hebrews, by the early Christians, and is interpreted by the Church today, to mean the unwarranted taking of innocent human life. David set his foot upon the field of honor to do battle with Goliath with what any modern American jurist would call premeditation and malice aforethought. Yet, in the Jewish and the Christian ethos, David did not do murder when he killed goliath, for although Goliath was human, he most certainly was not innocent.Scripture nowhere prohibits, and indeed it reinforces the right of the sitting government to apply lethal punishment, and the right of the police officer to apply whatever force necessary, including lethal force, to keep the larger peace. As I have said before, the right to private property is validated by the Commandment to not steal, and Scripture reinforces the right to defend property. Furthermore, the long history of honorable soldiery reported in the Old Testament is strongly supported by our Lord and His Apostles in the New Testament. Here are some of my evidences:
So, to answer how I “square the Christian principles of turn the other cheek and do unto to others as you would have done to you with owning a gun,“ I do it with a careful reading of Christian Scripture. And, I define “the real purpose of a gun if not only to kill” as a useful implement with which to defend myself, my household and everyone in it, and my property. It poses a valid and very real threat to the life and well-being of anyone who would violate our rights to life, limb, liberty and property. Finally, in the most extreme case, yes, I am prepared to take a life in the prevention of a serious crime. I believe our Lord Jesus Christ would support this position. I pray that it never comes to that, but I have trained, meditated, prayed and prepared myself for it ahead of time. I see being armed as the same as possessing an insurance policy. One never, ever hopes for the worst, but a wise man stands prepared to face it. The opposite approach would be to put a sign on your front door saying “there are no guns in this house” and to not be prepared to defend it, and in fact, to be fully prepared ahead of time to surrender property, self, wife, children and pets to whichever criminal intruder(s) take the invitation and just walk in or break in first. In my opinion, men who are adamantly opposed to defending their own country from any potential tyrant or invader should leave the company of men, and join the ranks of the cowards who sit in the corner and suck their thumbs while awaiting their turn at real victim-hood, while the pitifully few real men put their lives on the line to defend their very right to be. Of course, that’s just my own opinion, and everybody is free to have one and express it. May the Lord bless and keep those pitifully few brave warriors who are out there somewhere this moment protecting all the rest of us. Regards, Vic Date: Wed Jun 24 19:55:34 2009
VIc, Wow I'm amazed at how you've twisted "Thou shalt not kill " into thou shalt not commit murder! Killing is OK if it's warranted? Who on this earth gets to decide who warrants murdering? Is there really some thing material on this earth worth dyeing or killing for? I don't have anything such as that. Preparing yourself to kill is awful. It is not "insurance." In the history of man I do not believe there has been a warranted war, how can dyeing for one's country, AKA, a defined piece of this earth, be reasonable? I believe you could use religion to justify anything if you can use it to justify killing. Your evidence above ... Mark 3:27 - But no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man; then indeed he may plunder his house - is simply a statement not a justification. It is like saying no man shall cross a river dry unless he has a boat or a bridge - true but so what? There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no causes that I am prepared to kill for. -Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi Date: Thu Jun 25 06:41:25 2009
Cpforquer: I have twisted nothing. Thou shalt not do murder is thousands of years old, and certainly not any invention of mine. Consult a Jewish Hebrew scholar for exact translations into English. Refer to the many Scriptural death penalties for an explanation of “warranted” killing on a non-innocent person. You might begin (or end) with the story of David and Goliath.
If you ever find anywhere in Scripture, or anywhere else in world history, any nation not fully prepared to recognize and fight a “warranted war” then you will have found a nation that had an exceedingly short history. Let me know if you even find one; I always enjoy a good short story. Bringing it down a level, you will never find in all of world history any nation or population that did not have a criminal element in it. That’s just the way it is. The common criminal, like the marauding king, will do whatever he perceives that he can get away with. You’re right; you cannot cross a deep river dry without using a bridge or a boat; otherwise, you would get wet. Similarly, you cannot rob a strong man without first binding him, because otherwise, he might beat the snot out of you and have you thrown into prison, at the very least. I do not use my religion to “justify anything.” I use it as a path to my own final judgment and as a moral standard by which to guide my life. It calls me to evangelize, to speak the truth, and to exercise my own judgment, as a responsible adult, which includes the effort to discern between those around me who live by a similar moral standard and those who do not, and to act accordingly. You are free to stand aside and allow invaders to rape, pillage, plunder and burn their way through your household if that is your desire. But this is America, and around here, although there are exceptions to every rule, we generally don’t stand idly around and allow that sort of thing to happen unopposed.
Gandhi was a wonderful man and a great example, who achieved much, and lost much. His story is quite inspirational; however, note well the fact that India was split, and that Moslems and Hindus are still killing each other on the Indian sub-continent to this very day. There just ain’t no such thing as worldly utopia, now, or ever. Perfection is not of this world, but the next. Give it up. This world is never going to be perfect. You are called to do your very best, in your own unique way, while you are here. (Note: See the Death Penalty argument page for more Church teaching on the topic.) Regards, Vic Date: Wed Sep 02 21:59:58 2009
Wow, I've re-visited you again after a "cooling off" period and you statements are disturbing as ever. You twist your religious belief to justify killing and arming your self to intimidation. That I can not forgive, but I am not THE forgiver. How can you feel that your judgment is so superior as to make the life & death decision for another man? Date: Thu Sep 03 06:33:51 2009
cpforquer: Wow indeed. I mean, like, wow. Ho hum, heavy sigh and here we go again. This is just plain blithering. If you don’t even have the beginnings of any sort of coherent argument, why do you just keep embarrassing yourself by commenting here? Until and unless you submit something that may reasonably be responded to in an intelligent way, I’m not even going to publish your future comments. Regards, Vic Date: Tue Dec 01 13:29:29 2009
Matthew 12:29, Mark 3:27, and Luke 11:21 all refer to Jesus expelling the devil (or evil) out of people. They do not refer the use of weapons. If you are honestly using scripture to support your beliefs, why take these words out of context? Date: Tue Dec 01 18:36:40 2009
Curious: I submit that I have taken no more from these three Scriptures out of context than you have. In the larger context, what they are all talking about is the at-handedness of the Kingdom, a daring challenge to the Pharisees, and a strong hint at just Who this healing Jesus might be. These quotes are taken from three different versions of the exact same story by three different inspired authors in the three synoptic gospels. Each one paraphrased the actual words of our Lord slightly differently. Each one told of a healing or a “casting out,” each one told of a false charge against our Lord, and each one told of a direct, bold and frighteningly authoritative response to the false charge, i.e., the Kingdom is upon you! And, each one contained an analogy, understood by all, of how no one in his right mind attempts to rob an armed or strong man who is prepared to defend his property. Everyone understood the analogy then, and it is still crystal clear today. Regards, Vic Please note the language and tone already established in this Website. This is not the place to stack up vulgar one-liners and crude rejoinders. While you may support, oppose or introduce any position or argument, your comments must meet our standards of logical rigor and of civil discourse. We will not participate in trading insults, and we will not tolerate participants trading insults with each other. Participants should not be thin-skinned or over sensitive to criticism, but should be prepared to defend their arguments when challenged. If you don’t really have a coherent argument or counter-argument of your own, sit down and don’t embarrass yourself. If you have something serious to contribute to the conversation, please keep it civil. We apologize to religious conservative thinkers for the need to even say these things.
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