Gun Control

[Betsy]

Ian. None of the victims injuries were considered life threatening. The event was certainly horrifying and tragic, but to try to compare this to the absolute lethality of guns is absurd. If this attacker had access to a gun, the carnage would have been much, much worse.

Ah, but I see you are sharing the story to portray another "good guy with a gun" scenario. As in your mind, these instances are more numerous than ones where lives are lost to bad guys with guns.

Let's make this simple. The "bad guys" are killing WAY more people than the number of people of lives being saved by the "good guy".

Simpler: #of people shot and killed > #of people being saved.

Even simpler: free access to guns is killing our country. If guns made us safer, we'd be the safest country in the world.

http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting

[Ian]

if the shooter in minnesota did not have access to a gun, then the carnage could have been much worse.

according to the CDC, approximately 33,000 people die from guns per year. see here.

according to the CDC, defensive gun use by crime victims is a "common occurrence," occurring an estimated "500,000 to more than 3 million" times per year. see here.

33,000 < (500,000 to 3,000,000).

[Steve]

Betsy: free access to guns is killing our country.

This is a provocatively erroneous statement with the same hyperbole that drives politics and sensational media today. Again, it's a smokescreen used to draw attention away from the actual evils that drive murder. Our broadcast signals are being jammed by the enemy and filled with conspicuous propaganda in an attempt to thwart efforts to address the true problems of our day.

If you would like more information about what is killing your country, please refer to the Book of Mormon and modern-day revelation. As I've indicated ad nauseam, you'll find that arms restrictions are the very least of our concerns. There are hundreds (if not more) responses we could take that would save more lives than pursuing gun control. Unfortunately, our fellow citizens and public servants do not have the humility, courage, and clarity to recognize this yet. We need to be better about using our communication channels to share what we know with our neighbors and elected officials.

[Ian]

steve is right. many things are "killing our country."

murder by gun: approximately 8,100 deaths per year.

alcohol: approximately 88,000 deaths per year.

medical errors: approximately 250,000 deaths per year.

tobacco: approximately 480,000 deaths per year.

abortion: approximately 1,000,000 deaths per year.

birth control: unknown number of lives prevented. approximately 38,000,000 women of childbearing age use contraception per year.

of greatest concern to us: our family, our religion and our freedom are under attack.

[John]

And in 2014, the number of deaths by drug overdose:

47,000

http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Causes_ ... JA6GS.dpbs

[Edward]

So, I think it's wonderful and telling that, right in the lobby of the new Philadelphia Temple, there is a painting of the Founding Fathers, starting with Benjamin Franklin, and all the others behind him - signing the Constitution of the United States of America.

A solemn and holy moment indeed. This says volumes about how the Lord views the Constitution, seeing as He found it fitting to put a painting of its signing right in the entryway of His own house. Above the Temple is written, Holiness to the Lord - The House of the Lord. Surely He wouldn't bring anything in to beautify it unless it was worthy. And this document that he inspired "the best spirits on the face of the Earth" at that time to write - is it not truly worthy?



The Lord seems to think so.

[Steve]

Our purposeful world is under the direction of the Lord. It cannot be conceived that the Master would place his children on earth and then forget them! That is not the method of Divinity. Chance does not rule in the heavens or on earth. Men who harbor fear may rest assured that in the providences of the Lord, righteousness will triumph on earth. The Lord's purposes will prevail. That knowledge drives out fear. The highest attainable joy of man, of any man, is the certainty that he lives in a purposeful world made for his good. Fear cannot dwell with such a faith.

Those who do not believe in a purposeful world are to be pitied. They cast God out of their lives. They are atheists, creatures without home or anchorage. Thrown back upon themselves, upon their own weak powers, with no help but that of men, such persons are unspeakably lonely. Fears overtake them, and force them to seek unnatural excitements. The convictions of such men rest upon insecure foundations. They cannot be safely followed.

The confusion and contention, the uncertainty in the world come from the failure to take God into partnership in the acts of our daily lives. We must battle for the right, if needs be. Give evil no quarter. To put trust in God, when we have done our best, is the final refuge of mortal man. Men must give heed to God's voice, as heard through the centuries. If that is done, all is well; but when the Lord is forgotten, disaster overflows the world. ...

Evil, the cause of fear, will turn to good only as righteousness prevails. The Lord will solve all earthly problems only as man makes himself worthy of divine help.

(Elder John A. Widtsoe, General Conference, October 1950) ↗

[Steve]

There would be no wars unless men had forgotten to live righteously. Even the nation that fights for divine principles, the nation on the Lord's side, may have forgotten the Lord in its material prosperity, and thereby have lost wisdom and strength. Thus, it is within the realm of thought that a nation, through war, may bring upon itself deserved chastisement for its own follies.

At times men are justly engaged in war. The eternal battle has been between right and wrong. Whenever evil has girded itself for war, it may be necessary to use the same weapons to secure defeat of evil. Contrary as it may be to righteous feeling, in the fight for the right, cannon must often be used to meet cannon.

(Elder John A. Widtsoe, Why Does the Lord Permit War?, Evidences and Reconciliations)

[Steve]

Of all the problems you encounter in this life, there is one that towers above them all and is the least understood. The worst of all human conditions in this life is not poverty, sickness, loneliness, abuse, or war—as awful as those conditions are. The worst of all human conditions is the most common: it is to die. It is to die spiritually. It is to be separated from the presence of God, and in this life, His presence is His Spirit or power. That is the worst.

(Elder Lawrence Corbridge, Stand For Ever, January 2019) ↗

 
We should place highest priority on addressing the most serious problems.