Someone else has decided that the only way to resolve a dispute is to start shooting people. Preliminary reports are that it was a worker's squabble that got out of hand. So far, the story is that the gunman is dead, one bystander is dead, and ten wounded (one critically).
I've had worker's squabbles. Several, in fact. I've even threatened a couple of co-workers. One tried to fry me with 460V three-phase electricity because he was too lazy to secure the leads in the starter box and it blew up while I was standing on the equipment. It was a miracle I wasn't instantly killed. The next thing he knew there was a fifteen inch crescent wrench under his nose and me in his face. Another time a boss of mine thought he could cuss me out, while he was drunk, and talk to me like a dog. He didn't do it again.
I've been fired, demoted, had my pay cut, given crappy jobs, unjustly removed from a project, called nasty names, and even been homeless and thrown out on the street because some people didn't like me. Not once...not one time...did I EVER think about shooting, much less killing, somebody. I never was even in the same universe in thinking of killing people who never did anything to me.
The thought processes that go through the minds of these people that do such things is as alien to me as the Greek language. I have sorely disliked some people in my life but I have never hated them. You see, it takes hate to kill another human being. The Bible says that if you ONLY hate someone else you have already committed their murder. If you actually kill someone from your hate, then you have done twice the crime. The Colorado shooter and the Fort Hood shooter and the Sikh Temple shooter and now the Empire State Building shooter all had to have hate in their hearts to do such things. Where does this kind of hate come from? Why does it exist? Well, I could write a thousand pages of why and where but the vast majority of the population would never read it and if they did; wouldn't believe it. What people would rather do is point at the weapon. (shrill voice) "It was the gun that did it! It..was ...the...gun!!!" No, it was the hateful person wielding the gun.
The United Kingdom has outlawed almost every type of gun in their country. If you own a shotgun it must be kept in a locked safe, with a trigger guard, unloaded, with the ammo locked away separately. The police even come by your house from time to time in order to prove you are in compliance with the regulation. So, you know what they have seen an increase in? Knife crime. People are being stabbed, cut, sliced and diced at a rate the country has never seen before, and it's only getting worse. They are even talking in Parliament about outlawing knives. I guess the Brits will have to start thinking of better ways of slicing their steak. Maybe just pick it up off the table and chew on it like a bear. I don't know.
People have been killing each other ever since they were created and fell from Grace. If you believe that kind of thing. If you don't, then people have been killing each other since they crawled out from the primordial ooze. Either way, we're a pack of killers. Throughout our history, we have developed and devised better and more efficient ways to kill each other. If you take away the efficiency, then we revert to the next best thing that works. The argument is, "Yeah? Well, if someone has a knife they can't kill a whole bunch of people! Dude!" Hmmmm. It was only a few months ago in Asia where a knife-wielding madman went running down a crowded street and killed more than ten people and wounded more than fifty. Never underestimate a determined idiot bent on a high body count. The answer to this is, "Oh yeah? Well, you don't see it happen that much when it's a knife! Dude!" I ask those who say that to start reading this blog entry again and note what is happening in the UK. I know. I lived there for about four years.
If you take away the guns, people will use knives. If you take away the knives, people will use clubs. You can't take away the clubs, because anything can be used as a club. What must be taken away is the hate. And, according to the Bible, there is only one thing that can take that away. Even the Islamic faith doesn't promise such a thing. If it does, then why do we see so much bloodshed among them as well?
But, people refuse to believe in a loving God providing a saviour whereby hate can be eradicated. They would rather rely on the 'goodness' within the human heart and the human spirit. How sad. Because within the human heart and the human spirit is born the inherent seed of hate. We come with it. If you are a parent, have you ever had to teach your child how to misbehave? Be selfish? Be rebellious? Disobey? I rest my case. No, children must be taught manners, authority, rules of conduct and accepted societal mores. Otherwise, they end up like this idiot in New York today, thinking that it's all about them.
I heard a policeman say something one time that was very profound. He said that you can go to any prison in the United States and talk to any prisoner that is there and you will find out one thing common among them all. They were never taught simple manners and the respect of others. Respect diffuses hate. Manners weakens hate. It allows the spirit and heart of man to be open to a message of ultimate love and sacrifice. And if the man responds to that message positively, you will have someone like me. Someone who is incapable of hating. Someone who would kill only if protecting himself and family from deadly harm. Someone who finds the actions committed today in New York disgusting. Yet, it won't happen for the masses. They believe in temporal things, and have thrown spiritual things to the side. God is dead, they say. Didn't you know that? Well, he certainly is in the lives of those who indiscriminately kill. Isn't he?