guns and people

to start on a light note - have you seen the street art stating,

people don't kill forests, Gunns kill forests?

i always chuckle (and then feel sad when i look at photos of the environmental raping of old-growth forests and the incactivity of both tassie state, and aussie federal governments)

but moving into my main point, we’ve seen this week with the shocking events in Virginia in the US, listening to virginia trioli's interview on 702 ABC sydney the day afterwards with a representative from the seemingly omnipotent gun lobby, i couldn't help reflecting on the fallen state of mankind.

i heard again the same old thing dragged out – guns don’t kill people, people kill people.
The way to prevent mass shootings like this, claims the omniscient gun advocate, is to educate people - in the home, in the schools - to be nice to one another, to teach them they don’t need to kill one another, there are other ways to deal with issues.

Which is fine, is good, is a great idea – but it denies something that we’ve seen all through history, all over the world:
The state of man is fallen - we’re stumble-prone.

Jeremiah 17:9 is a top verse to remember. it says:

The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?

who can understand why the only option remaining is to shoot dozens of people, to blow up bombs in a market, to carpet-bomb a city?

the desperation and frustration we feel with injustice and insecurity is not something that can be solved with violence;

but as long as people seek for justice anywhere else but in the judge of the world, in the Only Just God, our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our Lord, maybe it's not such a great idea to supply them with semi-automatic weapons?