Guns and Trigger-Happy Spirits

Some weeks ago, the Lord placed in my heart this topic for a post:

Guns and Trigger Happiness.

It didn’t seem like a new topic to me as I have a number of times shared my opinion on guns and its effects on our society, whether as a rant on Facebook or a short post. In many ways, I have seen the effect of guns and I still wonder why anyone will fight to keep them in circulation. But it has become more of a political matter than a common sense one, so the effects will continue until, probably, the end of time itself.

This morning I had the urge to write a post even though I had not decided on what exactly, but as I picked my phone, my attention was drawn to my Facebook memory and a short post I had written in 2016. I read it and knew it was the Lord drawing my attention to what He wanted me to talk about, but not in the ways I had done previously.  I have added to the original post and I hope it touches a heart.

***

It’s really sad how America and a good portion of the world have turned on themselves with guns. As I think about it, it reminds me of the reasons why I stopped watching shows like Hawaii Five-0 and its counterparts. In those shows, I noticed a sudden trend:

There is a bad guy with a gun, a bad guy who probably needs to pay for all the crimes he has committed (at least that’s how I feel). He is being chased down by the cops and there is an opportunity for the cops to take him down. (If you ask me to write the story where shots must be fired, I’ll make sure the bad guy gets shot in the hand, that way he can’t shoot back but most probably would be alive enough to dance to the drumbeats of his crimes. Or maybe he can get shot in the leg, surely he’ll fall to the ground in pain…but I’m not the writer of the show, so let’s get back to the story) The bad guy gets an opportunity to run away, the good cop surfaces from his hideout (behind a car) and aims straight for the head of the bad guy. The rest is for the makeup artist to figure out.

I noticed this over and over again; cops in these shows get the opportunity to disarm someone but instead decide they are better off dead. To me, the killings were becoming senseless, even if I didn’t really like the bad guy. I began to question the motive of these shows, and I wondered if cops, in reality, are trained to preserve lives to face the law or do what these shows portrayed. But the recent happenings are suggesting that my fears are justified. Fortunately, I can decide to turn off my TV set when Hawaii Five-0 comes on, but unfortunately, when the reality is on TV, how does one ignore it?

I’ve always had the opinion that all those games children play, games like GTA and the likes, that encourage random killings and vices as a whole have greatly dented the fabric of our society. Children with access to guns (and low self-esteem) have the opportunity to practice what they play on their 42″ TV screen, after all, is there any HD better than real-life? Somehow ‘some’ cops in Hollywood have carried their acts from our TV screens to our streets, unfortunately, it’s a life snuffed out, not a character cancelled from some HBO series. It’s real blood, not ketchup. Like any other addict, those who have found comfort in their loaded steel companions can have a go at anyone anywhere just because they can. It’s easier to take a life than talk through an issue to find a resolution, as if the cost of a life is nothing at all. Yes, a pencil can be used as a weapon, so can any blunt stick, but a pencil and a blunt stick cannot kill 58 people and hurt hundreds of others all in a matter of minutes.

But as I think again, I’m reminded of two books written by one of my favourite writers, Frank Peretti: This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness. I see how this is a battle of worlds, fought somewhere in the spirit realm for the souls of men, and how this battle really isn’t about to end.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Ephesians 6:12

All these happenings, whether in the West or in Africa or Asia point us to one thing: There’s a war going on, for lives, whether black or white or yellow or blue. The matter of guns and war and all the evil in the world is not as much a political matter as it is spiritual. The devil is more interested in taking as many lives as he can and will do anything to achieve it, and this is just one of the many ways he does his business, by manipulating our desires and distracting us from the very things we must be concerned about.

Last Friday I had a dream which I shared with a few friends of mine so we could pray about it together. In my dream, some family members and I were driving off in a car trying to get out of a particular environment when we noticed so many police cars racing towards our direction. I thought something terrible had happened in the place we were leaving until I noticed that the heavily armed police were running from danger themselves. There was slaughtering everywhere by bare-chested men holding guns and machetes, killing people at random. We got out of the car and tried to escape but we were outnumbered. I shook myself to wake up as they came close enough to kill me.

Even though I know my dream was specifically about a particular country, the bloodshed of innocent people around the world is increasing at an alarming rate. We must turn away from political and personal decisions that have serious spiritual consequences. We must fight for peace by fighting on our knees or else we would lose our nations to bloodshed.

There’s a war going on – pick your side!