It hasn't been just the girlies and me at the pool; a lot of thoughty-thoughts have been swimming around -- in my noggin. Like my revolutionary new Affirmative Action plan, where once every few random years, we switch the incoming Yale freshman class with an equal number of day laborers from around the country. (Hey, Einstein said "You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother." So if those professors really understand what they're talking about, they should have no problem explaining it to relative beginners, right? Although why Einstein singled out "grandmothers" is beyond me; most grandmas I know are pretty smart. I mean, how did they survive that long otherwise? But I am getting severely off-topic here.)


This story is deeply disturbing to me.

It bothers me as an American, that our country has become so accepting of guns or so afraid of the gun lobby that ... well, I'll let the NRA guy explain: “We have a very active agenda in all 50 states,” said Chris W. Cox, legislative director of the N.R.A., widely considered the country’s most powerful lobby. “We have right-to-carry laws in over 40 states; 20 years ago, it was in just six.”

I don't like people who instill fear in people, and then capitalize on it. Frankly, I believe they are doing evil. The gun lobby is a group of people who stoke and live off fear, the type of fear that leads people to believe they need a gun in a national park not to defend themselves against bears or mountain lions or wolves, but against assaults from other human beings.

So, you go on vacation to view the breathtaking, awe-inspiring nature, but in the back of your mind, you're thinking someone is going to attack at any moment? Is that any way to live? Do any facts or statistics bear out your paranoia?

And that's another thing that bothers me about this whole thing: facts. Logic. And the lack thereof. An entire swath of people in this country seems to feel that not only do facts and logic not apply when considering one's day to day actions and beliefs, but those who DO try to consider such things are enemies bent on attacking their way of life!

On this note, the last paragraph, using the pastor's very own words, chills me to the bone.

“When someone from within the church tells me that being a Christian and having firearms are contradictions, that they’re incompatible with the Gospel — baloney,” he said. “As soon as you start saying that it’s not something that Christians do, well, guns are just the foil. The issue now is the Gospel. So in a sense, it does become a crusade. Now the Gospel is at stake.”

When did "baloney" become a valid debate point? When the soldiers were coming for Jesus, and Peter took a sword and cut off one guard's ear in self-defense, did Jesus say, "You, go, Peter! Good job!" Or, did he heal the guard's ear and tell Peter he was on the wrong track? Isn't that a Gospel-based point AGAINST the use of weapons? But he doesn't even TRY to use some weirdo-logic to explain that away. He just says "Baloney" and leaves it at that.

And I've been trying to figure out what his last sentence means for two days now. Can someone explain how defending guns becomes defending the Gospel?

I've already kinda touched on why this bothers me from a religious standpoint. Clearly, the Gospel of Fox News has replaced the true Gospel for too many people. This is not news to me. Frankly, it's pretty much European history itself at this point -- a morphing of Jesus's words and philosophy into whatever you want them to be, to justify your viewpoint. I'm not shocked by it, but I am bothered by it.

But I'm not going to start shooting anyone over it.