Christians? Using self-defense and Guns?

[jasonc]

the ONLY martyr whom volunteered for it was the Lord on the Cross.

 

[Butch5]

Yet there are many pacifists who DO portray pacifism in just this way. Like most things, there are different levels of it.

So do you think the woman in my post had the opportunity to run away? Not even close to the reality of what happens n an awful lot of these situations.

So which martyrs just out of the blue walked up and volunteered to be murdered because they were Christians? I don't mean those who accepted the fate that was forced on them more peacefully than other people would because they knew when it was over they were going to heaven. Which ones volunteered for it without being forced?

I don't know if she had the chance to run or not, however, as I said, there was nothing wrong with her yelling for the police. God has His ministers that for that purposed. My position is Jesus didn't intend His followers to be these ministers.

Regarding the martyrs, you're doing the same thing again, people aren't going to just walk up and say kill me. However, some of them, when they were captured and questioned were given the choice to deny Christ and be set free, many refused to deny Him knowing full well it meant death. Here is the account of Polycarp.

Chapter 9. — Polycarp refuses to revile Christ.
Now, as Polycarp was entering into the stadium, there came to him a voice from heaven, saying, “Be strong, and show thyself a man, O Polycarp!” No one saw who it was that spoke to him; but those of our brethren who were present heard the voice. And as he was brought forward, the tumult became great when they heard that Polycarp was taken. And when he came near, the proconsul asked him whether he was Polycarp. On his confessing that he was, [the proconsul] sought to persuade him to deny [Christ], saying, “Have respect to thy old age,” and other similar things, according to their custom, [such as], “Swear by the fortune of Cæsar; repent, and say, Away with the Atheists.” But Polycarp, gazing with a stern countenance on all the multitude of the wicked heathen then in the stadium, and waving his hand towards them, while with groans he looked up to heaven, said, “Away with the Atheists.” Then, the proconsul urging him, and saying, “Swear, and I will set thee at liberty, reproach Christ;” Polycarp declared, “Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He never did me any injury: how then can I blaspheme my King and my Saviour?”
Early Church Fathers - – Ante-Nicene Fathers: The Writings of the Fathers Down To A.D. 325.

 

[jasonc]

so its not a sin to have a cop save your life? ok, hey Obadiah, go steal for me. that makes no sense. use the action of a sin to stay alive but don't be the guy who must perform that action as its a sin.

 

[Jesse]

Jesse,
From my conversations, being a Cop is much like Urban Combat but on a smaller, but just as dangerous, scale. If you think about them not killing you, you slow down. I only thought those type of thoughts off duty. My thoughts were, pay attention, look at the conditions we were entering into and to think... what if, so I was planning all the time.

I'm betting Obidiah will answer you soon.

You were a cop, too? I didn't know that.

To either you or Obidiah - in the last few incidents in the news, why did the officers shoot to kill instead of hurt to stop? Just curious, but maybe it's just the training?

 

[LovethroughDove]

the ONLY martyr whom volunteered for it was the Lord on the Cross.

You don't know that.

 

[Obadiah]

...Regarding the martyrs, you're doing the same thing again, people aren't going to just walk up and say kill me. However, some of them, when they were captured and questioned were given the choice to deny Christ and be set free, many refused to deny Him knowing full well it meant death....

Yeah, that's not really much of a choice, is it? Don't deny Christ and we kill you now or deny Christ and when you do die you get to go to hell. It's not like they had an option of living without denying Christ, is it?

I don't know if she had the chance to run or not, however, as I said, there was nothing wrong with her yelling for the police. God has His ministers that for that purposed. My position is Jesus didn't intend His followers to be these ministers...

She had no chance to run. I was there, remember? I dealt with her drug crazed attacker, almost killing him with a steep tube, and I described his strength and viciousness. Did that sound like someone who would let a defenseless pacifist woman run away from him?

She was extremely lucky that someone heard her calling for help, took it seriously and called the police, and lucky that I was actually close enough to get there before she was killed. Normally that's not the way these things play out. Normally by the time we get there we find a dead or half dead body laying there, or noting at all because the attacker has dragged the person off to somewhere else or hidden the body in the lake.

Now if she'd had a way to defend herself, she wouldn't have had to suffer through the horrible torture, pain, and violation of what was done to her before we could get there and stop it. It is NOT ok that she had to suffer through this and has to live the rest of her life with the physical and emotional scars that are never going to go away just to be nice to some vicious drug crazed thug that, due to her prior pacifist ideals, she had made no attempt to protect herself from.

 

[Obadiah]

You were a cop, too? I didn't know that.

To either you or Obidiah - in the last few incidents in the news, why did the officers shoot to kill instead of hurt to stop? Just curious, but maybe it's just the training?

Not sure which incidents you are talking about. Ferguson is one of them perhaps? But I rarely pay much attention to the news as I've been involved in a lot of things that made the news so I've seen the distortions and outright lies a lot of the reporters do to the truth. Since unlike the situations I was involved in personally, I wasn't the one involved in any of the latest news stories so I don't know the details of why things happened that way they did.

As for shooting to kill, no, that's not the case with proper self defense training. Except for very rare situations the goal in a shooting situation is to stop whatever it is the person is doing. But as is the nature of a chunk of metal entering a human body faster than the speed of sound, there is a good chance the person will die from it. Shooting someone in the leg, or shooting a gun or knife out of their hand is fantasy stuff for the movies, not even close to real life. You'd have to almost be God himself to be able to aim a gun that precisely in any defense situation that was violent enough to justify a shooting.

Now, will a person with a gun shoot to kill out of revenge because they know they can justify it by saying they only shot to stop and unfortunately the guy died from it. Sure. Everybody's human, and some people do the wrong thing. But that doesn't mean everyone does the wrong thing or that it's sinful to defend ourselves or others from attackers. I've had a few opportunities where I could have done just this, and the human side of me really wanted to kill the guy. But the side of me that tells me to do what's right kept me from shooting to kill out of revenge and I used other options that were still available to me instead. As a result I've never yet had to shoot anyone.

 

[jasonc]

You don't know that.

If I lay my down, I shall pick it up again.

whom said that and what manner of death did he die?

 

[LovethroughDove]

If I lay my down, I shall pick it up again.

whom said that and what manner of death did he die?

Romans 8:15-17 For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father". The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs - heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

 

[jasonc]

Romans 8:15-17 For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father". The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs - heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

NOT all are called to do that. so jesus says commit suicide for him. show me where paul said he was told he would die first in rome. notice you cant find that. he was told that he would be a testimony in rome. seldom does god tell us what manner of death. peter didn't know his death.

" peter when thou art old men shall carry thee to place thou wouldest not go. he said this as this is the manner peter died" peter was crucified upside down.

 

[tobewell]

It was an open opportunity for anyone wanting to persecute the Early Church to do so with confinement and ultimatums that would result in their deaths. They originally met for worship at known places and established known days of worship.

Caesars in the Roman Empire declared themselves God and forced loyality to their divinity requiring that subjects display their loyalty by burning incense to them.

Paul said he would be poured out like a libation to the Lord and he extolled the Early Church to sacrifice their bodies:

Paul's Letter to Timothy:

"*e For I am already being poured out like a libation, and the time of my departure is at hand.* I have competed well; I have finished the race;f I have kept the faith.* From now on the crown of righteousness awaits me, which the Lord, the just judge, will award to me on that day,g and not only to me, but to all who have longed for his appearance."


Romans 12:

"Sacrifice of Body and Mind.*

I urge you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship.ab



The matryrs in the Early Church had remarkably strong pin pointed faith in the Risen Christ.


"The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity" matryrs of the 3rd century is available online and it graphically details the Roman Empire's persecution of the Early Church.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetua_and_Felicity

 

[th1b.taylor]

Yes, I have a ton of them. A few people have told me I should write a book, but a lot of the ones people find exciting to read about really aren't such good memories in real life. Believe me, I held back a lot of the details in my post above because I just don't want some innocent reader to have nightmares. I've gone into detail of a few incidents over dinner (when prodded for them) and people lost their appetite. Most people don't really want to know the real life details of what a heartless thug will do to them. It ruins their fantasy that everything really will always be OK.

As for what I think about in these situations... I didn't think about much at all. There is no time to think. You automatically fall back on your training or you die. That's why although I support the right of law abiding people to carry guns and other arms for defense, I also always strongly emphasis they NEED to be properly trained. That's why all military and police forces have training requirements. Without training, you end up with situations like the guy who wakes up in the middle of the night and shoots a family member because he thought it was a burglar, or the woman armed with a gun who is confronted by a criminal that simply takes the gun away from her and shoots her with it. (The two most favorite scenarios the anti-gun crowd always like to bring up.) There's no valid excuse for those kind of things to happen if someone is serious about being trained properly and is willing to put their training into practice if ever needed.

That guy on dust with his super human strength could have easily jumped up and torn me apart had I given him the chance, so I just kept wailing on him so he didn't get the chance to do that. I knew from my training and past experience that had he turned on me before I could get control of him, my only option left would have been to shoot him and in all likelihood kill him. And no, had it degenerated to that, I wouldn't have hesitated for a second to do that... and I would have gone home and slept soundly without any guilt because I would have known I did what was proper and needed to stop what was happening to that poor woman and to protect myself while doing it.

Bill, it's something the same I guess. I've never been in a war zone, but as a street cop it's pretty rare to get attacked with ROCKETS!!! But yeah, a bullet was just as dangerous in Los Angeles as it was in Nam. Pre-planning by thinking through all the possibilities that you can imagine ahead of time and working out solutions in your mind is what saves you if one of those scenarios becomes reality, as eventually one day one of them will. And I have been shot at, by a guy barricaded across the street that had put in a call to set us up so he could shoot one of us. Wasn't hit because I dove for cover behind a brick planter, but I could hear the bullets hitting the wall right behind me. One "imaginary" situation I had previously worked out in my head was what to do if (in the dark) I was being shot at and was lit up by a light. If I couldn't return fire, given the chance I would at least put out the light as quickly as possible so I was less of a target, keeping me alive until the next solution would be put into play. Sure enough, when I dove behind the planter it was on the porch of a house with a porch light up above me lighting up me and my partner (a fine young woman who was a student at the academy just on her first ride-along. And she performed wonderfully too! I wrote her a commendation after it was over.) But to the shooter I can imagine we looked like a couple of spotlighted ducks in a shooting gallery any time we popped our heads up to try to return fire. So without even having to think about it, I rolled over on my back and put a bullet in the light. At least if I was going to die that night, I wasn't going to make it any easier on the shooter than I had to. When these things happen, most times they happen so fast that you don't even think about it or feel any fear until it's over. (Then as the adrenaline rush leaves, you feel like you're going to pass out!) I imagine in that way it's similar in war, but at least as a city cop it doesn't happen anywhere near as often.

Yes, the adrenalin high is incredible until it stops flowing and then I just wanted to lay down but in my case that was never to be because we had to be ready for the next shooters. In my worst situation we were holed through the floor and the roof. The hole in the floor, from a Chinese .51 cal. was between my feet.
We had just disengaged covering the other bird as they picked up our two pilots, the crew chief and the gunner on the bird they had shot down.

My Pilot watched the instruments from the Center column over to the left door and the Peter Pilot covered the instruments from Center column right. My business was the center column when we wer not engaged in aerial combat.

As I was feeling the muscle pains in my arms and legs I let go of my machine gun, leaned back and looked at the top of the instruments and never looked any lower because the fifty slapped the floor and roof. I looked down and thought I could see flickering light.

I looked again at the top of the Center at my fuel gage and it was slowly but steadily falling toward empty. I told my 19 year old Pilot to test the fuel gage, he did and it tested good so I told him to get us five thousand feet in the air. He thought I was old and wise because I was the Company's senior crew chief and I was twenty-four years old and nick named Pops.

He and I had discussed this situation over a little 151 Rum and he knew what to do. At altitude he told me we were pulled back to twenty knots, to check the fuel tanks. I unhooked my mike, we used no seat belts, and as I swung out the door the new Gunner gripped the Chicken Pole to keep from falling out as he watched me crawl out onto the skid and disappear.

When I clawed my way back in the Gunner was fixed in position, wrapped around his chicken pole with eyes the size of dinner plates. The fuel was gushing and we landed before the fuel ran out. I want run you through the conversation before we ripped the guns off the ship and crawled up the tree. I do recall telling my Gunner something about having a mile to kiss something on my body good-bye before I would kiss the dirt.

When the rescue arrived I hurt so bad in my leg, shoulder and arm muscles that I thought it would never pass. One can hurt themselves bad when the body goes into super charged. Yes sir, that much I'll not miss being as old as I am now but it was a great responsibility to be the servant to those Cavalry Men on the ground. To this day when we meet at the VA we argue over who was nuts, me or them... very good mmen and so young.

 

[reba]

You may have been drunk or just nuts but you were willing...
Joh_15:13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

 

[th1b.taylor]

You were a cop, too? I didn't know that.

To either you or Obidiah - in the last few incidents in the news, why did the officers shoot to kill instead of hurt to stop? Just curious, but maybe it's just the training?

I was never a cop, the duties are just very similar. In the New York death there was no gun violence at all. Neither did the Officer have a choke hold on the perp. Anxiety threw him into a heart attack. In the Ferguson Death, M. Brown was high on weed, just robbed the store, assaulted the Cop and tried to take control of the Officer's gun to kill him. He had gotten, at least 30 feet away from the Officer before he stopped and began to charge back on him. At some point between that thirty feet and ten feet from the Officer he took a round in the torso as he was seen to jerk and stop charging. Then he began charging again, remember, Brown had already thrown the Cop into the front seat of the crusier and tried to kill him and now, with his head down in the last ten feet he is about to bulldoze the officer for what, to kill him? I would have taken the head shot also.

Remember the only witnesses, eight of them, that never changed their testimony were presented to the Grand Jury and all eight confirmed this account to be true, justifiable homicide.

 

[th1b.taylor]

You may have been drunk or just nuts but you were willing...
Joh_15:13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

We all might have been because that half gallon of cheap 151 rum was always inthe cargo compartment to celebrate when they missed... stupid brave young fools, yep we never refused to go and all Spades were like that.

 

[th1b.taylor]

I only made one claim and that was that the early Christians wouldn't use violence. I proved that from the church quotes. You asked for a Scriptural argument, I gave one, you chose not to read it. There's not much else to say.

No, the quotes proved their aims, nothing else and being I'll pass seventy 31 days after Christmas, I know men very well. I have spent years training and leading them and to not know their failures would make me silly dumb. The creeds prove nothing and you have yet to demonstrate that what you teach with this is scriptural. As Christians, we have a copy of the Owner's Manual for mankind and nowhere in scripture, taken in context, is there a case to be built for cowardice.

The truly sad thing of this false gospel is that a coward dies thousands of deaths before he or she goes off to judgment. I will die, only the natural death and that, only once.

 

[th1b.taylor]

You may have been drunk or just nuts but you were willing...
Joh_15:13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

Reba,
I keep coming back to this post and laughing. when did you meet the young Bill Taylor because both, absolutely were true. You had to have bumped into the young maniac that loved people and drank like a fish.

 

[Jesse]

I was never a cop, the duties are just very similar. In the New York death there was no gun violence at all. Neither did the Officer have a choke hold on the perp. Anxiety threw him into a heart attack. In the Ferguson Death, M. Brown was high on weed, just robbed the store, assaulted the Cop and tried to take control of the Officer's gun to kill him. He had gotten, at least 30 feet away from the Officer before he stopped and began to charge back on him. At some point between that thirty feet and ten feet from the Officer he took a round in the torso as he was seen to jerk and stop charging. Then he began charging again, remember, Brown had already thrown the Cop into the front seat of the crusier and tried to kill him and now, with his head down in the last ten feet he is about to bulldoze the officer for what, to kill him? I would have taken the head shot also.

Remember the only witnesses, eight of them, that never changed their testimony were presented to the Grand Jury and all eight confirmed this account to be true, justifiable homicide.

I didn't know the whole story with the Ferguson shooting, but I did see the video of he tossing around the clerk. I also think that if the clerk would have had a gun and stopped the robbery, this would never have been a story, regardless if the clerk shot him dead or not. But instead, he went out and struggled with a cop, but the rest of it I did not know.

I don't understand why people think they can fight a cop or why they would? I really don't get it because the cop will kill you if you do. Yet, if they do attack a cop, the cop shoots him dead, then everyone is surprised?

The story about the 12 year old who pulled out what looked like a real pistol, that one is disturbing all the way around. Why did he think it was ok to carry a gun like that around? Why didn't his parents let him carry it around? Why did he think it was ok to pull the gun on the cop? The cop wouldn't have known how old he was, so it was a life threatening situation for him, just thinking if he would have just maimed him, it would have stopped him maybe.

The more people disrespect the authority, the more authority fights back, the more people fight back - it's in a perpetual progressive cycle.

 

[th1b.taylor]

You don't know that.

That is what the scriptures teach.

 

[th1b.taylor]

I didn't know the whole story with the Ferguson shooting, but I did see the video of he tossing around the clerk. I also think that if the clerk would have had a gun and stopped the robbery, this would never have been a story, regardless if the clerk shot him dead or not. But instead, he went out and struggled with a cop, but the rest of it I did not know.

I don't understand why people think they can fight a cop or why they would? I really don't get it because the cop will kill you if you do. Yet, if they do attack a cop, the cop shoots him dead, then everyone is surprised?

The story about the 12 year old who pulled out what looked like a real pistol, that one is disturbing all the way around. Why did he think it was ok to carry a gun like that around? Why didn't his parents let him carry it around? Why did he think it was ok to pull the gun on the cop? The cop wouldn't have known how old he was, so it was a life threatening situation for him, just thinking if he would have just maimed him, it would have stopped him maybe.

The more people disrespect the authority, the more authority fights back, the more people fight back - it's in a perpetual progressive cycle.

My dad, WW II Pacific Veteran and Korean War vet taught me that when, not if but when a Police Officer (he had better never hear me call one a Cop) pulled me over, I was to be polite and it the Officer told me to jump to ask him how high and how many times. My dad grew up when Cop was an insult, still should be.