The Massacre in Orlando and the COGs

Type of rifle used in massacre at Orlando.
Nine million are in circulation around America.

A horrific massacre occurred in Orlando in which fourty-nine innocent people were shot to death in the most deadly mass shooting in American history. Thoughts and condolences to the victims and their families and friends.

The gunman who was born and raised in America targeted a gay bar using weapons he had legally acquired a few days earlier even though he had been investigated by the FBI as early as 2013. His ex-wife has said he had a history of mental illness, had used steroids and had beaten her up. The gunman's father said it his loathing of gays that motivated this deadly armed rampage. Will the issue of domestic violence define discussion of this
 
The gunman made a phone call declaring his allegiance to the foul criminal network known as ISIL and ISIL claimed responsibility but at present it seems quite possible that the gunman organized this mass shooting all by himself.

The Possession of Guns

One strident opinion about the massacre in Orlando.

While many have proposed enacting some sort of control over the supply and distribution of firearms, such as banning assault rifles from retail distribution which was in force from 1994 to 2004, PCG's leaders seem to think such a move is to be opposed and denounced as a move toward tyranny. In early 2013 PCG's leader, Gerald Flurry, released a booklet denouncing the Obama Administration entitled America Under Attack. One issue he brought up was gun control. He chose to assert that President Obama was trying to take peoples' guns away even though no one is actually proposing to simply take everyone's guns.

The Reason for the Second Amendment

Look at the way the administration is handling the gun-control debate in America today.

On Dec. 14, 2012, a young man named Adam Lanza killed twenty 6-to-7-year-old children. He had some serious mental problems; he almost looked like a young girl; his parents were divorced; he was living with his mom and his father wasn’t around. Nearly every time a tragedy like this happens, there is a dysfunctional family in the background. Something is wrong with our families!

Yet what is the solution, according to the politicians and the media? Ban the guns!

The radical left wants to take away people’s guns—at least, the guns of law-abiding people. The criminals are not about to give up their guns.

After the football player Jovan Belcher killed his girlfriend and then himself, Bob Costas said on an NFL broadcast on NBC that this wouldn’t have happened if Belcher hadn’t had a gun. A linebacker is big enough that he could have killed her without a weapon. But they’re going after guns.

I’m told that NBC has some of the bloodiest movies on television! Yet they’re trying to tell Americans to get rid of the guns. Why don’t we start with getting rid of the bloody television programs? Is it possible that’s a bigger problem?

The Second Amendment in the U.S. protects the people’s right to bear arms, but for what? If you listen to the left, you would never know. To hear them talk about it, its purpose is so Americans can go out and shoot deer.

That isn’t the reason for the Second Amendment at all. The main point was to protect the citizens from government tyranny. The government might decide to take over, and if you don’t have guns or something to defend yourself, what are you going to do (unless you have God’s protection)?

Why won’t the radical liberals mention that? That is the real world that our Founding Fathers came out of! That is the real world today! But the liberals won’t even mention that. Oh, please! they say. You know that could never happen!

But government tyranny is routine in human history, and they know it! Why are they so deceitful? Is it because they have an ulterior motive? Let’s not be naive and think something like that could never happen here. Our forefathers weren’t stupid. They wanted to guarantee Americans’ freedom. They really knew that God was a God of freedom; He wants us to be free. That’s a gift from God, and they understood that!

Do you remember how we gained our freedoms? A lot of people bled and a lot of people died to give us the freedoms we have today. And they wouldn’t have gotten it without guns, unless God just gave it to them.

I wonder how many Americans even know that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. It is similar to how the Ten Commandments is the supreme law of God’s Church and the foundation of the entire Bible. It works beautifully if you just apply it.

More Executive Actions

In 1938, just before World War II, Hitler made this executive order: “Jews are prohibited from acquiring, possessing and carrying firearms and ammunition, as well as truncheons or stabbing weapons. Those now possessing weapons and ammunition are at once to turn them over to the local police authority. Whoever willfully or negligently violates the provisions will be punished with imprisonment and fine. This regulation is valid in the state of Austria and in the Sudeten German districts.”

He added “Sudeten” because Germany had already been “given” that land by Britain, and the Czechs had to go along with it. Britain and France felt that this concession would bring peace. When Neville Chamberlain returned from negotiations with Hitler proclaiming “peace in our time,” the public went almost hysterical with happiness! But we know what happened. There wasn’t any hope this would bring peace, but the people wanted it so badly!

The same is true today. The devil is always willing to “negotiate”—as long as it moves his agenda toward total surrender.

On Jan. 16, 2013, President Obama signed 23 executive actions on gun control, and then urged Congress to pass even stricter gun laws. When he signed those orders, he surrounded himself with little children who had written letters to him asking, Mr. President, would you please do something about the violence in schools? Who wants to debate with him when he has little children all around him?

The president is so eager to restrict guns. But what is he doing to stop drug cartels making inroads into America? What about stopping the drug wars between gangs in America’s big cities? What success has he had in stopping Chicago, his hometown, from becoming the murder capital of the world?

I am sickened by what Adam Lanza did. But what makes me sicker is somebody using that massacre to promote a political ideology! I think those 23 executive orders are really about getting around the Constitution and conditioning the minds of the people to accept the president saying, Don’t worry about the supreme law of the land! Listen to me! Just like Antiochus did! (Gerald Flurry, America Under Attack, Chapter 3, 2013.)

But how does this fear of the federal government and President Obama address the problem of deranged, mentally unbalanced individual choosing to use guns to inflict horror such as was seen recently in Orlando? For those who are now suffering that which is feared has already occurred.

In November 2013 Joel Hilliker wrote an article condemning those he called "technocrats" in the federal government inaccurately insinuating that they wanted to take everyone's guns away.

These technocrats ... are the people who believe that monitoring the digital communications of all citizens is essential. They believe we’re only safe if they are the only ones with guns. (Joel Hilliker, Beware the ‘Well-Educated Technocrats’, November 11, 2013.)

So does this mean PCG has guns?

But somewhat in contradiction to those statements Robert Morley proclaimed that buying guns will exacerbate violence.

Gun sales soar as people look for protection and worry about government restrictions. ... History and Bible prophecy show that proliferation of guns and weapons will not provide the protection many seek—but will actually exacerbate the violence in our midst. (Robert Morley, Gun Sales Smash Record Seven Months in a Row, December 10, 2015.)

So on the one hand Gerald Flurry and Joel Hilliker denounce attempts to restrict in one manner or another access to weapons but then on the other hand Morley states that buying guns will not provide protection. Is this a sign of confusion among PCG's leadership on this issue? 

The COGs' Loathing of Homosexuals

The massacre was directed at the patrons of a gay bar. It bears note that the COGs are saturated with the loathing and contempt for homosexuals.

Roderick C. Meredith is particularly infamous for his venomous denunciations of homosexuals that he has now preached for decades. Practically every Co-Worker Letter of his to donors contains some denunciation of them. For one who claims to loath them so much he seems strangely fixated on them.

Back in 2005 Gerald Flurry once wrote a booklet saying homosexuals are under the influence of Satan. Then in 2013 Joel Hilliker wrote a chilling booklet denouncing homosexuals and even refused to express sympathy for what happened to them during the initial stages of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. (He also denigrated most heterosexual relationships as well by saying that proper marriages are now "so rare".)

And now that this horrendous attack occurred what are the COGs going to do? So often they teach us to loath and despise them. Now this catastrophe has occurred how can they reconcile the loathing that is taught to them with expressing sympathy to the families and friends of those who were murdered? How will the leaders of the COGs react?

The Futility of Xenophobia

Recently some have called for restrictions on immigration accompanied with alarmist proclamations that these "outsiders" will have a negative effect on society against those already there. They spend so much time worrying about people of a certain ethnicity or religion. And when this frightful catastrophe that no one wants occurs it was by an individual who was born and raised in the United States. We need to see problems as they are and not just scapegoat immigrants or some other vulnerable minority. How was stopping immigration of certain individuals ever going to stop this?

But why worry about immigrants when it happens to be so easy for anyone to get an AR-15 rifle? It happens to be a very popular rifle and about nine million AR-15 rifles are in circulation throughout the United States. It only requires one determined individual with malicious intent to use one of these nine million AR-15 rifles circulating through the United States to cause terrible things as has recently occurred in Orlando. From 1994 till 2004 these weapons were banned from sale to civilians. The gunman used the same weapon that was used in the massacre at Sandy Hook. He acquired it legally even though he had been investigated by the FBI as early as 2013.

Here's one journalist's discussion of the topics surrounding this massacre.

No one, not least the President, failed to take note that the man identified by authorities as the killer in Orlando—a twenty-nine-year-old American citizen and security guard from Fort Pierce, Florida, named Omar Mateen—had carried out a terrorist attack. Official sources also revealed that he had pledged allegiance to ISIS on a 911 call made just before the attack, and that he had legally purchased arms, including an AR-15 assault rifle, the same rapid-fire weapon used at Sandy Hook. The ISIS attitude toward homosexuals is well known: they are summarily executed, often thrown from rooftops. Trump, for his part, had nothing to say about the easily availability of weapons like the AR-15; he is deep in an embrace with the leadership of the National Rifle Association, which has endorsed him. ...

Hillary Clinton, too, issued a statement that was rational, heartfelt, and touched on all the necessary aspects of the killings as we know them thus far—terrorism, the need to go on battling terrorism, the preposterously easy availability of guns, the victimization of the L.G.B.T. community. (David Remnick, The New Yorker, June 12, 2016.)

Wouldn't it have been wonderful if the gunman was somehow unable to acquire that AR-15 rifle? Why restrict immigration when one could just make it harder to access assault weapons? Assault weapons such as the AR-15 were actually banned from retail sale from 1994 to 2004 but the ban was not renewed.

Before this massacre some gun rights advocates were saying, "Guns save lives."

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This massacre is a most frightful catastrophe. All issues need to be discussed responsibly in the hope of preventing similar things like this catastrophe from happening again.