Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For August 14, 2019

Aug 10

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost on mass shootings and his attempt to single out broken families as the key factor in those who practice such violence. (This appeared in Heidelblog).

We need to consider other factors when looking at mass shootings. That factor is national location. It isn't that America is the only nation where there is divorce on demand or the other factors mentioned.  For example, I heard of one minister attribute the increase in mass shootings in our nation to the increased secular influence on society. But, again, other nations have an even greater secular influence on society while experiencing a fraction of problems with  mass shooting. And unless people want to argue population size, a block of Western Europe that has a comparable population to the US still has a fraction of U.S. mass shootings.

We might also note that the majority of mass shooters are white males (see https://www.statista.com/statistics/476456/mass-shootings-in-the-us-by-shooter-s-race/ )and a large number of domestic terrorism from 1993 to 2017 was conducted by right-wing groups. Such groups include white supremacists, anti-government groups, and anti-abortion extremists (see https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/CR_5154_25YRS%20RightWing%20Terrorism_V5.pdf ). Though some might protest that because of population, it would make sense that the majority of mass shooters are whites, the percentage of white mass shooters exceeds the percentage of whites by a few percentage points. And there is also a larger percentage of black mass shooters vs the percentage of Blacks in the population. Here we should note the privilege that whites have over Blacks in society.

Also, though some would note that we switched gears from mass shootings to domestic acts of terrorism, the two groups are not disjoint. Mass shootings can be included as acts of domestic terrorism. And we should also note that the use of explosives and arson are included in acts of domestic terrorism. However, we should also note that domestic terrorist attacks include attacks where the death toll is lower than what qualifies as a mass shooting.

We might also note that the number of deaths that determine whether a mass shooting took place has been changed from 4 to 3 during Obama's Presidency. A source for statistics on mass shootings in the US can be found at Mother Jones (see https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/mass-shootings-mother-jones-full-data/ ). Using that database, we should note that the number of yearly mass shootings has increased during President Trump's Presidency so that it is only under Trump's Presidency that we have a double digit number of mass shootings per year (for the years 2017 and 2018, there are currently 8 mass shootings for the year 2019).

Thus, despite what was reported in Scott's article on mass shootings, there are connections to make between certain acts of violence and race along certain acts of violence and ideology. Since just after 9/11 to 2016, just short of 73% of domestic terrorist attacks were conducted by right-wing groups. Beliefs involved in right-wing attacks include:
 
    ---  Fiercely Nationalistic
    ---  Anti-gobal
    ---  Suspicious of Federal Authority
    ---  Reverent of individual liberty (especially the right to own guns, be free of taxes)
    ---  Belief in conspiracy theories that involve a grave threat to national sovereignty and/or personal liberty
    ---  Belief that one's own personal and/or national "way of life" is under attack
    ---  Belief in the need to be prepared for an attack

In addition, 23% [CORRECTION: the number is right but it is not the percentage, I made a mistake in the comment, it should be 27% because of 23 incidents out of 85] of domestic terrorist attacks have been conducted by Muslim extremist groups (for that of statistics see  https://www.gao.gov/assets/690/683984.pdf ).

Thus, the emphatic effort of the above article to try to blame the bulk of mass shootings or other acts of violence to that of broken families seems to stem from more from ideological concerns than from a wider view of the problems with violence and the evidence.
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To Rosaria Butterfield and her message given on Abounding Grace Radio on how Christians should react to Intersectionality. She rejects Intersectionality as being anti-Christian. She also views the Celibate Gay Christian movement to be a contradiction to the Gospel. This was a recorded message posted on bounding Grace Radio.

Also posted on heidelblog at https://heidelblog.net/2019/08/agr-conference-audio-intersectionality-what-it-is-and-why-it-matters/
 
Note that the comment below was sent to both sites.

A few observations are necessary here.  First, when Rosaria talks about Intersectionality's rejection of the Christian metanarrative, she is not being precise enough. For Intersectionality does not have a monopoly on rejecting the Christian metanarrative, both Modernism and Post Modernism reject the Christian metanarrative. But here we should note that the Christian metanarrative is simply a subset of Pre Modernism. Modernism rejects the faith metanarrative of Pre Modernism while Post Modernism rejects the metanarratives of both Pre Modernism and Modernism.
Since Intersectionality is child of Post Modernism, it too rejects the Christian metanarrative. But why is this the case? The root of Post Modernism's rejection of Pre Modernism's metanarrative is not ideologically based as it is observationally based. That is because of many forms of human exploitation and persecution practiced by standard bearers of Pre Modernism (including Christian standard bearers), Post Modernism rejects the Pre Modernism's metanarratives. But lest Pre Modernism feels too marginalized, Post Modernism has the same reaction to Modernism.
This points to the kind of truth system employed by  Post Modernism. It is an outcome-based truth system where truth is determined by whether one's tenets has been used in the exploitation or oppression of others.

Right away we should note the kind of thinking involved in Post Modernism. That thinking  fails to distinguish between the consistent outcomes of how a metanarrative determines how we treat others from misattributed or inconsistent ones. This failure to make such important distinctions is the hallmark of black-white thinking. And we need to look at whether, in her reaction to Intersectionality as well as the Celibate Gay Christian Movement, Rosaria employs the same type of thinking.

Another observation involves the fact that Christians live in two different worlds that have connections. I am not talking about some 2 Kingdom model of thought here. Rather, I am talking about the world of the Church and how the Christian should expect  the Church treat people and Society and how the Christian should expect Society to treat people. Should the Christian expect both Society and the Church to treat people the same or differently? Should we Christians confuse Society with the Church or vice-versa? What we have today are very conservative Christians and very liberal Christians providing mirror images of each other. This is where while some Christians judge Society by how it treats and regards people with how the Church should while others employ the converse.

Which way should we judge? We could answer that question with an analogy. In America, while we expect the Church to demand that its members believe in Christ alone as God and Savior, we expect society to make no such demand. Thus, we expect the Church and Society to act differently from each other. Thus regarding LGBT concerns. the issue becomes whether we should expect the Church and Society to behave differently or the same toward the LGBT community.  This issue is not explicitly expressed explicitly Rosaria's comments though it seems that she gives some indication that she believes  Society and the Church to treat and regard the LGBT community much  in the same way.
Finally, whether we religiously conservative Christians can see partial value in Intersectionality depends on whether we can escape the conservative-liberal versions of confusing the Church with Society.

The Gun Debate: Better Enforcement Of Current Laws Vs. New Laws

Having gone to one of the March For Our Lives events, I realized that the gun control debate has revolved around what determines our need for gun laws. The NRA, for the most part, holds to the position that better enforcement of current gun laws provide a sufficient against mass shootings. Thus, according to some defenders of the NRA, if the current laws were well enforced in Florida, then the slaughter at Margery Stoneman Douglas High School would have never taken place. Having reviewed the some of the information available, I would say that the jury is still out on that. And that even if that was true in that instance, what happens when enforcement fails?

The next issue debated revolves around the definition of an assault rifle. The rifle used in the Parkland shooting as well as some other shootings was the AR-15. Is that an assault rifle? Here we should note how the AR-15 itself compared very favorably to the old, 1950s and 1960s, military M14 rifle to the extent that smaller units armed with AR-15s were rated as having more firepower than larger units armed with M14s. The high-velocity rounds, damage inflicted a single round, the negligible recoil, the increased number of rounds soldiers could carry, and its light weight made the AR-15 superior to the M14. That favorable comparison and that the AR-15 was designed to be a military rifle should provide sufficient grounds for calling it an assault weapon. In addition, the AR-15 is easily modified to convert the weapon from a semi-automatic one to a fully automatic one.

The manifesto provided by Margery Stoneman Douglas high school students appears to contain a robustness that the NRA position lacks (click here and there). There are two points from the manifesto that should be noted here. Both assault weapons that fire high-velocity rounds and alterations made to semi-automatic weapons, including bump stocks and large magazines, that increase the fire power of semi-automatic weapons would be banned. Thus, when enforcing existing gun laws or performing background checks fail, the manifesto provides a robustness in efforts to control the kind of weapons that are legally accessible. The idea of firmer gun control laws is to reduce, not eliminate, the number of mass shootings as well as damage done by such shootings. 

The NRA position is that gun laws are adequate to accomplish those tasks. But the statistics tell a different story. There were around 42 mass shootings during the 1990s, around 20 during the 2000s, and around 34 and counting for the 2010s.  The point, again, is that banning certain weapons, such as what is called for in the Parkland students' manifesto provides another check for when enforcement of current laws fails for whatever reason. According to the manifesto itself, mere possession of certain weapons would be a criminal offense and thus make confiscation of such weapons easier for law enforcement officials.

Weapons like the AR-15 are becoming a preferable weapon of choice in mass shootings because of some of the advantages listed above. Personally, I prefer the Australian ban on assault weapons to students' manifesto but what the students are saying should be taken very seriously for it is well thought out. The arguments for owning semi-automatic weapons for self-defense are rather weak. Most local crimes involving guns are not committed with semi-automatic weapons. In addition, just the possession of a gun can sometimes act as a deterrent for those committing a crime on the street or in someone's home. But here we also should note that possession of guns also poses a theft problem. Many guns are stolen and thus reducing the number of legally owned semi-automatic weapons would reduce the theft of such weapons. And since the ban on semi-automatic weapons is primarily used to reduce mass shootings, the NRA claim for the need to own semi-automatic weapons would imply the open carrying of such weapons by civilians in public. But such an open carry could cause other problems with gun violence.

There is another issue that emerges from the March For Our Lives events. That issue revolves around what gets the attention of our elected officials. The NRA uses money to help control and limit what guns laws are passed. And it seems that the NRA's agenda is to make sure the sale of guns is not infringed on by the laws passed. What the high school kids from Florida have done with their movement is to show that, with enough public support, people's voices can act as a mute button on money and favors for many politicians. At least, that is the current hope for the current gun control debate.