For My LDS Readers: Wolves in Sheep's Clothing--Gun Control Edition

        In Matthew 7:15, the Lord warns: "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves."

        By "false prophets" and "ravening wolves" the Lord is discussing those that will appear to be harmless, but profess doctrines and beliefs that are not only false, by highly destructive. We see this in regard to many of the teachings of the world that find their way into our congregations; e.g., gay marriage is premised on a false notion that love somehow justifies or consecrates what is a sin, and then if love justifies all, it would be wrong to not extend marriage to those that are "in love."

(Source)

        However, gay marriage is not the topic of this post, but rather that of firearms and self-defense. In Alma 43:47, we are told:

 And again, the Lord has said that: Ye shall defend your families even unto bloodshed. Therefore for this cause were the Nephites contending with the Lamanites, to defend themselves, and their families, and their lands, their country, and their rights, and their religion.

In D&C 98:23-32, the Lord instructs us to bear with patience those that smite us--to a limit. For instance:

... if he has sought thy life, and thy life is endangered by him, thine enemy is in thine hands and thou art justified. 

Behold, this is the law I gave unto my servant Nephi, and thy fathers, Joseph, and Jacob, and Isaac, and Abraham, and all mine ancient prophets and apostles.

(See also Luke 22:31-33 in which the Lord instructs his Apostles to purchase a sword to protect themselves, if necessary, against the soldiers that would come to arrest Him. It is relevant to note that the Lord specified a sword--a military weapon--and not a dagger or knife, such as most people would carry for self-defense, nor a bow and arrow, such as would be used for hunting).

        More broadly, we also have the right to defend "our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children." (Alma 46:12) For instance, in Alma 62, we are provided the moving story of Alma who, having been informed that the Kingmen have sought to overthrow the government and ally with the Nephites' enemies, gathered a force of his fellow citizens, including their swords (again, a military weapon, not a hunting weapon), to overthrow the usurpers.

        But there are those that believe we should give up our swords, and they have burrowed deep into the Church. The blog, By Common Consent, recently published a post entitled "Rising Generation." The author writes:

The rising generation might just finally sweep away the baby boomers’ morally corrupting mythological fetishization of the Second Amendment. From my observation of this movement, these students for the most part aren’t demanding the repeal of the Second Amendment or confiscation of guns, or anything similar. They are demanding common-sense gun regulations that one could argue in good faith do not violate the Second Amendment[1], even if they would be inconsistent with the NRA-driven fetishization and false arguments about what the Second Amendment supposedly requires. This handy summary list of the common-sense gun regulations being proposed — regulations that would virtually eliminate school shootings and other mass shootings — has seen increased circulation on social media since the Parkland massacre: ...

The author then lists 14 restrictions on the Second Amendment, including prohibitions on private (non-FFL) transfers of firearms, 10-round magazine limits, and others, all but one of which would have had no impact on the school shooting at issue in Florida. The author then goes into a racist and sexist tirade ending thusly:

They [i.e., Europe] have no lack of white males who feel romantically spurned or unfairly fired from a job or in some other way rejected by a society they’ve been socialized to believe they should be dominating as white males. But with common-sense gun regulations, if yet another mentally ill white male has murderous intentions, he will not be able to kill as many people with a knife. Implementing common-sense gun regulations will save many of our children and make our schools safer.

Of course, we are expected to ignore a 2016 knife attack in Japan where the perpetrator killed 19 and injured dozens of others at a mental health facility. And no school attacker would use a bomb (except for the Bath, Mich. attack on an elementary school that killed 44, including 38 children; oh, and that the Columbine shooters had planned their attack as a bomb attack). And we would never have to worry about people being killed with a vehicle, like the Nice, France, attack in 2016, which killed 86 people and injured 458 others. Stuff like that just doesn't happen in modern, advanced countries ... at least that is what the author of the foregoing post would have you believe.

        Let's take a step back and look at the underlying philosophy the author expresses, which is that we can force people to not commit evil acts. That idea sounds familiar, and it should, because that was Satan's plan: to save all souls by taking away free agency.

      Gun control is the same type of evil--the enticing whisper that if we take away free will, we can save everyone. But without free-will, and without weapons, we would not be able to "defend []our families even unto bloodshed," or take up arms in defense of "our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children." Instead, we would be victims to those that would oppress, whether individually (such as a common burglar) or en masse (such as a dictator).

       Let me be clear: those that would support gun control are either stupid, evil, or both. And to the extent that they attempt to justify their teachings based on scripture, they are false prophets.