We had to watch out for knives....
....not guns
When I was a teen in high school in South Texas, we didn’t worry about guns. Our concern was knives. There were gangs at the school and all of us knew who belonged to which gang. We knew who carried switchblades and we knew to give those students a wide berth. I don’t remember anyone dying at school from a knife fight.
In the wake of the last school shooting, some people are saying the problem isn’t the guns. They say the issues are mental health, poor parenting, etc…. When I was growing up, some people had mental health issues and some people had poor parenting. What was absent was guns. When you have to fight with a knife, it makes everything a lot more personal.
When you fight with a knife, you have to get close enough to actually touch your victim. This levels the playing field a lot compared to someone with an assault rifle who can kill multiple people in seconds from a distance.
Don’t get me wrong, guns were a bit part of growing up in Texas in the 1950’s. Your first gun was a BB rifle. When you were a little older and showed you knew how to use a BB gun, you were given your first pellet gun or air rifle. From there you graduated to a hunting gun. There were no hand guns or assault rifles. We were taught how to clean the guns, store them and use them properly.
One of my brothers thought it would be fun to shoot at birds and squirrels in our backyard. My father let him know in no uncertain terms that shooting any gun in the proximity of people and houses was a huge no-no.
I never liked guns and stopped going hunting with my Dad and brothers when I was in my early teens. My Dad preferred fishing anyway. It is certainly a calmer way to feed the family.
After being away from Texas for many years, I returned in the early 1990’s and was astounded to see men in the grocery store wearing guns and holsters. It made me very uncomfortable and I wondered why they felt it necessary to be armed while buying groceries. This was probably the beginning of the gun craziness we see happening in Texas.
Honestly, I don’t recognize my home state any more. I used to agree with the saying, “You can take the girl out of Texas but you can’t take the Texas out of the girl.” No more. The Texas we see today is not theTexas that was ever in this girl.
Living with grace and ease,
Krysta
Admitting that I speak from outside of the culture you describe, as someone familiar with evangelicalism from a Canadian context;
It appears that some wide swaths of the evangelical culture in the United States have ceased to be Christian and have become an idolatry of guns and the flag. The idolatry includes child sacrifice as an accepted ritual to the idols. Ted Cruz and other political leaders appear as high priests who ensure that the system remains in place knowing that it’s idolatry, but drawing their wealth and status from the system. They tell the masses that it simply has to be this way.
Yes, Todd, there is a large group of people who call themselves Christian but who worship guns, violence, and control. They are a minority who have been able to seize power and are holding on tight. Jesus would not be pleased.