Bryan Fischer
The problem is not guns, it's Islam
By Bryan Fischer
Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at "Focal Point"
Host of "Focal Point" on AFR Talk, 1-3pm CT, M-F www.afr.net
Fourteen are dead and 17 are wounded in San Bernardino – in another gun-free zone – because of a devout Muslim committed to obeying his holy book, his prophet, and his god by killing infidels at a Christmas party. (Emphasis mine.)
Some challenged me last night on Twitter to tell them the difference between the "Christian" who shot up Planned Parenthood and the Muslim who shot up a holiday celebration. That's easy, I said. Robert Dear was being a bad Christian, while Syed Farook was being a good Muslim.
All religions are not the same nor are they morally equivalent, and it's mind-numbingly stupid and suicidal to believe otherwise. Christianity teaches Christians to love their enemies, while Islam teaches Muslims to cut the heads off theirs.
President Obama, of course, was quick to blame guns (all of which in this case were legally purchased) and to say the solution is to do something about guns. No, Mr. President, the problem is not guns. The problem is Islam, and the solution is to do something about Islam. The key is not getting control of guns, it's getting control of Islam. That's not Islamophobia, it's Islamorealism.
(The perps left behind three explosive devices, which they'd made in their garage, designed to be detonated using a remote control toy car. How would gun control laws stop that, exactly? As a friend suggested, let's urge President Obama to pass IED control legislation, stat. And let's add a ban on remote control toy cars while we're at it.)
If the problem is Islam, then we are wasting our time and our breath if proposed solutions do not deal directly with limiting and reversing the spread of Islamic ideology in the United States. Suspending Islamic immigration altogether must be on the table, as well as aggressive surveillance of mosques and the Muslim community. The wisdom of granting permits to build even one more mosque in America must be part of the discussion.
The Center for Security Policy has determined that 80% of all the mosques in America promote jihad, either through literature or invited speakers. And since these are the most popular mosques, 95% of all Muslims who attend mosque on a weekly basis attend one of these jihadist-promoting houses of worship. The president of Turkey, Recep Erdogan, has said, "Mosques are our barracks, minarets our bayonets, domes our helmets, the believers our soldiers." Maybe it's time we start believing him.
This shooter, like so many others, was not on the FBI's radar. He was not the subject of one of the 1000 active ISIS investigations, and he was not one of the 48 ISIS-affiliated Muslims the FBI must monitor 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The shooter's father expressed shock, shock I tell you, that his son was capable of such mayhem. His fellow workers describe him as quiet. They didn't see it coming.
The point here is that there is no way to tell when the next Muslim will develop sudden jihad syndrome. It is perfectly irrelevant to the families of the 14 dead that only a small minority of Muslims are capable of such murderous violence.
President Obama is determined to bring 10,000 additional Syrian refugees to America, despite the widespread support among the Syrian people for ISIS. We have no way of knowing how many of such refugees – or any other Muslim immigrants, for that matter – will be infected with the jihadist virus.
Imagine for the sake of argument that someone offered to send you and your family 10,000 M&M's. But, by the way, they tell you, ten of them contain a lethal poison that will kill you, and we can't tell you which ten they are. In fact, the chemical composition of these M&M's is such that some of them might even turn poisonous after they get to your house. And I'm sorry, but we have no foolproof way of identifying which M&M's you have to worry about and which ones you don't. Now would you accept the shipment? Of course not.
The New York Daily News indulged in prayer shaming this morning, with a huge headline, "God Isn't Fixing This," and a blast directed at every GOP leader who called for prayer in the wake of this tragedy. The News, by the way, actually called for prayer for France in the wake of its Muslim massacre last month. Somehow, in their twisted worldview, calling upon God to help France is good, but calling on God to help the U.S. isn't.
With regard to prayer and its supposed inefficacy, let's not forget that we as a culture have spent the last 60 years telling God to get lost. It should be no surprise to us that he's not around when we need him.
Plus, I would suggest God has already answered our prayers for protection. He's given us his Word, which indicates that Islam is a religion from hell and should not be embraced by any rational society. But we spurn his gift. We don't read his Word and we certainly don't heed it.
He's given us a Constitution which permits our government to seal our borders from carriers of the Islamic virus. But we are so blinded by political correctness that we don't do it.
And, according to Romans 13, he's given us a government with his delegated authority to use lethal force to protect our citizens from the Islamic threat. And yet our political leaders are so paralyzed by political correctness they won't even use the term "radical Islamic terrorism" let alone use the God-ordained power of civil government to do something about it.
If we don't use the resources God has given us in response to our prayers, we can hardly blame him when we get cut down at our Christmas parties.
And it certainly is possible to pray when we should instead be taking action. Joshua 7 records the remarkable story of the elders of Israel spending an entire day on their faces before God in mourning over their defeat at Ai.
Finally God interrupts them, according to Joshua 7:10-12. "Get up! Why have you fallen on your face? Israel has transgressed my covenant that I commanded them; they have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen and lied and put them among their own belongings. Therefore the people of Israel cannot stand before their enemies...I will be with you no more, unless you destroy the devoted things from among you. Get up!"
Here was God's answer to their fervent prayers: He told them it was time to get up off their knees and their faces and get to work. Perhaps that's the same answer he is giving America today.
(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)
© Bryan Fischer
December 4, 2015
Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at "Focal Point"
Host of "Focal Point" on AFR Talk, 1-3pm CT, M-F www.afr.net
Fourteen are dead and 17 are wounded in San Bernardino – in another gun-free zone – because of a devout Muslim committed to obeying his holy book, his prophet, and his god by killing infidels at a Christmas party. (Emphasis mine.)
Some challenged me last night on Twitter to tell them the difference between the "Christian" who shot up Planned Parenthood and the Muslim who shot up a holiday celebration. That's easy, I said. Robert Dear was being a bad Christian, while Syed Farook was being a good Muslim.
All religions are not the same nor are they morally equivalent, and it's mind-numbingly stupid and suicidal to believe otherwise. Christianity teaches Christians to love their enemies, while Islam teaches Muslims to cut the heads off theirs.
President Obama, of course, was quick to blame guns (all of which in this case were legally purchased) and to say the solution is to do something about guns. No, Mr. President, the problem is not guns. The problem is Islam, and the solution is to do something about Islam. The key is not getting control of guns, it's getting control of Islam. That's not Islamophobia, it's Islamorealism.
(The perps left behind three explosive devices, which they'd made in their garage, designed to be detonated using a remote control toy car. How would gun control laws stop that, exactly? As a friend suggested, let's urge President Obama to pass IED control legislation, stat. And let's add a ban on remote control toy cars while we're at it.)
If the problem is Islam, then we are wasting our time and our breath if proposed solutions do not deal directly with limiting and reversing the spread of Islamic ideology in the United States. Suspending Islamic immigration altogether must be on the table, as well as aggressive surveillance of mosques and the Muslim community. The wisdom of granting permits to build even one more mosque in America must be part of the discussion.
The Center for Security Policy has determined that 80% of all the mosques in America promote jihad, either through literature or invited speakers. And since these are the most popular mosques, 95% of all Muslims who attend mosque on a weekly basis attend one of these jihadist-promoting houses of worship. The president of Turkey, Recep Erdogan, has said, "Mosques are our barracks, minarets our bayonets, domes our helmets, the believers our soldiers." Maybe it's time we start believing him.
This shooter, like so many others, was not on the FBI's radar. He was not the subject of one of the 1000 active ISIS investigations, and he was not one of the 48 ISIS-affiliated Muslims the FBI must monitor 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The shooter's father expressed shock, shock I tell you, that his son was capable of such mayhem. His fellow workers describe him as quiet. They didn't see it coming.
The point here is that there is no way to tell when the next Muslim will develop sudden jihad syndrome. It is perfectly irrelevant to the families of the 14 dead that only a small minority of Muslims are capable of such murderous violence.
President Obama is determined to bring 10,000 additional Syrian refugees to America, despite the widespread support among the Syrian people for ISIS. We have no way of knowing how many of such refugees – or any other Muslim immigrants, for that matter – will be infected with the jihadist virus.
Imagine for the sake of argument that someone offered to send you and your family 10,000 M&M's. But, by the way, they tell you, ten of them contain a lethal poison that will kill you, and we can't tell you which ten they are. In fact, the chemical composition of these M&M's is such that some of them might even turn poisonous after they get to your house. And I'm sorry, but we have no foolproof way of identifying which M&M's you have to worry about and which ones you don't. Now would you accept the shipment? Of course not.
The New York Daily News indulged in prayer shaming this morning, with a huge headline, "God Isn't Fixing This," and a blast directed at every GOP leader who called for prayer in the wake of this tragedy. The News, by the way, actually called for prayer for France in the wake of its Muslim massacre last month. Somehow, in their twisted worldview, calling upon God to help France is good, but calling on God to help the U.S. isn't.
With regard to prayer and its supposed inefficacy, let's not forget that we as a culture have spent the last 60 years telling God to get lost. It should be no surprise to us that he's not around when we need him.
Plus, I would suggest God has already answered our prayers for protection. He's given us his Word, which indicates that Islam is a religion from hell and should not be embraced by any rational society. But we spurn his gift. We don't read his Word and we certainly don't heed it.
He's given us a Constitution which permits our government to seal our borders from carriers of the Islamic virus. But we are so blinded by political correctness that we don't do it.
And, according to Romans 13, he's given us a government with his delegated authority to use lethal force to protect our citizens from the Islamic threat. And yet our political leaders are so paralyzed by political correctness they won't even use the term "radical Islamic terrorism" let alone use the God-ordained power of civil government to do something about it.
If we don't use the resources God has given us in response to our prayers, we can hardly blame him when we get cut down at our Christmas parties.
And it certainly is possible to pray when we should instead be taking action. Joshua 7 records the remarkable story of the elders of Israel spending an entire day on their faces before God in mourning over their defeat at Ai.
Finally God interrupts them, according to Joshua 7:10-12. "Get up! Why have you fallen on your face? Israel has transgressed my covenant that I commanded them; they have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen and lied and put them among their own belongings. Therefore the people of Israel cannot stand before their enemies...I will be with you no more, unless you destroy the devoted things from among you. Get up!"
Here was God's answer to their fervent prayers: He told them it was time to get up off their knees and their faces and get to work. Perhaps that's the same answer he is giving America today.
(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)
© Bryan Fischer
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
