Confronting the Gun Issue - A Modest Proposal!

As of this writing, the mass media continue to exploit the shooting incident at a Washington DC Navy Yard in which 12 people were killed. Perhaps one disappointment on part of anti-gun people is the fact that the shooter used a shotgun rather than an AR-15 (considered an assault weapon) which really cranks up the adrenalin of the crowd that wants more and more gun control legislation with the eventual goal of removing all firearms from possession by law abiding citizens.

It was on Monday, September 16th, that Aaron Alexis went on a shooting rampage that resulted in 12 persons being killed at the Navy Yard in Washington DC.

As might be expected it was somewhat like an old fashioned revival as the anti-gun people got their bandwagon back in high gear AGAIN!

Below is the text of a fax being sent to all the members of Congress from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The message will also be sent to many senators from other states as well. Among the first will be the "champion" of "gun control" legislation, none other than Dianne Feinstein of California!

By the way, the little double barrel derringer pictured above is chambered for a .45 but will also shoot .410 gage shotgun shells -- it is in a concealed place in our home where I have quick access in light of the fact that in our county the number of home invasions has been steadily increasing due to the growing drug problem. In the event of a home invasion at our residence it could result in a sudden fatal case of lead poisoning!

Text of letter is as follows:

To Members of Congress:

The furor over gun control has erupted again in wake of the DC Navy Yard killings. Please note a recommendation in dealing with the gun issue.

Enact the following legislation: 1. Anyone who commits a crime with a firearm and is convicted on irrefutable evidence shall be sentenced to life in prison with no appeal and no parole. 2. Anyone who kills another person or persons by use of a firearm and is convicted on irrefutable evidence shall be sentenced to death by means of lethal injection with no appeal. These sentences shall be consistently carried out in all 50 states of our republic and any judge who tries to block such sentences shall be immediately removed from office.

By enacting the above legislation there will be no threat to the purchase and owning of firearms by law abiding citizens nor any attempt to confiscate the firearms which they have in their possession at the present time.

A parting question for serious thinking: why is there outrage when an incident such as the Navy Yard shootings takes place and no similar outrage that on the very same day hundreds of unborn children were intentionally mutilated and murdered with the killers being paid big bucks for doing the killings?

Still contending at www.crrange.com, blogging at http://cdharriger.blogspot.com, and warning at www.crrange.com/USACoffin.html

Clayton D. Harriger, Pastor

PA UM Bishops Declare War on Gambling – Will They Do Likewise on a Much More Serious Practice in the State?

"Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel! --- Jesus speaking in Matthew 23:24

Four bishops have recently declared war on gambling in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. This is a result of Governor Rendell’s attempt to expand gambling with the hope of bringing in more revenue into the state’s piggy bank. Those bishops are Thomas J. Bickerton of Pittsburgh, Jane Allen Middleton of Harrisburg, Peggy A. Johnson of Philadelphia, and Susan W. Hassinger, of Albany, N.Y., whose area takes in a bit of Northeastern Pennsylvania

The bishops have issued a pastoral letter in which they said, “Contact your legislator and Gov. Rendell. Tell them video poker goes against God’s best intentions for Gods children.”

The bishops also noted that “The United Methodist Church believes ‘gambling is a menace to society, deadly to the best interests of moral, social, economic, and spiritual life, destructive of good government and good stewardship,’” as they cited long-standing church law and scripture.

For a long time there has been no lack within the United Methodist Church when it comes to all out frontal attack on gambling. In fact, the way some church leaders approach it, one would be quickly convinced that it is the greatest evil to ever penetrate the human race!

Let’s consider another much more critical social and moral issue which the bishops of the UMC do not address, ever. It’s the issue of the destruction of unborn children at the rate of about 25,000 per week in the “land of the free and the home of the brave!” Quite a number of these very young ones are brutally mutilated and murdered within the borders of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Now then, ponder a modest proposition for the bishops since they have fired the shot – how about changing the wording a bit and issue one more letter to be read in the churches, since we are now making the claim for correcting immoral practices in Pennsylvania?

Here’s the revised “edition” on the two statements mentioned above, and the same could be applied throughout the whole letter. As UM’s know very well – the practice of doing amending at annual conference sessions is a very popular pastime – so let’s do some of it here:

Statement #1 amended to read “Contact your legislator and Gov. Rendell. Tell them abortion goes against God’s best intentions for Gods children.”

Statement #2 amended to read “The United Methodist Church believes ‘abortion is a menace to society, deadly to the best interests of moral, social, economic, and spiritual life, destructive of good government and good stewardship.’”

The last statement presents a bit of a problem since the official position of the United Methodist Church can be regarded as giving the “green light” to the practice of abortion, although there is an attempt to couch the statements in pious sounding language. But in the final analysis, any woman can get an abortion who wants one on the basis of simply saying that the pregnancy will bring undue psychological stress, financial stress, health related stress, employment stress, social stress, family stress, home environment stress, household pet stress, garbage can stress, or whatever – it’s very easy to come up with a “reason” as to why an unborn child should be exterminated as simply as swatting a fly!

So, bishops, how about it – may we soon expect the second pastoral letter with the above amended statements in the war against social evils that are “a menace to society, deadly to the best interests of moral, social, economic, and spiritual life, destructive of good government and good stewardship?”

To be continued in the next post………

"For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, if you thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor, if you do not oppress the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, or walk after other gods to your hurt, then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever. Behold, you trust in lying words that cannot profit.” --- Jeremiah 7:5-8

Have You Tried Writing a Letter?

And a letter came to him from Elijah the prophet, saying, "Thus says the LORD God of your father David: 'Because you have not walked in the ways of Jehoshaphat your father, or in the ways of Asa king of Judah… --- 2 Chronicles 21:12

I confess – I’m guilty – I’ve done it so many times in the past and continue to do it – it seems that there is no changing nor stopping of the practice. Those knowing me rather well would conclude that there is no hope – Clayt is suffering from an addiction from which he will never recover!

And what is this malady that is a “thorn in my side?” It is the habit of writing letters! I think I inherited it from my mother. She wrote letters all during her lifetime, including many to my wife and me when we were away from home. She had quite a list of military people to whom she wrote regularly during the years of WW II. One of my dad’s cousins was wounded twice in Sicily and my mother got shelf paper which was about 7 feet long, wrote on both sides of it and sent it overseas to cousin Don McElravy. He later sent a picture back with the letter draped around his neck and down the front of his chest to about his belt line.

I have written letters over the years to newspaper editors, church leaders, some heads of state in other nations, presidents, vice presidents, congressional people, TV media people and many friends. One newspaper, the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat, no longer will publish my letters because of a past skirmish I had with persons there over an issue. But the ones they wouldn’t publish are at my web site anyway and are available for public viewing! In a sense, I am still having the last laugh since they have no control over my turf at Circuit Rider's Range!

The practice of writing letters will continue so long as God gives me breath, strength in my hands to type and/or write with a pen, and ability to think and reason a bit. Now, as it has been for some time, a letter goes out regularly to President Obama. You can see it at Letter to President Obama

This is an appeal to get involved in this kind of “witness” if you haven’t already been doing so. There will be the temptation to say it is a waste of time and expense and it won’t do any good. Is it better to stand before God and say, “I tried to do everything I could possibly do.” OR to have to admit that you could have done more but didn’t because you didn’t think it really mattered and it "wouldn't do any good" anyhow?

At the beginning is a reference from 2 Chronicles 21 which speaks of a letter from Elijah the prophet to a king. It doesn’t have much good news in it – in fact, it was a harsh rebuke because the king was way out of line in his lifestyle and practices. What if Elijah would have reasoned, “No use writing to the king – it won’t do any good!” and just did whatever it was he did in the course of a day? And of course there was the ultimate accounting he would have to give to the God Who had called him to bear witness to God's truth in very chaotic times. I’ll let you draw your own conclusion on that.

So get pen in hand or bring up that word processing program – a piece of paper – an envelope, and start writing!

Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. --- Jude 1:3

Letter to President Barack Hussein Obama

And a letter came to him from Elijah the prophet, saying, Thus says the LORD God of your father David..... --- 2 Chronicles 21:12

For years I have been sending letters to presidents and other world leaders. On a regular basis letters were sent to President Bush and President Clinton.

My first to Mr. Obama took place in November shortly after he won the election earlier in the month. My first of many is going out to him today in his capacity as the 44th president to be inaugurated in the history of our republic.

A copy of this letter is found at Letter to President Barack Hussein Obama -- use reverse of your web browser to return here.

The letter to President Bush is found at Mr. President, We Need to Get Our Own House in Order First! -- again, use reverse on web browser to return here.

A number of persons, friends and family, have said, "Why waste your time doing this -- they won't read them anyway, etc." The reasons for doing this are for another time and place!

"For you are not sent to a people of unfamiliar speech and of hard language, but to the house of Israel, not to many people of unfamiliar speech and of hard language, whose words you cannot understand. Surely, had I sent you to them, they would have listened to you. But the house of Israel will not listen to you, because they will not listen to Me; for all the house of Israel are impudent and hard-hearted. Behold, I have made your face strong against their faces, and your forehead strong against their foreheads. Like adamant stone, harder than flint, I have made your forehead; do not be afraid of them, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they are a rebellious house." --- Ezekiel 3:5-9

B. O. the Poster Child of Many Mass Media Folks?

Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. --- Colossians 2:8

It surfaced some time back -- statements that B. O. was getting more favored (and very biased) treatment from many of those in the mass media -- that is, he is their favored and preferred candidate and it is showing in the way they treat him and McCain in their reporting of Election 2008! Or another way of putting it -- the scales of the mass media are heavily weighted in favor of B. O! For McCain, it's really an uphill battle, since the "deck" is stacked against him so far as a large number of the mass media people are concerned. There are and will be more favorable sound bites for B. O. than there will be for McCain.

This was demonstrated in the area where I live within the last few days -- days of the Democratic and Republican conventions. Our local newspaper reported on the acceptance speeches of both candidates. The bias stood out like a proverbial sore thumb!

A letter was sent to the newspaper about this. With this newspaper, my letter has less chance of being printed than a snowball has of surviving intact in that very, very hot place to which a lot of people of all ages make reference from time to time! At my main web site I have devoted some time and space to my ongoing special "relationship" I have with the editorial department of this particular paper and their refusal to print any of my letters any longer -- they used to, but no more!

See the letter below ---

Friday, September 05, 2008

Editor:

Be careful right now because you just might be accused of being biased in your reporting on the presidential election of 2008. And this in turn would result in your being identified with much of the mass media which is rapidly building a reputation of being very biased toward and supportive of Barack Obama in his bid to be our next president!

Suspicion arises at the present time due to your handling of the acceptance speeches of Barack Obama and John McCain respectively.

Your front pages speak out loud and clear. On August 29th you had a photo of Barack Obama on the front page which measured 7 ¼ inches by 10 inches – not quite a traditional 8 x 10, but close! On September 5th your front page photo of John McCain measured 4 ¼ inches by 6 ½ inches, slightly over ½ the size of Obama’s acceptance speech photo! McCain’s photo doesn’t qualify for a traditional 5 x 7 by a long shot!

Written column space in the AP articles was approximately the same with one glaring difference. The Obama article on the inside page also included a picture of Mrs. Obama and daughters. This photo measured 3 ½ by 3 ¾ inches. John McCain and family did not fare that well as there was no photo of them at all.

Photos do have influence and the size of such do register – the bigger the photo, the more attention it attracts and greater is the impact on the observer, even when it comes to the election process. Cambria County being a kind of “Mecca” for the Democratic Party it can be assumed that Obama will be much higher profile than will McCain when it comes to media coverage.

This has been written by one who is a non-affiliated registered voter.
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Still contending at www.crrange.com, blogging at http://cdharriger.blogspot.com and warning at www.crrange.com/USACoffin.html,

Clayton D. Harriger, Pastor

There you have it. It appears that we citizens need to maintain a high degree of suspicion when it comes to watching and listening to the mass media people -- are they JUST reporting news or are they trying to force-feed us with some propaganda and get us to vote for their favored candidate?

But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. --- 2 Timothy 3:13

Another Letter to the Editor -- TV News People Are Like Piranah!

Among my many and varied activities has been that of writing letters over the years. My kids will have real adventures when they sort out their "inheritance" -- their old dad won't leave them much money, but they will have a ton or two of letters to read through -- what a joy time that will be!

Included in letter recipients over the years have been letters to the editors of newspapers. At present time there are 4 newspapers in our area to which letters have been sent: The Altoona Mirror, The Indiana Gazette, The Johnstown Tribune-Democrat, and Mainline Newspapers, Inc. Mainline Newspapers is a weekly serving different communities in Cambria County. The Johnstown Tribune-Democrat quit publishing my letters some time ago. The issue about this is discussed at my web site, www.crrange.com, and all the letters which they did not publish are posted there. Whether they will publish this recent one remains yet to be seen.

So, below is the letter which deals with rampant hypocrisy in the TV news industry and their concentrated focus on the VA Tech tragedy to the neglect of a far more serious "massacre" which is a daily happening in our republic! If you find that you are a bit in agreement on this problem of the TV news media, I would welcome your comments. If you feel you should try to defend them, DON'T, because you CAN'T! And the pure reason is that these people are first and foremost concerned about money and ratings -- fair and accurate reporting of news events as well as respect for victims of tragedies such as the VA Tech incident are not a priority -- it's all about money! So here we go........

Monday, April 23, 2007>

Editor:

The TV media explicitly demonstrated a morphosis from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde as it relished the tragedy at Virginia Tech a week ago. Or to put it another way, these people resembled a school of piranha in bloody waters stripping its victim to a skeleton in a short period of time.

True to form in their inconsistency, members of the TV networks constantly threw the word “massacre” at us while intentionally avoiding the fact that on April 16, 2007 hundreds of unborn children were massacred in their mothers’ wombs! Further, these people will never give us the details with shocking photos for proof regarding the greatest massacre in United States history. The grand total is now approaching 48 million victims and a 9 mm semi-automatic pistol was not the murder weapon used. How about a ban on those instruments which destroy the unborn in the womb?

As could be expected an anti-gun campaign has been revived with able assistance from the media. Get rid of the guns and we will have a safe and peaceful society so we are told. Hypocrisy is rampant on this issue also. Compare how many people have died violently as a result of use of alcoholic beverages in a year’s time compared with death by firearms. We can start with number of victims of drunken drivers and then add on the other circumstances, including those who drank some booze and then in anger killed someone with a gun! But then, there hasn’t been a campaign to rid the country of alcoholic beverages because of destruction, pain, sorrow, and death which it has caused, has there? Just get rid of those horrible guns and our troubles will be over!

We have yet to witness a full response from the God Whom we profess to trust as inscribed on our coins and currency. In His revelation to us He has made it clear that hypocrisy is not a way of life in which He takes delight and the price to be paid is far greater than any of us can imagine.

Still contending at www.crrange.com and blogging at http://cdharriger.blogspot.com

Clayton D. Harriger, Pastor

Letter to a Business Executive About Choice to Sell Beverage Alcohol

The name of Sheetz is very well known in central Pennsylvania area and is getting to be known in other parts of the state and some neighboring states as well. The Sheetz family is held up as an example of great success in business expansion with its many convenience stores. It all started years ago with a small "mom & pop" type of operation in Altoona -- a small store whose owner was affectionately known as "Pop" Sheetz -- a man well liked and highly respected. Over time family members got involved and more stores were added to the business enterprize. Business boomed as product lines were expanded, including the selling of gasoline, hot and cold foods, etc. Family members were a very important part of the growth experience. A few months ago the Sheetz family made known its plans to apply for a license in which at one of their expanded facilities which has a restaurant-like atmosphere, they would sell beer. There was controversy over this, but the Sheetz fellows pushed ahead in spite of the opposition. Just a few days ago amidst a lot of high profile publicity featuring Mr. Stan Sheetz as the spokesman, beer is being made available at one of their facilities in Altoona -- the first ever in Pennsylvania, although in one or more neighboring states they are already trafficking in sale of alcoholic beverages. Below is a letter just composed and sent to Mr. Stan Sheetz.

COPY of letter sent to Mr. Stan Sheetz at corporate headquarters in Altoona PA ->

Monday, February 05, 2007

Mr. Stan Sheetz
Sheetz, Inc.
Altoona PA

Dear Mr. Sheetz:

I was confronted with the publicity surrounding the step you have taken to sell beer in one of your establishments in the Altoona area. You also made public comments relative to this “milestone” with an emphasis on “responsibility” and abiding by the “rules” for those businesses dispensing alcoholic beverages.

The one thing you cannot do is absolutely guarantee that every single person who drinks alcohol at your place will not cause an accident or get involved in a domestic dispute or create a public disturbance where others will be injured or killed!

It is impossible to calculate the total carnage which has resulted in this country due to use of alcohol laced beverages. This involves death, injury, broken families, broken relationships, loss of employment, and shortened life spans!

For example, how would you like to be the one to have to go to the parents of a teenager and tell them their son had been mangled and killed while riding his motorcycle because some character with a suspended license had to have his beer and ran the boy over at a speed of at least 85 MPH according to police estimates. Then you have to go with the boy’s older brother to the hospital to help identify him. Did you ever see the nurse pull that cover back and expose a face that looked like someone hacked it up with a meat cleaver? And then 3 days later you conduct a funeral for that young man cut off in the prime of his life. I was the one who went to the parents, helped identify the boy, and had his funeral – and you know what? It wasn’t very easy to do and you might just begin to understand why I don’t take a “Ho hum, so what, lukewarm approach” to a business decision to begin selling beverage alcohol.

I have been a regular customer of Sheetz, Inc. for years, but no longer. I realize that the loss of one customer will not cut into your profits in any significant manner. But this I do know – the time will come when your profits will not begin to cover the price to be paid ultimately for the choice to add beverage alcohol to your “menu.”

It won’t be tomorrow or next week or even next year. BUT that time will come and tragically there will be no way to back track and undo what was a most unwise and foolish decision not only for time but far worse, for eternity!

Still contending at www.crrange.com

Clayton D. Harriger, Pastor