For starters I think this country has a serious paranoia issue.

[XemaSab]

12. Not just that, but there's a certain "shit happens" mentality

One of the fundies I am "researching" said:

Murder is, absolutely and unquestionably, the result of a soul at war with God and His standard. When man is in rebellion against God he starts to rebel against all that God has created or done. Murder is one of the more extreme manifestations of this rebellion, but it’s a manifestation that we are going to continue to see as long as men have a sin nature.

So what should our response be? Well, first, it shouldn’t be to ignore and break God’s law as we look for an answer or solution. I’ve heard people suggest all manner of solutions, like locking up all people with histories of mental illness. If we do this we are going down the same road today’s shooter went down: acting out of a desire to conform the world to our own will apart from submitting to what the Law of God has to say. We would be responding with lawless emotionalism.

Two days ago my wife badly cut herself while using a kitchen appliance. It didn’t malfunction; she just misused it. But part of me wanted to take the appliance, throw it on the floor, and stomp it into oblivion - I was angry over the harm done to my wife. But this response would not have been lawful - I had to pray to God, humble myself, accept His will for my wife, and respond in a righteous manner. A manner conformed to God’s Law. It wasn’t easy, and I don’t expect that tonight is easy on the grieving families of this nation. But when tragedy strikes (even if it’s just a cut finger) we can’t respond with lawless emotionalism.

We must instead look to God and submit our will to His. We must submit our thoughts and reason to His.

We also need to recognize that murder is not caused by economic disadvantages, poor parenting, bad upbringing, lax gun laws, mental problems, easy access to drugs or alcohol, bullying at school, relationship problems, bad test scores, or any of the other excuses we have heard in the past and will undoubtedly hear again. Murder is caused by unchecked sin in the heart of man - as God warned Cain before he killed Abel, “sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it” (Gen 4 ). All of us, saved and unsaved alike, have sin in our hearts. We must take responsibility for it and strive to rule over it.

And as the media plays the blame game we must recognize that each individual has eternal responsibility for his own sin. God will judge today’s shooter for all the murders that he committed. And there will be no excuses, no “not guilty by reason of insanity.” God’s perfect and eternal justice will fall upon today’s shooter - there will be justice for the wrongs committed today.

And that should scare us, because today’s shooter, in a lot of ways, is not that different from us: we all have sin and hatred in our hearts - we’ve all had murderous thoughts and desires - we just haven’t carried them out. We must admit that each of us have committed sins (Matt 5:21, Matt 5:27) worthy of God’s perfect and eternal justice falling on us. But there is salvation and mercy in Christ. And not only salvation for eternity but also sanctification for this life: we must rule over the sin in our hearts, but that’s not possible until we have Christ. Those of us who are in Christ are promised that we won’t be tempted beyond our ability (1 Cor 10:13).

Finally, we need to pray. We need to pray for our nation, that it would repent and turn towards Christ. We must also pray for the families that are hurting tonight. I have a nine-month-old daughter and can’t even begin to imagine the pain that would come with her death. We should pray for these families that God would extend to them grace, mercy, and comfort. For those that are saved, we should pray that God would use this time to work even greater sanctification in their lives. Our Father in heaven knows and understands the pain they are feeling - He gave His own Son for us. For those without Christ we should pray that God would use this tragedy to make Himself known to them.

The only call to action here is for repentance. Other than that, there's an attitude that whatever happens is God's will.

There's a train of thought here that if we cut off welfare and a million people starve to death, it's God's will, or if there are no building safety codes and a building collapses and a couple hundred people die, it's God's will.

For people who claim to have a "culture of life," there's very little concern for preventing future deaths.