If you live by the Sword…

16 Nov
2009


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That epic state­ment was made by Jesus at Matthew 26:52. Even all those many years ago it was under­stood that if you lived your life by means of weapons that they would be the ulti­mate cause of your demise. How about today? Isn’t that cer­tainly the case. Increasingly more and more peo­ple are choos­ing to “live by the sword” or the mod­ern day sword that is the gun. Even that expres­sion has changed to reflect this. Now we say if you live by the gin you die by the gun.

I grew up in a neigh­bor­hood that was unar­guably the most vio­lent neigh­bor­hood in my city. Many of the young men that I grew up with have been killed because of gun vio­lence. I can relate to you a long list of child­hood friends, neigh­bors, and crushes who never lived past their teens. My first kiss at thir­teen was with a thirteen-​year-​old boy who was mur­dered six months after­ward. My teen-​aged neigh­bor across the street from where I grew up was mur­dered at eigh­teen by another child­hood friend. My neigh­bor who lived three houses down that I played with when I was very small was mur­dered a week after he got out of prison. He was only twenty. When I was eleven the teen-​aged brother of my clos­est friends was mur­dered and not found until months later. I could go on and on. These are just a few of the young men I know per­son­ally who have lost their lives because of “liv­ing by the sword”.

Daily news reports shows that this num­ber con­tin­ues to increase. I never really under­stood this until I was old enough to see the cor­re­la­tion between vio­lence and our way of life. As I have men­tioned on here before I am a fan of shows like The First 48 and often times the cases have the same cir­cum­stances. The per­pe­tra­tor often says: “I though the vic­tim was going to shoot me so I shot him first”. Many times the vic­tim is known for car­ry­ing weapons so that auto­mat­i­cally makes him a tar­get when there is con­flict.

When I hear these accounts I often try to under­stand the mind­set, the kind of fear that no doubt has a hold of some­one who is in con­stant fear of their life. Can you imag­ine being a young man in today’s world grow­ing up in a dan­ger­ous envi­ron­ment and not know­ing if some­one will take your life just because he can? Or just because you looked at him the wrong way of for some other friv­o­lous rea­son? That type of fear has led to more and more young men tak­ing up weapons. But, it has also led to them ulti­mately dying by means of the guns even before they have really got­ten a chance to live.

What about instances where young chil­dren are taught from an early age that guns are a nec­es­sary means of life? While I do rec­og­nize that guns have their proper place I do not think it is nec­es­sary for chil­dren to be taught how to han­dle guns from birth. In fact, this edu­ca­tion has led younger and younger chil­dren to com­mit­ting vio­lent acts. The rea­son I wanted to write this post because although I believe that only divine inter­ven­tion will stop the vio­lence in this world I also believe that apply­ing Jesus words to “return the sword to its place” would have a pow­er­ful effect on the amount of young men espe­cially who die by means of gun vio­lence.


I cer­tainly look for­ward to the day when the words are ful­filled at Micah 4:3, “…They will have to beat their swords into plow­shares..” Swords or guns will be removed and the threat of vio­lence will end. But until then, we can do our part in stop­ping the spread of gun vio­lence.
Thanks for read­ing,
Literary Nobody
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Toya Bryant has written 184 article(s) for this site

Toya Bryant aka Literary Nobody is a Freelance Writer/Blogger who promotes positive thinking and actions within the community and the family. She also writes about the positives and negatives of technology, internet security and social media.

  • md20737

    I do not believe that its taught that guns are nec­ces­sary part of life, I think its learned how to use them. Some peo­ple intro­duce their fam­i­lies to guns early on but they also intro­duce them to the con­se­quences and respon­si­b­li­ties of hav­ing a gun. How many peo­ple think guns are to pro­tect them, and noth­ing else. The other part of that is that guns can pro­tect you, but they can destroy you too. Guns can be used on their own­ers, or their own­ers actions could be the wrong action with the gun and they for­feit their lives to being on the run, or jail time. With the sword comes respon­si­bil­ity.

  • md20737

    I do not believe that its taught that guns are nec­ces­sary part of life, I think its learned how to use them. Some peo­ple intro­duce their fam­i­lies to guns early on but they also intro­duce them to the con­se­quences and respon­si­b­li­ties of hav­ing a gun. How many peo­ple think guns are to pro­tect them, and noth­ing else. The other part of that is that guns can pro­tect you, but they can destroy you too. Guns can be used on their own­ers, or their own­ers actions could be the wrong action with the gun and they for­feit their lives to being on the run, or jail time. With the sword comes respon­si­bil­ity.

  • Toya

    Thank you for the com­ment Md :) I agree with you that hav­ing a gun comes with a cer­tain amount of respon­si­bil­ity. As far as kids being taught to use them I actu­ally had sev­eral youtube videos that I was going to post with this post of young kids only as old as 3 being taught to shoot very large weapons. (I found them too dis­turb­ing and I also didn’t want to ignite some atten­tion to peo­ple who do this so I didn’t post them) People do teach this. This is why a 7-​year-​old can go into a gun cab­i­net and take a gun off safety and shoot his 4 or 5 year old sib­ling. It’s really sad.Some peo­ple carry guns out of fear and they are the most dan­ger­ous because fear has caused many to shoot peo­ple who weren’t even armed. I per­son­ally would love to see guns off the street but that is only a small part of the prob­lem. It is going to take a change of peo­ples atti­tudes to stop mur­ders though. People are com­ing up with new ways to kill even with­out guns.

  • Toya

    Thank you for the com­ment Md :) I agree with you that hav­ing a gun comes with a cer­tain amount of respon­si­bil­ity. As far as kids being taught to use them I actu­ally had sev­eral youtube videos that I was going to post with this post of young kids only as old as 3 being taught to shoot very large weapons. (I found them too dis­turb­ing and I also didn’t want to ignite some atten­tion to peo­ple who do this so I didn’t post them) People do teach this. This is why a 7-​year-​old can go into a gun cab­i­net and take a gun off safety and shoot his 4 or 5 year old sib­ling. It’s really sad.

    Some peo­ple carry guns out of fear and they are the most dan­ger­ous because fear has caused many to shoot peo­ple who weren’t even armed.

    I per­son­ally would love to see guns off the street but that is only a small part of the prob­lem. It is going to take a change of peo­ples atti­tudes to stop mur­ders though. People are com­ing up with new ways to kill even with­out guns.

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