Ink & Brass

Married | Dad of 3 | Author | Gun owner | Pro-2A, anti-gun control | Anti-war | Not MAGA or liberal | Independent, libertarian-leaning | Originalist

[Ink & Brass @InkAndBrass]

Not agreeing with you on gun control doesn't mean they don't care. What you're trying to do is dehumanize Republicans. This doesn't make you look good in doing so.

But you are right about how they have no plans to pass sensible gun control legislation. Democrats don't even have a plan for that, because everything they pass isn't sensible. It usually endangers people.

But we can see when Republicans' plans do get put into action, such as in Nebraska, which saw a 50% reduction in victims of gun crimes after rejecting gun control. Instead, they used a program that brings the community together and works with the police. The same thing was seen to work in Oakland, CA.

As long as you're fixated on guns, you're the problem, not Republicans, whose plan did 50% more than any gun control laws has ever done. Suggesting we can save lives without gun control laws.

[Ink & Brass @InkAndBrass]

@RetroCoast That does seem to be a reasonable explanation.

[Ink & Brass @InkAndBrass]

@andrewsanx15 Oh, but they can't do ID for voting because that would be a burden on people.

[Ink & Brass @InkAndBrass]

@nothingisfree71 @JohnJamesMI But getting an ID will place an undue financial burden on people, which is why we only require it for an actual right that says "shall not be infringed," yet we fight against it for voting because, technically, voting is not an actual right.

[Ink & Brass @InkAndBrass]

That's actually a different.

If you're saying, "You don't believe in Christ, but spend a year sincerely seeking Him. Read Scripture, pray even if your prayer is, 'God, I don't know whether You're there, but if You are, help me know You,' attend church, and examine Christianity seriously," I have no problem with that.

None of that requires pretending to believe something you don't believe.

What I object to is telling someone to live a lie: "Call yourself a Christian. Profess belief in Christ even though you don't actually believe. Fake it until hopefully you make it."

Those aren't the same thing here.

And where does Scripture promise that if an unbeliever follows this particular routine for one year, God will grant him faith before the year is over? That's an incredibly specific guarantee. Show me where Christ or the apostles promise that.

I'm perfectly happy telling an unbeliever to seek Christ. In fact, I'd encourage it. Read the Gospels. Pray honestly. Ask questions. Go to church. Talk to Christians. Examine the evidence. But do it honestly.

Again, there's a huge difference between saying, "I don't believe, but I'm sincerely seeking," and saying, "I believe," when you know that you don't.

Do you think Christ wants or need us to manufacture a fake profession of faith first so that He can eventually produce a genuine one?

[Ink & Brass @InkAndBrass]

Did I say anything that would suggest I underestimate Christ's work? Christ can do that work without someone lying to themselves, to other people, or to Him.

That's the problem with the whole "just say you believe, just in case" argument. What are we actually asking them to do? Pretend? Lie to themselves and say, "I believe in Christ," when they know they don't? And then hope that maybe someday they'll genuinely believe? They could come to genuine faith later without pretending to have faith now.

Christianity isn't about getting someone to say the right words as an insurance policy. If they don't believe, then they don't believe. I'd rather have them be truthful about that while continuing to seek Christ, or seek it genuinely, than encourage them to manufacture a profession of faith they know isn't genuine.

And what does that say about us as Christians? Are we really comfortable encouraging someone to lie to themselves, to us, and ultimately to Christ? Are we advocating some kind of "fake it until you make it" Christianity?

Why would we want that? So we can feel good about ourselves? So we can look around and say, "Wow, look at all these new Christians," while knowing that they are only calling themselves Christians because we encouraged them to profess something they don't actually believe?

I'd rather have one person honestly tell me, "I don't believe in Christ," than have ten people tell me they believe because somebody convinced them that pretending is safer. At least with the honest unbeliever, we know where they actually stand, and we can have an honest conversation about Christ.

There's another danger here too. What happens when churches fill up with people who have been taught that Christianity is about saying the right words rather than genuinely believing them? How much easier does that make them prey for the very people Scripture warns us about: false teachers and wolves in sheep's clothing?

Someone who has merely been taught to wear the Christian label, without actually understanding what they believe or why they believe it, may be particularly vulnerable to someone else wearing the Christian label and saying, "Trust me, I'm a pastor. This is what God says."

We shouldn't be trying to manufacture Christians. Our job isn't to get somebody to check the right box or repeat the right words. We proclaim Christ truthfully and let Christ do His work. If genuine faith comes, then it is genuine. We don't need to manufacture a counterfeit first and hope that someday it becomes real.

[Ink & Brass @InkAndBrass]

Did I say anything that would suggest I underestimate Christ's work? Christ can do that work without someone lying to themselves, to other people, or to Him.

That's the problem with the whole "just say you believe, just in case" argument. What are we actually asking them to do? Pretend? Lie to themselves and say, "I believe in Christ," when they know they don't? And then hope that maybe someday they'll genuinely believe? They could come to genuine faith later without pretending to have faith now.

Christianity isn't about getting someone to say the right words as an insurance policy. If they don't believe, then they don't believe. I'd rather have them be truthful about that while continuing to seek Christ, or seek it genuinely, than encourage them to manufacture a profession of faith they know isn't genuine.

And what does that say about us as Christians? Are we really comfortable encouraging someone to lie to themselves, to us, and ultimately to Christ? Are we advocating some kind of "fake it until you make it" Christianity?

Why would we want that? So we can feel good about ourselves? So we can look around and say, "Wow, look at all these new Christians," while knowing that they are only calling themselves Christians because we encouraged them to profess something they don't actually believe?

I'd rather have one person honestly tell me, "I don't believe in Christ," than have ten people tell me they believe because somebody convinced them that pretending is safer. At least with the honest unbeliever, we know where they actually stand, and we can have an honest conversation about Christ.

There's another danger here too. What happens when churches fill up with people who have been taught that Christianity is about saying the right words rather than genuinely believing them? How much easier does that make them prey for the very people Scripture warns us about: false teachers and wolves in sheep's clothing?

Someone who has merely been taught to wear the Christian label, without actually understanding what they believe or why they believe it, may be particularly vulnerable to someone else wearing the Christian label and saying, "Trust me, I'm a pastor. This is what God says."

We shouldn't be trying to manufacture Christians. Our job isn't to get somebody to check the right box or repeat the right words. We proclaim Christ truthfully and let Christ do His work. If genuine faith comes, then it is genuine. We don't need to manufacture a counterfeit first and hope that someday it becomes real.

[Ink & Brass @InkAndBrass]

@restitutorII So they are looking at the wrong place for the ark? Imagine if they found it. They would have falsified the Bible in doing so. Then the question would be, which got it right?

[Ink & Brass @InkAndBrass]

@VivaCristoelRey @oelma__ We can trust that will happen with us making fake Christians, giving them false hope.

[Ink & Brass @InkAndBrass]

@RetroCoast Oops you spoke to soon.
https://t.co/h5mkkKpiYU

[Ink & Brass @InkAndBrass]

@Rusia_HD True and... your problems are because of you, Putin, and judging from the war, you're screwed. Well, your people are anyway.

[Ink & Brass @InkAndBrass]

@bestofStarTrek Yes.

[Ink & Brass @InkAndBrass]

@PlanetOfMemes If it works, it works

[Ink & Brass @InkAndBrass]

Now they want to ban pellet guns; yes, pellet guns. They say they don't want to ban guns, but actions speak louder than words.
https://t.co/ACfZ49Gfv8

[Ink & Brass @InkAndBrass]

@SenWarren Isn't murder already illegal? Maybe these people don't know. Have you tried posting signs? Because maybe they just didn't know the law.

[Ink & Brass @InkAndBrass]

@SenWarren @NRA I was unaware that the NRA was behind laws that prevent people from being armed at such locations; I thought it was you and your fellow members of Congress that made the laws that prevent people from defending themselves.

[Ink & Brass @InkAndBrass]

@Georgia_07os That calld a paid staycation.

[Ink & Brass @InkAndBrass]

@aleksthgrt My body, my right. Well, except when sending men off to fight in wars they don't agree with and don't want to fight in. Then it's okay to be hypocrites. Why? Because they are men and men are disposable.

[Ink & Brass @InkAndBrass]

If we're actually going by the letter of the Second Amendment, then we'd be able to buy whatever arms were available on the free market, including machine guns, Stinger missiles, and other weapons, without first having to join the militia, show an ID, pass a background check, or satisfy some other government-imposed requirement.

Why? Because the right belongs to “the people,” and the command is “shall not be infringed.” The text doesn't say, “the right of militia members who have satisfied government requirements to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

This really isn't difficult to understand when you apply the exact same grammatical structure to something that isn't politically charged.

Suppose I wrote:

“A well-regulated diet, being necessary to nourish the body, the right of the people to keep and store food, shall not be infringed.”

Who has the right to keep and store food?

The diet or the people?

Does that sentence say you must be on a well-regulated diet before you have the right to keep and store food?

Obviously not.

People can immediately recognize the distinction in that sentence, yet somehow the exact same distinction suddenly becomes incomprehensible when we get to the Second Amendment.

Look at what the words are actually modifying:

“A well regulated Militia...”

“Well regulated” modifies “Militia.”

It does not modify “the right of the people.”

The Amendment does not say:

“the right of the well regulated militia to keep and bear Arms...”

It says:

“the right of the people to keep and bear Arms...”

The militia clause tells us why an armed citizenry is considered necessary. It does not grammatically transfer the right from “the people” to the militia or say that militia membership is a prerequisite for exercising it.

So how you get from the actual wording of the Second Amendment to “you only have this right if you're a member of the National Guard” is beyond me, because you're certainly not getting there from the letter of the Second Amendment.

And it becomes even harder to make that argument when you stop isolating the Second Amendment and read the Constitution as a whole.

The Constitution specifically refers to “the Militia of the several States” in Article II, §2, Clause 1. It doesn't call it the “United States militia” (the national guard) That which rules out the National Guard that had only been established under federal legislation with the Militia Act of 1903, long after the seconed amendment and operates under a very different structure then the militia in the constitution. Guard members formally enlist, are integrated into the federal military system, and can be called into federal service and deployed overseas.

Those characteristics distinguish the modern National Guard from the constitutional militia system, which contemplated a body separate from the standing Army. Congress was given authority to provide for “organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia,” while the states retained authority over appointing officers and training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress (Art. I, § 8, Cls. 15–16).

The Constitution also distinguishes between a state’s “Militia” and its “Troops.” Article I, § 10, Cl. 3 separately provides that states may not, without congressional consent, “keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace.” That distinction matters because the Constitution itself does not treat every state-associated military force as synonymous with “the Militia.”

For that reason, simply equating the modern National Guard with “the Militia of the several States” obscure important differences in their legal structure and function. The Guard may perform militia-related functions under modern federal law, but it is also deeply integrated into the federal armed forces in ways the constitutional militia was not.