{"id":1722,"date":"2012-04-01T14:14:18","date_gmt":"2012-04-01T18:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/?p=1722"},"modified":"2012-04-01T14:14:18","modified_gmt":"2012-04-01T18:14:18","slug":"a-thought-for-a-sunday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/a-thought-for-a-sunday\/","title":{"rendered":"A THOUGHT FOR A SUNDAY\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this recent incident, an aberration of society walked into a church in Spartanburg, raising a shotgun<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, before mayhem could ensue, an armed parishioner took him at gunpoint.\u00a0 This was not what the violent intruder had come for; he surrendered, and a mass murder was averted.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

These things don\u2019t always have such happy endings.\u00a0 For a number of reasons, houses of worship are disproportionately likely to be the targets of mass murderers.\u00a0 Across the spectrum of the faiths, clergy and church management have taken to heart the words attributed to Jesus Christ:\u00a0 \u201cIf thou hast not a sword, sell thy cloak and buy one.\u201d (Luke 22:36)<\/p>\n

Yeah, it\u2019s Sunday. Some of you are religious, some are not.\u00a0 I once gave that quote to a friend who happens to be an atheist, who replied with a puzzled look, \u201cWhose screen name is Luke twenty-two thirty-six? What forums does he post on?\u201d\u00a0 Well, if you don\u2019t read the Bible, you\u2019ll find the same principle in Ethics 101.\u00a0 There is such a thing as a responsibility to protect the innocent from evil.\u00a0 This is why so many houses of worship now provide discreet armed security for their members in attendance.<\/p>\n

One such was Jeanne Assam, an ex-cop working volunteer security at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado on December 9, 2007. \u00a0In the wee hours of that morning, a crazed young man had shot multiple people at an affiliated church in a suburb of Denver.\u00a0 The same monster showed up at the Colorado Springs facility with an AR15, a couple of handguns, and a backpack with more than a thousand rounds of ammunition.\u00a0 He opened fire in the parking lot, killing two and wounding two more.\u00a0 Entering the church, he found himself facing Ms. Assam\u2026and his own mortality.<\/p>\n

Disregarding her own safety, Jeanne Assam moved in on the heavily armed gunman, firing her Beretta 92 FS with deadly accuracy, and cut him down in a hail of 9mm bullets.\u00a0 Some say that at the last moment he put a fatal bullet into himself, but that wouldn\u2019t change the fact that he died only after Ms. Assam disabled him with multiple solid hits, and stopped a rampage that could have claimed dozens of lives.<\/p>\n

We are a nation that seems driven to tear down its heroes, and Jeanne Assam became a target of the mainstream media and other forces thereafter. You can read her compelling story in her own words. Her book \u201cGod, the Gunman, and Me\u201d is available for $14.99 plus $5.00 postage from http:\/\/www.jeanneassam.com\/jeannes-book<\/a> .<\/p>\n

From the brave man in Spartanburg to the courageous lady in Colorado Springs, we have logical testament to the fact that if you\u2019re going to refer to those folks in the pews as \u201cthe flock,\u201d and their spiritual advisor as \u201cthe shepherd,\u201d it makes a lot of sense to have some sheepdogs around, with good sharp fangs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this recent incident, an aberration of society walked into a church in Spartanburg, raising a shotgun. Fortunately, before mayhem could ensue, an armed parishioner took him at gunpoint.\u00a0 This was not what the violent intruder had come for; he surrendered, and a mass murder was averted. These things don\u2019t always have such happy endings.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,13,14],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1722","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reviews","8":"category-safety","9":"category-training"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}