God, Guns, and Trump

If you drive about an hour north of my home, straight up the 95, you’ll run right into Boundary County, Idaho, population 13,000. You’ll know you’re there when you reach the massive sign welcoming you to Trump territory, as in, the thing actually reads, “Welcome to Trump Country: Love God, guns, family, freedom, and your neighbor.”

To the right of the sign is an election poster urging locals to vote for Ammon Bundy, a known local conspiracy theorist agitator whose claim to fame is creating trouble for local law enforcement, which is somehow magically spun as a conservative value—resistance to tyranny or some such nonsense. But I digress…

On the one hand, you might think I would appreciate such bold right wing proclamations, especially having recently escaped from loony tune western Washington where they now publicly cancel people for the microaggression of wearing American flag shirts and where the Satanic Temple is invited to conduct invocation ceremonies on the steps of the State Capitol. While parked at a market in WA, someone once wrote obscenities on my car because they opposed my “back the blue” bumper sticker. I can’t imagine what would happen to someone who flew a Trump flag in Seattle. The only people free to express themselves there are people who march in lockstep with the Democratic party’s ideals, and that’s certainly not me.

But on the other hand, the Welcome to Trump Country sign makes me cringe every time I pass it. It does not represent me either. Look at the hierarchy of values on that thing. First God, then guns, and then the heavy hitters like family and loving your neighbor? What in the wild west is this about? A gun nut would try to convince me that there’s nothing wrong with this, that I’m overthinking it, that I’m taking it too seriously. “The second amendment is important because it protects the first amendment,” they’ll argue. And I don’t disagree with this isolated statement.

As previously mentioned, I generally get along pretty great with gun people. I understand the importance of the right to bear arms. In my opinion, people who insist that guns should be banned in America are like people who insist on shoving all the toothpaste back into the tube once it’s already been squeezed out; they don’t understand the impossibility of the solutions they propose. They don’t realize that a government that tries to ban guns in America is a government that’s decided to launch the next Civil War—that actually confiscating all the peoples’ weapons will result in even more bloodshed than we currently suffer, which is a whole lot.

I personally don’t think we need more gun laws; we need to enforce the ones we already have, and we need harsher penalties for those who violate them. Most of the shootings in recent history have been in places with strict gun laws. Laws are only as good as their enforcement mechanisms, and America is allergic to accountability.

The same people pushing most aggressively for gun laws are usually often the people who think prison is oppressive or who want to replace the police with social workers. Progressives will shout “Defund the police!” in one breath while simultaneously fighting for laws that ensure the only people with access to guns are the police they so aggressively distrust. It also makes very little sense to me that we are now declaring that it’s somehow lawful for illegal immigrants to carry firearms in America. So you’re basically taking a group of people who’ve already demonstrated their disregard for law and order and naively trusting them with weapons you want to strip from the actual citizenry. Again, it makes no sense.

I could go on for quite awhile on my defense of the 2nd amendment, and maybe I will in a future post. But while I defend the right to carry, and I think it’s pretty important, I think there’s an alternate danger that gets a free pass too often in Republican circles, and that’s the frequency with which guns are made into idols. Leftists mock this reality all the time, so we largely dismiss it. But the truth of the matter is that there are, in fact, way too many Americans who have woven guns into the fabric of their sense of personal identity. And it’s a problem that produces unhealthy fruit, often marketed as American Christianity. You can recognize it by the wonky, maladjusted, “me and my rights above all else” flavor, which eclipses the obligation to love the outside world the way that Christ does.

I’m all about a healthy dose of patriotism, but it needs to be kept in check. By all means, stand for the anthem. Honor the sacrifice the flag represents. Cheer for nation’s success. Be unapologetically proud of your roots. But the minute you find yourself believing that America is God’s favorite child, something is pretty far off with your theology.

A few years ago, there was a rumor that the BLM protests were coming to town. And boy, did our city’s men respond to the assumed threat! I counted over 282 men decked out in full tactical gear lining the streets of downtown Coeur d’ Alene, AR-15s in hand, prepared to defend the city from the looters rumored to be descending upon it.

Many of my friends cheered and praised these guys as heroes, especially friends living in cities engulfed in flames. And to a certain extent, I understand. There’s a shortage of bold, self-sacrificial men prepared to risk their safety on behalf of the greater good, and I applaud any man who’s willing to use his power to defend the innocent. Really, I do.

But when I looked around at the men in Coeur d’ Alene, I didn’t see a ton of virtue. I saw a lot of little boys finally getting a chance to live their childhood fantasy of playing war. I saw overcompensation and false identity and ego masked as patriotism.

Some of the men screamed “Show us your t*ts” to the peaceful female protesters, while others set their AK’s on the table and threw down shots of alcohol at the local bar. Some proudly displayed their rebel flags while others shouted “Go home, you dumb b*tch” to another protester.

It’s possible I was too distracted by this to notice the many virtuous men whose motives were noble and whose actions were praiseworthy. Like I said, I love and appreciate bold men, and I’m an enthusiastic supporter of the 2nd amendment.

But the thing that distracted me, the point I’m trying to make, is that the overwhelming sense I got from observing these men was not self-sacrifice; it was self-centeredness. It was hubris. It was ego and a desperate need to be seen as bad asses whose personal rights supersede all else. I saw men wearing patriotism like I see my kid wear a Superman cape.

And it’s possible I saw incorrectly, but I don’t think that’s the case, especially given my front row seat in the gender wars, where I’m routinely subjected to the “pastors” of the manosphere who seem so desperate to believe in a bloodthirsty Jesus instead of a gracious one who wishes that no one should perish. Today, one such pastor informed me that “When Jesus returns, he’s going to soak his clothes in the blood of his enemies.” Even if it weren’t terrible exegesis (The blood on Christ’s garments is His own, and the sword in the passage is His Word), it reveals something dark about the heart of someone who salivates over the prospect of violence.

And I’m about to say something very un-Republican: Men who fantasize over war should absolutely not own guns. I’m not suggesting they be legally banned from carrying. But I am saying they should recognize the darkness in their own hearts and respond accordingly. We should look at guns the way we look at any other tool. The minute the tool becomes a part of our identity, it’s time for a heart check because that’s the point at which we are on dangerous ground.

I want to surround myself with men who are willing to do what it takes to defend the innocent, not men who are eager to inflict violence in order to feel like real men. And I think we need to check ourselves on the latter more often than we do, especially when it comes to gun culture. We need to ask ourselves hard questions about our own hearts. Why are guns important to me? What do I hope to accomplish by owning them? Is my sense of self dependent on possessing them? What does God think about my current relationship with guns?

Guns are tools we should hope we never have to use, except for sport. They don’t belong on a list of the things that define us or our county. It’s like defining yourself by your house or your car; it’s a compensation for something deeply lacking.

I think a lot of people have some personal work to do in exploring this lack. The world would be better for it.