The Gospel Beacon

I saw this picture going around Facebook and was amazed how many of my friends were sharing it and I mean professing Christian friends. All of these friends were hardcore Republicans and using the picture to defend their support of anti-gun control policy. Let me state I believe in submission to the government except when a governments word violates God’s Word. The gun control issue is not a Biblical issue and whether you support or oppose the Second Amendment should not influence a Christian in any way. I am not a fan of guns myself so to me it’s a non issue. I don’t hunt and I would never advocate using a gun against somebody.

As I watched this picture constantly make it’s way into my Facebook feed I began to wonder about the honesty of it. The picture is comparing the incident with the Native Americans to the events of the school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary. The picture claims that Sandy Hook was not the deadliest school shooting because in 1890 the U.S. Government shot and killed over 290 unarmed people who had just given up their guns including 200 women.

Let’s put this under the microscope of truth. The incident is as follows according to history.com:

“On this day in 1890, in the final chapter of America’s long Indian wars, the U.S. Cavalry kills 146 Sioux at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota.

Throughout 1890, the U.S. government worried about the increasing influence at Pine Ridge of the Ghost Dance spiritual movement, which taught that Indians had been defeated and confined to reservations because they had angered the gods by abandoning their traditional customs. Many Sioux believed that if they practiced the Ghost Dance and rejected the ways of the white man, the gods would create the world anew and destroy all non-believers, including non-Indians. On December 15, 1890, reservation police tried to arrest Sitting Bull, the famous Sioux chief, who they mistakenly believed was a Ghost Dancer, and killed him in the process, increasing the tensions at Pine Ridge.

On December 29, the U.S. Army’s 7th cavalry surrounded a band of Ghost Dancers under the Sioux Chief Big Foot near Wounded Knee Creek and demanded they surrender their weapons. As that was happening, a fight broke out between an Indian and a U.S. soldier and a shot was fired, although it’s unclear from which side…”

1. This was not a government issue gun control incident and should not be linked to such things. This was during battles with the Native Americans.

2. The massacre was not at a school which means Sandy Hook is still the deadliest. Conservatives hate liberals using Sandy Hook to advance gun control but conservatives need to stop diminishing the horror of it in order to argue in favor of guns.

3. The picture gives off the impression that the government took their guns planning to kill them as a warning that this may happen to us and that was not the case.

4. 290 is only an estimate and a high one according to some historians.

5. Whatever the number about half were women so the 200 number is probably bloated.

The incident is sad but it’s not what the political right has attempted to make it appear. It’s not even clear who started the event so to lay blame is to simply guess. In our day and age Republicans are very protective of the military. Whenever soldiers are accused of murdering civilians people and politicians get angry and jump to their defense and rightly they should. The picture says the U.S. Government killed them. It was actually the military…that’s right soldiers. The people who put the picture together know the the term U.S. Government is distrusted and hated by so many that to say the U.S. Government would bring more condemnation then to say the U.S. military.

My point is that if your politically active (which is your right) and your a Christian then you have a higher calling and responsibility which is to be honest. We must still act like Christ and honesty is right even when trying to make a political point. The problem in our high tech social media world is that we often fail to check our facts. We simply share anything that comes across our path that sounds good to us. We as believers must engage this world with honesty and integrity as servants of the Most High God. So my admonition to you is to be honest and just in all of your dealings with this world. If you want to fight for the Second Amendment then do it in an honest way making sound arguments not by twisting history and dishonoring the memory of those who have perished either at Wounded Knee or Sandy Hook.