This is Pastor Tim’s article which appeared in the Evening Leader on Tuesday, April 18
I just saw something disgusting. I am writing this article the day after Easter, April 10, 2023. I just came through one of the best Easter seasons of my entire career. I stood in front of no less than 4 large crowds over the past 5 days to proclaim the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ: once at Walnut Grove on Good Friday, once at Elm Grove chapel for our community SONRise service, and twice at Wayne Street on Easter Sunday morning. The turnout was inspiring that that many people wanted to connect with something meaningful. To every person who attended a church service during the Easter season, thank you. From a somewhat jaded and mildly cantankerous old preacher such as myself, your presence in church truly warms my heart.
Well, I got up this morning, the Monday after Easter, and I did something catastrophically stupid. I turned on the news before I went out for my morning run. I know, by now I should know better than to do that, but it had to happen eventually. I could have used something better than this for my first news story coming back online.
This morning, I found out that Vice President Kamala Harris visited Nashville on Good Friday. Now that, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. National politicians visit cities all the time and Nashville was the location of the horrible school shooting where three teachers and three 9-year-old children lost their lives. But the vice president was not going there to meet with the victims’ families, she was not going there to speak at their funerals, or even go there for any of those victims at all.
She went there because the Tennessee House of Representatives expelled two members and nearly expelled a third for holding protests and stopping the work of the House. They were there protesting on behalf of gun seizure in the wake of the school shooting. They believe that passing more laws will curb criminal activity. I guess it is because criminals will only break so many laws. Apparently, criminals believe that murder and terrorism is ok, but when the government tells me I can’t own a gun, well I better give this gun back.
These members of the Tennessee House of Representatives had a bullhorn, and they were chanting and disrupting the work of the House. Why don’t they put a resolution to a vote on repealing the second amendment and see if the citizens of Tennessee are stupid enough to pass it? But that won’t happen because the people of Tennessee realize that the only ones who are disarmed by passing a law are those who follow the law. Why we want to broadcast that a group of people is unarmed is beyond me. But that is what these megaphone shouting morons who are followed around by armed guards want everyone else to do.
And our Vice President went to make a speech on their behalf. Has anyone from the Biden administration contacted the victims’ families? I know that none of them spoke at any funerals. This is embarrassing. The Tennessee House of Representatives did their job to make sure they could conduct their work in an orderly manner. If someone wants to put up a bill to repeal the second amendment, then do it. Put it up there and see what happens. Screaming and yelling may look good on TV but all it resulted in was my tax dollars being spent to fly VP Harris down to Nashville to spout some meaningless platitudes about why guns are evil.
The Tennessee House of Representatives did their job. They are to conduct their business with order and purpose. If these hard-working members of the House want to work by the same rules as everyone else, then that is what they were elected to do. But they cannot bypass the system to scream and yell while offering no meaningful solutions. What Americans want is very simple. We want to be safe. The way we are safe is for every person who may be considering hurting someone to understand that they will immediately be opposed by the same or greater level of violence than what they intend to use. That is the only deterrent that will work.
I know it was probably hard to miss, but I pray the grieving families in Nashville did not listen to the VP’s disgraceful speech because they were too busy celebrating Easter, which I am sure took on a whole new meaning for these families this year.