1999 – For Sensible Gun Control and Protection of the Second Amendment

In light of recent headline stories highlighting violence including the Littleton, CO, massacre and subsequent copycat bomb scares, shootings and other acts of terrorism, and

Whereas, the nation’s media desperately seeks a scapegoat on which it can lay the blame for these bizarre and malicious acts, and

Whereas, they naively or intentionally scorn the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms, and use every opportunity and crisis they can to blame guns for acts of violence, rather than the violent, depraved nature of man, and

Whereas the Bible tells us it was not Cain’s weapon, but Cain who murdered his brother Abel, the Bible does not condemn inanimate objects such as guns for the countless acts of violence and murder in our sin-sick country, but rather the individuals with depraved sin natures which are untamed by the Holy Spirit of God, and

Whereas, the saints of the Old Testament were encouraged to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem with sword in one hand and tool in the other, and the New Testament recognizes the right to own and bear arms (Luke 22:36-38), Jesus noting the folly of a thief breaking into a strong man’s house unless he first bind the strong man, and

Whereas, armed citizens have been a great deterrent against millions of attempted crimes, and the founding fathers acknowledged in the Bill of Rights that an armed citizen militia was a great deterrent against tyrannical governmental injustice, and that tyrants have historically seized power over their people by first disarming them, and

Whereas, the overwhelming number of current gun laws are impossible to enforce, serving only to prevent private, law-abiding citizens from protecting themselves, and having the effect of compelling greater reliance upon an increasingly intrusive government for the personal safety of the citizen,

Be it resolved that the IBFNA, meeting in Kansas City, Missouri, on June 22-24, 1999, encourages our nation’s lawmakers not to capitulate pressure brought on by groups with ulterior motives who use emotional crises to undermine our Constitutional rights, by seeking to disarm the ordinary citizens and encourage criminals.

Furthermore, we encourage all Bible believers to pray fervently for our nation that we would tum from our path of “wickedness [which is] great in the earth, and … every imagination of the thoughts of [ our] heart[s] [which is] only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5) and that we would humble ourselves before our Holy God and passionately seek His face. Be it finally resolved, that agreeing with the wisdom of our founding fathers, who in the spirit of independence, self-reliance and trust in God penned the great documents that we call the Constitution and Bill of Rights, we also strive to preserve all those freedoms that have made America a unique nation and keep our government from intruding further into the private lives of its citizens.