Elections, Gun Laws, Church Shootings, And More – A Week Of Thanksgiving, Day Three: Do you know where there was a 42-point turnaround in the elections earlier this month? What did the Illinois Supreme Court decide about the unconstitutional taxes on ammunition? How was another church shooting recently averted? Is Texas allowing biological boys to play in girls’ sports?  Tune in to hear these stories and more, as we celebrate Thanksgiving by having “Good News Friday” all week long!

Air Date: 11/24/2021

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

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Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

Faith and the Culture

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. It’s WallBuilders Live. We are taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. It’s a special week. It’s Thanksgiving week, we’re doing something we’ve never done before. We’re doing Good News Friday programs throughout the week.

Now, we’re not replaying Good News Friday programs from previous Fridays, we’re actually giving you five programs of good news throughout this week. So, great opportunity for you to share some of this programming with your friends and family. Today is day three we’re going to have a lot more good news for you. Now at our website, wallbuilderslive.com, you can get the entire week of Thanksgiving programs right there in the archive section, and again, great opportunity to share with your friends and family.

And we’re going to get some of that good news from David Barton. He’s America’s premier historian and our founder here at WallBuilders; more good news coming from Tim Barton, he’s a national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders. I’m Rick Green, former Texas legislator, and America’s Constitution coach. And I’m just kind of like the goalie. I just bouncing back and forth from David and Tim. So we’re going to dive into a bunch of that good news. But I really want to encourage you to share it with your friends or family because it is a great way to give thanks, right.

When you think about all that good news and you think of all these things that are happening across the country, you share it with your friends and family, and then when you’re sitting down at Thanksgiving, you can thank the good Lord for all the good things that are happening in our nation. We know there’s challenges, we know there’s a lot of bad things happen, and we cover those topics as well typically in our Monday through Friday programs. But this week, let’s give thanks for all of the good things that are happening.

Alright, guys, well, let’s dive into the good news. This is day three of our Thanksgiving week, all week long giving thanks and sharing good news stories from across the nation. And day three, so David, what’s our first piece of good news this Wednesday?

David:

Well, it turns out we’re still getting information coming in from the election way back the first Tuesday of this month. So here we are, three weeks later, and we’re still getting more information. I was on the road this last week in Florida when I got some information about an election that happened in South Carolina that hadn’t made much news, at least that I’ve seen, so I thought it was worth covering.

South Carolina

And it’s interesting, because in South Carolina like a lot of other red states you think of in the red states, and so you’re not necessarily surprised by maybe conservative or God-fearing kind of election results come in other states where the good guys get elected. But in a lot of ways, that’s a misperception because as we know here in Texas, we really are two states, we are purported to be a red state, but it’s 254 counties in the state, and five of the more we have the densest population are very blue, and the rest of the state is very red, and so we end up being more of a purple state than red state, because you throw in Houston and you throw in San Antonio and Dallas and El Paso and Austin, it’s those five, and that’s a whole lot of the population of the state.

So it’s kind of that way with the story in South Carolina. South Carolina, the capital of South Carolina is Columbia. That is one of their most urban areas of the state. And that’s an area of the state that in recent years has been very, very blue. So when you go back to President Obama, the first time he ran, the city of Columbia voted for him, and he had a 29 point margin, that was definitely in blue. And then four years later when he ran for reelection, it was a 33 point margin for Democrats in Colombia. And then last presidential election, when Biden ran, it was up to 38 point margin for Democrats in Colombia.

But last Tuesday or the first Tuesday of this month, there was a mayor’s election in Colombia, and a Republican ran and was elected with a 4 point margin. So that’s a 42 point turnaround literally in just a year. It was only a year ago that Biden won that city by 38 points, and now a year later, a mayor wins that city, a Republican mayor wins it by 4 points. And that’s a 42 point turnaround which that’s massive. And this happened in a really red state, you know, so it’s a blue part of the red state.

But if that’s any kind of an indication of maybe what’s going to happen in a year, and being a year off, anything can happen between now and then we can have another pandemic or we could be attacked, or we could attack somebody, who knows what happens. But if the election were held anytime soon, that’s a pretty good indication that the nation is repudiating a lot of the stuff that is going with the woke White House, and where they’re headed with climate change and everything else.

And by the way, I am still just kind of in awe that with the House voting through that big infrastructure package, that President Biden said the greatest victory in that was what it would do for climate change. And the nation say wait a minute, I thought this was about infrastructure? And they really did miss that the major part of that bill was not about the spending, it was about the control that it gives to the government over every aspect of our daily lives. As part of that massively long bill was government control over so many areas that used to be free-market areas.

Now, the good news is it hasn’t passed in the Senate, it’s probably not likely to pass in the Senate. But it did come out of the House, and I think Biden really revealed the essence of what they were after, that it’s not an infrastructure. He said this is about climate change. And so that’s those ESG scores and the “Build Back Better” and things we’ve talked about in previous programs. So anyway, I thought that was really good news coming out of Columbia to see…

Conservatives Winning

Rick:

And that by the way, David, is 550 billion of that bill, if I read it right. I mean, it is a largest chunk of money, is all the climate supposed crisis. Instead of money on a real crisis down at the border, it’s this hypothetical crisis that we don’t even know if any of the measures they take will make any difference whatsoever. And I also want to ask you, if you thought the election you were talking about is not an outlier, I mean, that’s on top of Virginia, New Jersey, I mean, all these other places. So it’s not like it’s just one area. We seem to have seen this almost in different regions all across the country.

David:

Yeah, I don’t think it’s an outlier. You know, we recently covered all the headlines of all the school board races that were run in major cities and also blue cities. In Minnesota, conservatives win. You had a conservatives winning in Denver. You had conservatives winning in Wichita, which is one of the most liberal cities in Kansas. Conservatives winning in Boise, which is one of the most liberal cities in Idaho. I mean, you had conservatives winning in all these blue places.

And so I don’t think it’s an outlier. I think we’re seeing this across the country from coast to coast. And I think it is a good indication of what can come if people don’t forget what got them here, or at least why they’re upset in voting the way they are. If they remember that in the coming election, I think we can see a real big turnaround, a real big shift. And I think the Democrats see that coming as well.

We kind of see that indicated by the resignations and announcements, not running for reelection in Congress by many Democrat leaders. It’s like they don’t want to be in the minority, and that’s where it could head. But even that is only a step, it needs to continue for several elections in a row if you’re going to get the nation back on course and get a lot of this stuff that has been done like through the bill we were just talking about, the infrastructure bill. If you’re going to get that out of the system, you’re just going to take a few congresses in a row to do that.

Rick:

This is no time to relax and go oh, okay, we won some battles so I guess that means we can relax and forget about the fight. No, this is the time to press forward. It’s like you said it’s going to take multiple election cycles to turn this thing around. Tim, what’s your first piece of good news today?

Tim:

Well, this one comes out of Illinois. And it was a little shocking to me when I first saw the headline. It’s not something I expect from Illinois, but I think probably because my perspective of Illinois is largely tainted by my view of Chicago. And generally, we’re hearing something from Illinois. It’s what happened in Chicago on a given weekend or something Governor Pritzker has done. And so generally, there’s kind of with a bad taste in my mouth for a lot of Illinois. With that being said, this headline is “Illinois Supreme Court rules unconstitutional tax on guns and ammo”.

And the background is in 2012, there was a county, Cook County in…

David:

Which is Chicago.

Tim:

Oh, it’s Cook, Chicago?

David:

Cook County is Chicago.

Tim:

Okay, so just taste my mouth. There it is, Chicago, they’re the ones who did it, which is going to be good news because their state Supreme Court going to overrule them. But in 2012, they put an additional tax on the sale of any firearm within their county. So if anything in Cook County, if somebody sells a firearm, there’s an additional tax against that firearm. They also in 2015 then created a tax, this is their board of commissioners, and they came up with the idea to tax every single round of ammo. So it was an additional five cents per every round of centerfire and an extra penny for every round of rimfire. And here’s what’s interesting.

A 6-0 Decision

Americans who fail to pay those taxes are subject to a $1,000 fine for the first offense, and $2,000 fine for subsequent offenses. As if it almost sounds like you buy the ammo and then have to sending to the county an additional check for the tax on what you buy, I’m not really sure there’s tax work. But fortunately, there was a group “Guns Save Life” that challenge this order. And in October, the Illinois State Supreme Court came back with a 6-0 decision. And so the Supreme Court Justice who delivered the decision, her name was Mary Jane Theis. And actually, guys, what shocked me it was a 6-0 decision. So this is unanimous coming from their state Supreme Court.

And they pointed out the taxes violate the Constitution’s uniformity clause. And they pointed out that the revenue from the generated tax isn’t directed toward funds or programs that reduce gun violence. So they said we’re going to tax these to try to stop gun violence, but then the money they’re getting, they’re not actually using it to try to stop gun violence. Here’s part of the actual wording of the decision.

“While the taxes do not directly burden a law-abiding citizen right to use firearms for self-defense, they do directly burden a law-abiding citizen right to acquire a firearm and the necessary ammunition for self-defense.” And that’s why it was struck down because they’re making it harder for someone to get a firearm or get ammunition for self-defense purposes.

So, guys, this is kind of a crazy thought coming out of Illinois. But they’re striking down some of that, as you pointed out, this is Chicago, striking down some of Chicago’s onerous unconstitutional laws, unanimous decision from the state Supreme Court. So, that’s really good news coming out of Illinois.

Rick:

Alright, two good pieces of good news so far, we’re going to take a quick break. By the way, folks, be sure and give thanks. And one of the ways you can give thanks is to share this good news with your friends and family. Let them know about all these great things happening across the country as you celebrate this coming weekend. Stay with us, we’ll be right back with more good news here on WallBuilders Live.

AMERICAN HISTORY

Hi, friends, this is Tim Barton of WallBuilders. This is a time when most Americans don’t know much about American history or even heroes of the faith. And I know oftentimes we, parents, we’re trying to find good content for our kids to read.

And if you remember back to the Bible, to the book of Hebrews, it has the faith Hall of Fame where they outline the leaders of faith that had gone before them. Well, this is something that as Americans, we really want to go back and outline some of these heroes, not just of American history, but heroes of Christianity in our faith as well.

I want to let you know about some biographical sketches we have available on our website. One is called The Courageous Leaders collection. And this collection includes people like Abigail Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Francis Scott Key, George Washington Carver, Susanna Wesley, even the Wright brothers. And there’s a second collection called Heroes of History.

In this collection, you’ll read about people like Benjamin Franklin or Christopher Columbus, Daniel Boone, George Washington, Harriet Tubman; friends, the list goes on and on. This is a great collection for your young person to have and read and it’s a providential view of American and Christian history. This is available at www.wallbuilders.com. That’s www.wallbuilders.com.

Rick:

We’re back here on WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us on this good news, not Friday, good news Wednesday on Thanksgiving week. So we’re enjoying this entire week of good news. And the next piece of good news is coming from David Barton. David.

David:

We’re going to look at an averted church shooting. And by the way, just church shootings, how many church shootings do you guys recall?

Tim:

In the last couple years is really the only time I recall really speaking of church shootings, I guess, it was one when I was growing up decades ago. So there’s that one, and there’s been two or three over the last several years. So probably I can think of maybe four church shootings I could identify right now.

Rick:

Yeah, just off the top my head I think of the two in Texas, and then that synagogue, I think in New York, and those just in the last three or four years, I’m thinking,

David:

Yeah, those are definitely ones, I looked at the list, it’s a really long list of the number church shootings that has occurred. I was really surprised at that and it’s gone back. I just looked the last decade or so about a whole bunch of church shootings.

Tim:

Now when you’re saying a whole bunch are we talking about a in dozens of tens? Okay.

David:

Probably a couple dozen church shootings in the last 10 years or so.

Church Shootings

Tim:

Okay. So you know what and now that we’re talking about this, I’m thinking of other ones. We have friends up in Colorado Springs, and there was a shooter of their church. So…

David:

Yeah, the New Life Church.

Tim:

Yeah. As we’re thinking about it, yeah, I can recall a few more going through this. But anyway, so we’re talking to a couple dozen in the last decade or so.

David:

Yeah. And it looked like there was about to be another one in Nashville at Light Mission Pentecostal Church. And in Light Mission Pentecostal Church, a gunman walked in, people were upfront at the altar, they were praying, and the gunman walked in, he brandished his weapon, he started pointing it at the people of praying at the front. And it was real clear to those who were there that he was about to open fire. And what prevented him from opening fire was the pastor.

Now, I don’t know how to pronounce this pastor’s name. I look at it, and I’m going to say it’s probably from Ethiopia, maybe Nigeria. And by the way, have you guys I think I saw the report that the top 10 largest and fastest-growing churches in Europe are all pastored by pastors from Africa, who said, you know what, Europe sent us missionaries hundreds of years ago, and if it hadn’t been for that, we wouldn’t know Christ, and we look at Europe and America now and they really need help, and it’s our duty to go help them. And so they’re sending missionaries out of these African nations, and they’re really doing well in these churches. They’re having, I think, the two biggest churches in England, etc.

But nonetheless, this is, I’m going to try the name, and not being from that country, whichever it is, Nigeria, Ethiopia, wherever, it’s Ezekiel Ndikumana, sorry.

Tim:

Well, you were pretty good with Ezekiel, that sounded right.

David:

I got Ezekiel, you’re right.

Rick:

Ezekiel M?

David:

Or Ezekiel N.

Rick:

Oh, N?

David:

N, yeah.

Tim:

His friends call him pastor, so let’s go that way.

Pastor Ezekiel

David:

So Pastor Ezekiel, he said, when I saw him looking this way and pointing the gun this way, I pushed my chair and I ran. He wanted to kill, that’s the first thing that came to my mind. And so there’s video of this. And so what happened, as the gunman was waving the gun around at the people upfront, the pastor is actually behind him, he charges him from behind and tackles him, grabs his hand where the gun is, and then other guys charge and rush and they subdue him, and so he prevents the shooting.

But I’m so reminded of what Jesus said in John 10 about the difference between a shepherd and a hireling. He said, a shepherd is someone who sees the danger to the flock and will go put himself between the flock and the danger, while the hireling is someone who looks to run from danger. And it’s just good to see a pastor that’s willing to put himself on the line. 

And by the way, that doesn’t have to be just physically like it was with Pastor Ezekiel. It can be with anything else in the culture. Sometimes I ask pastors, what dangers have you seen come into your flock over the last 10 years, or secularism, or LGBTQ movement, or what? 

I said, okay, where are the sermons where you threw yourself in front of that danger? And it’s like, well, I didn’t think that was appropriate. No, if there’s danger, you throw yourself in front of… This is a great story of physical danger where the pastor physically threw himself in front of the danger.

Tim:

Yeah, and let’s back up too. So, one of the things we’ve done a lot of pastors conferences over the years, and we try to do conferences every year for pastors, we’ve actually done a lot of traveling over the last couple months doing pastors conferences, and in the midst of that, as you’re pointing out, when we’re asking pastors–

Hey, when we see these lies in culture, and we’re seeing these things that are direct contradictions to biblical truth, are you speaking up about it? Because sometimes throwing yourself between the attack of the enemy and the congregation is the lie of culture of whatever it might be, of moral relativism, of secular humanism, kind of this sexual prevalence of feelings. We can go down the list of a lot of things we see.

But in the midst of all of the pastors willing to stand up and get in the way, and we are seeing in the midst of some of this pandemic downstream effects is a resurgence of a lot of pastors saying, you know what, I want to stand up, I want to get involved, I want to make a difference. And Rick, I know as you, it seems like about every month, maybe it’s every other month, sometimes several times a month, you’re going out to Front Sight, and you’re hosting some of these trips where people are going out and getting firearms training.

Front Sight

We’re recognizing that there are evil people in the culture who wants to do evil. And sometimes, a pastor is not in a place where he can go tackle a gunman before the gunman gets off shots. And so sometimes you have to have a good guy who is well-trained with a gun, who can stop that bad guy.

And so I know even at Front Sight, there’s been times we’ve got pastors out there who were training, preparing them to be able to defend themselves or family, but also very specifically their flock so that if God forbid something like this ever happens in their church, whether it’s like Pastor Ezekiel, and they go and they tackle the guy, or whether they’re just pleading the blood of Jesus, and the congregation does something, or they have to draw a firearm, whatever it is, they want to be prepared.

And so, I know, even at the Front Sight, we’ve had some pastors come out and do that. Which for anybody listening, we totally encourage you, go to Front Sight, get the firearms training, learn the process of firearms. And whether you ever carry or shoot guns in the rest of your life, it’s still good to go do this training. And we would even encourage pastors listening, this is a really good practical thing for you to go get training. And if you have a security team at your church, send them to go get training into Front Sight, it’s very good training,

Rick:

You read my mind about security team, you know, it’s good bonding for them, good fellowship as well. And everything we do is based on that Proverbs 27:12, I mean, the fool walked blindly on and suffers the consequences, but a wise person sees that danger, sees that risk, and takes precautions. And that’s exactly what it is, is taking the right precautions, and just being prepared and being wise.

You know, guys, I was the fool most of my life and thought, oh, it’s not going to happen to me and don’t have it in my neighborhood, so I didn’t do training or even think about those kinds of things. And 10 years ago, that really changed. We do, we encourage everybody to be a part of this. But I love what you’re saying, pastors especially.

And I can’t remember who it was, David, we actually had him on the program, probably 10 years ago, some pastor that said, I think it was like a West Texas pastor and he said, man, I’m at the pulpit, I see the bad guy coming in the door first, so I want to be armed and be prepared. So especially pastors, we want to see them get this kind of training as well.

And folks that want to be involved in that, constitutioncoach.com, that’s the easiest website to go to constitutioncoach.com, you can sign up. And we actually make it very inexpensive for you to come. And like I said, very good fellowship. It’s a great time. We do constitution training in the evening, so you get the intellectual ammunition. And then we have some really good trainers out there and instructors that know what they’re doing, even if you’ve never touched a gun before, you’ll have a good time. So let’s jump into another piece of good news. And I think Tim’s up next?

Transgender Athletes

Tim:

Alright, guys, well, this one is one from Texas. As we’ve mentioned, we have…

David:

You can stop there, that’s good.

Rick:

Good news, there we go.

Tim:

Well, you know, see, and as a Texan, we can joke and appreciate the fact that there’s a lot of goodies in Texas. We already identified Texas really is broken up in different categories, and not everything that happens is always really great. Even though the state’s awesome, sometimes there’s people and leaders who aren’t the best.

But this is a moment where we did have some really good things come in Texas: the state legislature was not able to get all of the needed legislation done in the first session. So they’ve had, I think, three extra-special sessions along the way. 

But one of the things they finally got done, and one of the special sessions happened late in October was they were able to get through a bill banning transgender athletes playing in girls’ sports in public schools here in Texas, and the governor signed that into law late October. So that was a very positive thing. Now it doesn’t take effect until January 18th.

And what we’re talking about is it’s interesting the language in the wording because the language has it’s barring transgender girls from participating in female sports. But a transgender girl is a biological boy who feels like or identifies as a girl, right? So that’s what we’re talking about. It’s saying that biological boys can’t play in girl sports. That’s not how that works, which there should be so obvious and self-evident. There was a reason Title IX was done to create a place for girls’ sports.

And one of the crazy things about culture and the reality of kind of this notion, this attack on women, attack on femininity, and this is where you wonder where are the feminists is, if there is no such thing as gender, then there can be no girl sports. And again, this is where it gets in the convoluted mess, it becomes utterly ridiculous to pretend like there’s not different genders, or that you can just identify as whatever gender you feel like that day.

Protecting Girls

And we’ve seen some of the terrible negative consequences about this, is why you have the father from Loudoun County who showed up at a school board meeting, he’s the one that ended up getting arrested, and now he’s largely been vindicated because come to find out that his daughter was sexually assaulted and raped and the school board said, hey, nothing happened.

But the young man who sexually assaulted and raped this girl in the girl’s bathroom was someone who periodically wore a skirt, so he identified as a girl that day. This is what can happen when you let people identify how they feel on a given day, instead of saying, no, you are a biological boy, you play in the boy’s teams, you go to the boy’s restroom. Well, here in Texas, they passed legislation saying that that is the way sports will operate here in Texas, this is the way the bathrooms and locker rooms and showers will operate in those public schools in Texas.

And as we look at this, guys, the first time this was done, a transgender sports bill I think is kind of how they’re generally labeled now, but the first time a sports bill was done to really protect girl athletes and girls’ sports from biological males who wanted to compete against girls was in Idaho. And it actually was one of our friends who is a member of our ProFamily Legislative network, she has attended several of our conferences. 

We actually saw her again just a couple of weekends ago. And actually, she was a division one girls’ basketball coach. And so she’s been around female sports really kind of at the highest levels, so to speak.

And she’s the one that introduced this legislation in Idaho. It went through and now it’s on hold because people sued over this. And so it’s in the court system now. And sometimes in the court system, it can take years upon years, if not a decade or so to get this thing resolved, which does seem utterly silly. So there is a hold on this. But several states have followed suit. There’s actually seven other states that have passed similar laws.

This year alone, you had Arkansas pass a law, Alabama passed a law, Florida, Mississippi, Montana, Tennessee, and West Virginia all passed laws this year to protect girls’ sports. And then you had people like Kristi Noem in South Dakota, she did an executive order to protect girls’ sports. With all that being said, we are seeing a lot of traction and movement in the right direction. 

There’re actually 31 states this year that introduced legislation to protect girls sports, not all of those got through. And some of those states are still in legislative cycles right now, they’re still in session, they’re still meeting. So, some of that actually could come forward.

 

But to have 31 states trying to protect girls’ sports, this is a very positive thing that we are seeing a trend going the right direction that really you should have 50 states. But we get that there is some very woke liberal states; as far as the general population, it’d be very hard in those states to get those things done. 

But at least we are seeing some positive results. And so this is an article dealing with the one in Texas that was just signed the end of October by Governor Abbott to protect girls’ sports and this goes into effect January 18. And God-willing, we’ll see a lot more states follow this lead and continue to protect girls’ sports.

Elections, Gun Laws, Church Shootings, And More – A Week Of Thanksgiving

Rick:

Alright, we are out of time for today here on WallBuilders Live. We’re having a great week though of Good News Fridays just all throughout the week. So I hope you’re sharing these with your friends and family. You can do that at our website wallbuilderslive.com. In the archive section, you can get any of the programs throughout this week.

This has been day three of our five days of Thanksgiving that we’re given tomorrow, of course, actual Thanksgiving. But we’ll have more programming for you then as well with special guest, Paul Jaylee tomorrow. So I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving week. Don’t forget to give thanks for all the things that we have in our nation, the freedom that we have, just the opportunity to influence our culture, all of the great things that we get to enjoy as Americans.

I do want to encourage you, you know, of course, black Friday’s coming up this Friday, be sure go to wallbuilders.com and get some of those goodies there. What a great way to give for Christmas this year. You can actually invest in freedom by giving to your friends and family some great gifts that will educate, equip, and inspire them. It’s a great opportunity really to sow into the future of our country while you sow into your family.

So check that out at wallbuilders.com, there’s mp3, there’s CDs, there’s DVDs, there’s books, there’s all kinds of stuff. And hey, how about ‘The American Story’, that would be a great book to share with your friends and family, maybe for Thanksgiving. Oh, it’s a little too close to be able to get that. But purchase it on Black Friday and give it to your friends and family for Christmas, all of it available at wallbuilders.com.

Now, don’t forget two more days of good news. So we’ll have good news on Thanksgiving again, and then Good News Friday, which we always have a Good News Friday, but this week very special with all the Thanksgiving that we’re celebrating as well. So check it all out at wallbuilderslive.com for the radio programs and wallbuilders.com for the gifts that you can get for your friends and family this Christmas.

Thanks so much for listening WallBuilders Live.