Mass Murder Numbers, Conscience Rights, And More – On Foundations Of Freedom: Do mass murder events only happen in the United States, or is this a lie of the Left? What numbers would Chicago and St. Louis be in the list of the deadliest cities? Should you be able to carry a gun into church if it has been deemed a gun-free zone? Are there any banks that have moral values in their policies? It’s Foundations of Freedom Thursday around here at WallBuilders, the day when we answer your questions about our foundational principles, current policies discussions, and more. Tune in to hear our answers to your questions and more!

Air Date: 08/11/2022

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

President Calvin Coolidge said, “The more I study the Constitution, the more I realize that no other document devised by the hand of man has brought so much progress and happiness to humanity. To live under the American Constitution is the greatest political privilege that was ever accorded to the human race.”

Rick:

Welcome to WallBuilders Live, the intersection of faith and the culture. It’s the place where we look at whatever’s going on in the world around us from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. How do we dive into the issues of the day? 

How do we become a positive influence in the world around us, whether that’s in our own families, in our homes, or in our community right there in our neighborhood, perhaps in our church or at the local schools, whatever it might be in your workplace. How can you become a positive influence in that area?

And the only way you can do that is if you’re able to look at the issues of the day and have that biblical perspective, that constitutional perspective, and that historical perspective that gives you the right answers to whatever the issues of the day are. How do you deal with the things that are challenging our country and respond in a way that you know can make a positive difference?

We talk often on the program about good principles producing good results, bad principles producing bad results. And of course, we see around the world and around our nation for sure, a lot of bad principles by bad leaders, just leaders that don’t come from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective, putting in bad policies that are creating bad results that are affecting people’s lives in a very bad way. 

Send In Your Questions!

How do you turn that around? Well, you put in good policies. You get good leaders that understand from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective what those good principles are that produce good results, and then you can get those results once again.

So that’s why here at WallBuilders, we’re always talking about those foundations. We’re talking about what produces that, and today is Foundations of Freedom Thursday. So we’re going to be diving into your questions about those foundational principles.

My name is Rick Green. I’m a former Texas legislator and America’s Constitution coach. And I have the honor of being here with David Barton. He’s America’s premier historian and our founder at WallBuilders, and also with Tim Barton, national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders.

If you would like to ask a question for our Thursday programs, you can do that by emailing it into [email protected] wallbuilders.com, we’ll get to as many of those as we possibly can. But we sure thank you for joining us today. Be sure to check out our website at wallbuilderslive.com, that’s where you can make a one-time or monthly contribution as well. And what that does is it allows us to reach more people. It amplifies the voice of truth here at WallBuilders Live.

Alright, David and Tim, let’s dive into those questions. First one is going to come from Helen in Dallas. She said, “My question is, why do mass shootings happen?” Actually, she started off saying, “Hey, dear friends, love your brilliant program.” 

Mass Shootings

Then she asked a question, “why do mass shootings happen in just in the US, not any other country in the world? US is the best country in the world and it has Christianity, it’s not existed in Europe. But nobody goes to school stores and other public places to mass murder unless it’s Islamic terrorists with suicide bombings.

I appreciate your expertise and answers. May the Lord richly bless you and your families and your incredible ministry.” Helen, thank you so much for your question.

David and Tim, of course, this is definitely a mantra from the President, from a lot of those on the left, typically, which is where Helen’s probably heard this, is that this stuff only happens in the US, is that actually true?

David:

Well, she made two distinctions there, and I’m not sure she was aware of either of those distinctions. But she started out by saying mass shootings and then she went to mass murders. And there’s a difference between the two.

No question that mass shootings happened in the US more than other nations, but no question that mass murders happen everywhere. And in other nations, it happens to be machetes, it happens to be knives, it happens to be vehicles running into crowds. There’s lots of mass murders that go on, and there’s big groups of murders.

Now, we’ve got more guns than any other place in the world, and that’s easier for us to use. But it’s not a reflection of the country, it’s a reflection of the heart. And so if you look at mass murders, the United States averages 6.2 murders per 100,000 individuals. Okay? So let’s take that 6.2 number per 100,000 individuals and let’s compare it with, let’s say El Salvador, which has 52 murders per 100,000 individuals. 

Massacres

So we’re talking about nine times higher than El Salvador. Jamaica is at 44 per thousand. You have Honduras at 38 per thousand. Bay Lease is at 38 per thousand. They don’t have guns, but they got plenty of mass murders going on. And you can go down through all these other nations. You’ve got Mexico and you got Brazil and you’ve got Colombia, and you got Guatemala and all these other nations.

Tim:

Well, and to clarify, too, one of the things that when people talk about a mass shooting event, generally the numbers for a mass shooting is a lot smaller than most people realize because the number you’re talking, it’s like three, four people and it’s a mass shooting. If you could go back historically to the Boston Massacre, for example, the Boston Massacre, three people died from the initial volley of the British fired in, two people died from wound sustained. So five total died at the Boston Massacre.

Well, we often think massacre as this massive holocaust kind of event where millions upon millions of people died. And so, dad, to your point, when you talk about some of these mass murder events, it makes a difference how you define what mass is, what number would qualify to be in some of these mass events. But you’re talking just your murder totals or your death rate total from murder as far as these 100,000 numbers we’re looking at.

And so in the midst of this, you’ve already identified that even though America is a nation that has the most guns, the Founding Fathers pointed out that freedom only works if you have a religious and moral people because without religion and morality, freedom doesn’t work. And so the reason that America has guns and most other nations don’t is because most other nations did not have a moral underpinning, a moral compass that guided them to allow freedom to work for so long. Most other nations had dictators and tyrants and oppressors and so they have not been able to enjoy the freedom we enjoyed in America.

Arms in Other Nations

And the reason that you don’t see these mass murders with firearms in these other nations is because the people are disarmed. But also when the people are disarmed, it’s easy for tyranny to prevail. The reason we had the Second Amendment, the Founding Father to identify the way you keep a government in check is you make sure the people are armed so that the government–

And by the way, that similar to the notion that when people agree to uphold the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic well, yeah, there could be foreign invaders. But there could be domestic terrorists or specifically the federal government could overreach and could try to avoid out, for example, the Bill of Rights, some of our God-given and alien natural rights.

So these other nations that they’ve already been disarmed, that’s not going to be the best example for people to reference when we have these mass shootings here. Yes, because we have still had freedom here and we haven’t had communism, we haven’t had socialism, we haven’t had Marxism to the extent that other nations have.

Now, we certainly are moving that direction. Unfortunately, there is more involved. But I think that’s one of the big factors to consider is that America was free. And the Founding Fathers knew freedom only works when you have a religious moral underpinning. The foundation of a society has to be laid in Christianity and in the Bible. 

And we are losing that which makes you think it’s not farfetched to think we will have a government come just like it happened in COVID and try to begin restricting and taking away some of those God-given rights because we no longer are promoting the underlying morals that allow freedom to function well in a society.

A Good Guy with a Gun

And the only other option, if there’s not going to be the internal constraints from people, from the morals of that individual, then it has to come from an external constraint i.e. the government, more cops, more soldiers, whatever the case is coming from a government oppressive kind of system. There’s a reason Americans have guns, and it’s because we believe the only way to preserve freedom is with the ability to defend freedom; and at times that does involve firearms.

And I’m not obviously calling for any kind of violent insurrection right now. What we’re pointing out is what we’ve known fundamentally be true, is that if you have oppressors coming with firearms to try to kill you, to try to take away your stuff, your property, or your freedom, the best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. And bad guys are not just thieves that break in at night. Sometimes they are tyrannical governments that are very oppressive and destructive to their people.

David:

You know, interesting with that and that you make that distinction what we’ve done here in America, there is a trend in America in certain places where our murder rate, our shooting rate, et cetera, is approaching that of all these other Third World countries. And again, number one on that list of Third World countries was El Salvador, and then Jamaica and Honduras and Belize, Venezuela, et cetera.

So when you look at that, it’s interesting the number one murder rate in the world for any nation is El Salvador at 52 murders for 100,000 people. What’s the highest murder rate in the United States? What city, what location, what area?

Chicago

Tim:

Well, by default, I would think Chicago, because that’s what we hear the most. But I don’t think Chicago. Chicago’s in the top 10, but I’m not even sure they’re always in the top 5 of the most violent or the most deadly cities. So if I’m thinking outside of Chicago, I would think…

Rick:

Maybe Detroit?

Tim:

That’s an interesting thought. I was going to guess maybe Miami or maybe, man, we can pretty much pick any major Democrat city and have a good chance of this because they’re probably on the top 10 list. So I don’t have a good guess.

I know it’s not Chicago because I know there are some higher in Chicago, but Chicago is the one that people point to the most because there’s so much evidence from Chicago of the failed policies of gun control, where they have some of the strictest gun control laws and obviously it’s not discouraged any of the violence in murder Chicago. But they’re not, I don’t think, even in the top 5. So I’m not sure who the number one is.

St. Louis

David:

So you find that Chicago actually is not that high in America, and it definitely if you were looking at world stats, it’s not the high end world stats. They would be number 11. They’re the 11th most deadly city in the United States.

And if each of those cities were just a nation, where actually if you said Chicago is a nation, they would also be the 11th most deadly nation in the world if you made Chicago a nation. But in the United States, the most deadly city is St. Louis. Now, Chicago has a murder rate of around 26, 27. Any idea what it is in St. Louis?

Tim:

Well, it’s got to be higher than 26 or 27. So, let’s say 35.

David:

St. Louis is 88. So the worst nation in the world has a murder rate of 52, which is El Salvador. If St. Louis were a nation, it is far and away the most violent place on the face of the earth if St. Louis were a nation. So when you look at the top 15 cities: St. Louis, Birmingham, Baltimore, Memphis, Detroit, New Orleans, Cleveland, Baton Rouge, Kansas City, again, it’s basically blue cities you’re looking at.

So you have this lack of, Tim, you mentioned that religion, morality, our Constitution is made only for religious, moral people, those are your least moral parts of the United States, and that’s where you see the most crime. And so it is an interesting thing. So, mass murderers versus mass shootings, yes, America’s got more mass shootings–

Loss of Life

But, if you’re talking loss of life, America is nowhere near the top when it comes to mass murders or when it comes to shooting or death rate or anything else. We’re a long way down the list.

So when Biden talks about we’re number one in the world, yeah, when it comes to shootings, but we got more guns, but if it comes to just murder and violence, etcetera, we’re way down the list compared to other nations.

Rick:

Couple of thoughts, guys, first of all, St. Louis, think about it, that’s where that Soros funded DA, Kim Gardner has been so horrible, refusing to prosecute actual crimes and then prosecuting people that are actually defending their home. So that obviously adds to these kinds of things as well.

But actually, let’s talk real quick about just the mass murder numbers, because this whole thing and I don’t fault Helen for believing that we have the highest mass murder shootings and all of that because that has been the lie. When I say lie, it’s all based on one study where this guy will not even release his data. It’s the Langford study from a few years ago when Obama started this nonsense saying we’re far and away have the most mass murder events, it’s all faulty data.

When you actually look at the real data, the opposite is true. We’re actually number 11 on the death rate from mass public shootings. We’re behind Norway, Serbia, France, Macedonia, Albania, Slovakia, Switzerland, Finland, Belgium, the Czech Republic.

Crime Prevention Research Center, John Lott

And then when you look at frequency of mass murder events, we’re number 12 again behind all of those groups. The problem is this Langford manipulated the data and made it look like we were 31% of the mass murder events around the world. Absolutely not true. We’re actually about 3% or 4%, which actually matches up to our population percentage of the country.

So you really have to watch the data out there, folks. And of course, the guy that’s better on this than anybody, as our friend over at the Crime Prevention Research Center, John Lott. But it’s so sad that, first of all, Obama perpetrated that lie by repeating Langford study and not looking at all the other studies and then of course, Biden has done the exact same thing and made people believe something that’s absolutely not true.

We got to take a quick break. There are more questions from our audience. Stay with us, folks, it is Foundations of Freedom Thursday here on WallBuilders Live.

AMERICA EXCEPTIONALISM

Hey, this is Tim Barton with WallBuilders. And as you’ve had the opportunity to listen to WallBuilders Live, you’ve probably heard the wealth of information about our nation, about our spiritual heritage, about the religious liberties, about all the things that makes America exceptional.

 And you might be thinking, as incredible as this information is, I wish there was a way that I could get one of the WallBuilders guys to come to my area and share with my group, whether it be a church, whether it be a Christian school or public school or some political event or activity. If you’re interested in having a WallBuilders speaker come to your area, you can get on our website at www.wallbuilders.com and there’s a tab for scheduling. 

And if you’ll click on that tab, you’ll notice there’s a list of information from speakers BIOS to events that are already going on, and there’s a section where you can request an event to bring this information about who we are, where we came from, our religious liberties and freedoms. Go to the WallBuilders website and bring a speaker to your area.

Thomas Jefferson said, “The Constitution of most of our States and of the United States assert that all power is inherent in the people that they may exercise it by themselves. That is their right and duty to be at all times armed, that they are entitled to freedom of person; freedom of religion; freedom of property and freedom of press.”

Rick:

We’re back here on WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us on this Foundation of Freedom Thursday. Kind of sticking, guys, with the whole Second Amendment and right to keep and bear arms and the right of self-defense. Next question is “My religion is pro-Bill of Rights”, and I think they mean denomination there by the way, guys, “My religion is pro-Bill of Rights. 

The Bill of Rights

“However, they request not to consult Carrie in meeting houses. Does the Second Amendment, which is a God given right, give us the right to carry anywhere?” So, great question, guys, what do you think?

David:

I think that’s a really tough one, because among other rights I have in the Bill of Rights, my home is my castle. My property is my property. And so if I tell you, you can’t bring something into my home, do I have the right to tell you that even if your other rights would be that, let’s say I don’t want a gun in my home, can I tell you if I say I don’t want a gun in my church, that’s my property? That’s a tough one.

Tim:

Well, and to clarify too, just for everybody, to make sure we’re on the same page, as we talk about these inalienable rights, the Founding Fathers identified you have the right of self-defense or self-preservation, and also identified the best way to defend yourself, to preserve yourself, as with the best tools available to defend and preserve yourself, which is a firearm.

The same thing with the idea of private property they went through what are things of private property? And so your actual earnings, your finances, that is your private property. And the government doesn’t have right to something that you have not willfully given.

And so this is part of back to the taxation of that representation. But they get into, dad, as you mentioned, was known as the Castle Doctrine, that part of your private property is your home. 

Authority

And this is actually part of you can go back to kind of English common law with what became known as the Castle Doctrine, and they identified that a man’s home is his castle. And so this is where the Founding Fathers, dad, you mentioned, you’ll see, in the Bill of Rights castle doctrine or Castle law, you actually have to understand some of the context.

If you read the actual Bill of Rights, you’re not going to see the Castle Doctrine spelled out in the Bill of Rights. But when they talk about the right of self-defense or even due process or private property, it’s certainly in the founder’s mind very explicit in their writings this notion of the Castle doctrine, that your home is your castle and you are the king of your castle, so you get to oversee what happens in your castle.

Now, they certainly did it much more from a private property perspective. Not that you could do evil in your castle and you’re immune from the law, because arbitrarily your home is a sanctuary home, and therefore the law doesn’t apply to you in your home. Well, not in that sense, but in the sense that this is your property and your rights extended through this notion of self-defense, due process, etcetera. And so there is a little more context to that.

So dad, back to us, as you are identifying. It is a very interesting thought. If you are inviting somebody over for dinner and it’s your home and say, guys, you’re not allowed to have a gun in my home, do you have the authority at that point? You could ask your friend to leave if they wouldn’t take off their firearm–

Or, if your friend is really smart and they can still carry well, then you would never know they had the firearm, and you totally get away with it, which is probably what I would try. But with that being said, it does raise this interesting dilemma about where is the line between your conviction and somebody else’s conviction when it comes to some of these inalienable rights.

Religious Convictions

Rick:

Yeah, I completely agree with you, guys, the right to keep and bear arms does not allow you to override the rights of somebody’s property. And we feel that same way if a restaurant doesn’t want to allow concealed carry, well, you just don’t go there. We choose to go somewhere else to eat. 

If they are going to put us in danger by not allowing us to be armed and defend our family, we choose to go somewhere else. But I don’t think we have the right to force people in, like you said, their own castle, to adhere to what we want to do.

David:

And I think in looking at churches, for example, you have a distinctive right of conscience. If a Quaker church said, look, we don’t believe in guns and we don’t want that in our church, that’s part of their religious conviction. And that’s also guaranteed by the First Amendment. 

And if there are churches who say that maybe they’re not Quaker churches, maybe they don’t have the same biblical foundation, maybe they just have some liberal thinking, but nonetheless, if that’s what they say in their church, you don’t have to go to that church.

But I think the right of religion, the right of private property, these are all rights that have to be defended as well. And sometimes those rights, I don’t think they come in conflict with one another, but sometimes they do brush up against one another.

Conscience

Tim:

And this is also worth identifying that there are some people out there probably listening to us who definitely feel a sense that they don’t want to carry a firearm, or maybe they don’t want firearms in their church. And we would not suggest you love Jesus less because you wouldn’t carry a firearm or allow those in your church. Because the Bible even identifies the notion of the rights of conscience. And this was a big deal in the founding era.

And actually, let me back up before founding right in the colonizing era when you have the Pilgrims and the Puritans and the dissenters and all these different groups that are coming to America and they’re forming these or the colonies, the rights of conscience was a very big deal for them. And in the Bible, it even talks about don’t wound the conscience of a weaker brethren who might have a different feeling or opinion than you on something that maybe you are like this is super clear. 

The right of self-defense, it’s a natural law, it’s a biblical law. This should not be complicated. Maybe it’s very clear for you and it’s not for them. That doesn’t mean we should treat them worse or poorly because they don’t have the same conviction.

We do believe in the rights of conscience, that each person must work out their own salvation with fear and trembling. That’s between you and God, what you’re doing and navigating. And certainly, we want to always point at the Bible for guidance and so not taking away from the fact the Bible does give guidance to these issues, but also not trying to suggest that maybe your church is a terrible church if they have these things there.

Fellowship Elsewhere?

Again, if it’s one of these deeper convictions, unfortunately, there are some more modern liberal churches that it’s not a deep sense of biblical conviction, it’s more of them being woke and antigun than it is them pointing to maybe specific Bible verses that shape their doctrine on this issue. So certainly, if it’s a right of conscience, a religious doctrinal issue, then that’s something you have to navigate.

Dad, as you mentioned, there certainly can be times when even though we’re not encouraging the dividing of more denominations, we have plenty of denominations in America. We don’t need more. We need to learn to work together and be unified as Christians. However, there are some things that could cause me to want to fellowship somewhere else or want to go to a different location.

And certainly, if I thought that my family was endangered or my family could not be safe somewhere or I was not allowed to protect my family to the greatest extent possible if I attended this church, well, then my family safety and security becomes a major priority in my mind. 

And even though I might love the people at a certain church, I would definitely think about going somewhere that does recognize the reality that evil does exist, that there are evil people that do evil things, and that we need to be prepared to defend and protect our family, as I believe is one of our callings as parents, as leaders, heads of home, etc.

Banks Committed to Moral Values

Rick:

Yeah, Tim, I think you just described exactly the right balance, that’s the beauty of freedom is that for something like this, obviously, we have a particular conscientious conviction here on this particular thing where we want to be able to defend our family and we’re going to choose a church where we can do that. But we certainly enjoy the fact that there’s enough freedom in our country where you can choose a church that doesn’t allow that, if that’s your preference, for sure.

Alright, fellas, just a couple of minutes left. I think we can get in one more question here. This one’s from Dana. She said, “I remembered that on one of the shows, David and Tim discussed a bank that had a moral value foundation. Can you refer any recommendations concerning information on banks that hold moral values?”

So, interesting question. A bank does not hold a moral value, right, guys? But the people that run that bank can certainly have moral values reflected in their policies or not?

David:

Yes, that was Nick Vujicic, and Nick was starting a prolife bank, working with some other investors. I think it was coming out of Dallas. It should be up by now, quite frankly, the least based on his plan. So it may be up. I have not checked on that. But in addition to prolife values, they were pretty much trying to be non-woke.

ESG

But other things I would say, where banks are taking a value position is particularly on ESG and on ESG stuff. I would look for a bank that was not ESG. And a lot of them will have that on their own sites. If they’re part of the American Banking Association, then probably they’re going to be pretty woke, they’re going to be pretty ESG. If they’re more of a community bank, they’re less woke, less ESG. But that’s another value system I would definitely look for in a bank.

Tim:

Well, and by look for, you mean look for to stay away from.

David:

Right.

Tim:

Right. Certainly, we’ve talked about ESG a little bit on the program before. And with this ESG notion, the best way to stay away from that is looking at local banks where you can go in and talk to people. 

Because unfortunately, where we are in Texas, there’s even some Texas banks that were not on the same large scale of some of these national banks. And they were embracing ESG stuff and some of the managers, some of the presidents didn’t even know that was happening inside of their bank. And we showed them that even on their website, and they said, we don’t know what this is, let us look it up. And when they found that, they were able to push back against it.

Local Level

It’s easier to push back, especially at a smaller bank on a local level. And sometimes a bank can be embracing things that they think are what banks are supposed to embrace without even fully knowing what some of the doctrine and the philosophy, the ideology behind, for example, ESG is. 

So certainly look for a local bank. And when you find a local bank, we have some local banks close to where we are that do give donations to, for example, a pregnancy center, some of these prolife groups and organizations where they do help churches and they do invest back in the local community with those kind of conservative local Christian values.

Probably the easiest thing to do now is look for local banks and then start to form a relationship and let them know what your concerns are and what you’re interested in. And if you find banks that don’t want to go that direction, keep looking until you do. Certainly, we want to be able to vote with our dollars and move our dollars to places that we can promote the right kind of ideas.

But dad, to your point, I think Nick Vujicic was the individual she’s referring to opening a bank in Dallas, and we haven’t followed up since we had him on the interview about that. We really need to go back and look and see if that opened, hopefully, it did because it certainly was a great idea.

Mass Murder Numbers, Conscience Rights, And More – On Foundations Of Freedom

Rick:

Alright, friends, that does it for today. This has been Foundations of Freedom Thursday here on WallBuilders Live. Thanks for being a part of that today. If you’d like your questions answered, please send that into [email protected] That’s [email protected] 

And while you’re there, go ahead and go to wallbuilders.com, check out some of those amazing resources. If you’d like to have a better foundation for yourself that you would like to know more about how the nation was founded, you’d like to be able to apply a biblical, a historical and constitutional perspective to what’s going on in your community. 

Whether you’re testifying at the school board or at the state capitol or you’re calling or writing your legislator or you’re just teaching friends and family at church or in your home or even your own kids about the principles of liberty, we have to each get educated about those things first.

So go to wallbuilders.com, get some materials today, start diving in, maybe even consider becoming a constitution coach and joining our 12,000 constitution coaches around the country and hosting one of those classes in your home or at your church. You don’t need any background for that. Anyone can do it, and we do it for free. Check all of that out at biblicalscitizens.com. Thanks so much for listening to WallBuilders Live.