I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about Friday’s shocking massacre of 6- and 7-year-olds — 20 children total — along with 6 adults. All these innocents slaughtered by an evil, demonic, 20-year-old murderer who gained entry to a public elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.

You wouldn’t know it from listening to the mainstream media, but criminals don’t usually target people or places where they know people are armed for defense. Instead, the body bags are piling up in “gun free zones.”

In our God-ignoring, dehumanizing culture, I’m afraid we’re going to see more mass murders, like this one planned in Oklahoma but foiled just a few days ago. In schools, in theaters, in church buildings. For people are being increasingly regarded as things. Babies, children, women, men, the elderly. America’s self-centered culture and the hedonistic media messages that people digest from their youth are teaching them that other people are either useful, useless, or in the way, rather than innately precious in God’s sight.

As godlessness rises in society, violent attacks will correspondingly increase in formerly “safe” places. That’s why church shootings are on the rise, as was reported in 2007.

Consider last month in Los Angeles: “For God’s sake, if people going to church aren’t protected, then who is?” asked a nearby business owner, who bolted out of his store when he heard the gunfire and saw the dead man lying on the asphalt, surrounded by loudly grieving parishioners. — Church shooting over graffiti outrages L.A. neighborhood, L.A. Times, Nov. 5, 2012

Anti-crime expert John Lott says to protect people at churches, schools, and theaters, there need to be people inside who are armed and trained to shoot in defense. “There are simply too many possible ways to get into different buildings, as the killer at the Batman movie showed by bringing his weapons through the locked emergency door at the back of the theater,” Lott writes. “To reduce future carnage, the key is to get someone with a gun quickly at the scene. Quick responses not only limit the number of casualties, but reduce the attention these killers garner from committing their crimes. We can’t get rid of gun-free zones soon enough.”

Do you lock the door of your home at night? Do you lock your car doors? Yes, you do. Are you ready to use a gun in self defense at home to protect your family? You need to be. Will anyone protect your children if you send them away to a school, or protect your church congregation, if a crazed gunman decides to shoot up the school or the church building? The honest answer is no — not unless there are armed people there who are trained to shoot down murderous assailants.

We must stop fooling ourselves. To protect ourselves and others in our increasingly violent society, responsible citizens must be armed at home and designated, trained individuals should be armed and ready for an intruder at school campuses and where local churches gather. More schools and local churches are using paid security and putting together a comprehensive security plan. The Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock had their men bring loaded muskets into the congregation house because they knew about possible Indian attacks. We should be as wise and as loving today.

No one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. And then he will plunder his house.
Jesus Christ in Mark 3:27 NKJV

But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into.
Jesus Christ in Matthew 24:43 NKJV