We Don’t Know How to Stop Mass Shootings

French, as is common with him, hits it out of the park. In the sad case recently, the man may have been broken in the military—I got a tremendous tutorial on PTSD from a sufferer a year or so back. It’s real, it’s big, it’s nasty, it’s hard to understand.

One thing to add; if indeed 4-10% of adults have some degree of this, we have a huge area of ministry out there if only we’re willing to take it. Sure, many need more professional assistance than I could ever hope to provide, but for many, a listening ear is tremendously helpful. Read the papers and see what you find a lot of very interesting things that soldiers with PTSD are doing to cope. My favorite one is canoe trips.

It is worse. Those who do not blow their tops and shoot find other ways to anesthetize themselves. I worked with the probation advisory board (it started out as juvenile, but in order to save money, the county opened it up to adults as well - incarceration is too expensive). Most individuals on probation and in “programs” are addicted to one or more substances. And until they are clean, the POs have no hope of helping them (in their words). There is a whole lot of despair out there, and a vast majority of (rural) churches have insulated themselves. They think their neighbor is fine when their neighbor is dying. That is why a great deal of rural churches are simply dying. The people who have hope, instead of sharing the hope, are hiding the hope and praying that Jesus returns soon.