Op-ed: Thugs find it more difficult if populace is armed

By Charl Van Wyck

A gunman opened fire in the sanctuary of a southwest Missouri, USA, church Sunday Aug. 12, 2007, killing a pastor and two worshippers and wounding several others.

My condolences go out to the local congregation, friends and family of the worshippers who were holding the service at the First Congregational Church.

This abominable act is not the first time that churchgoers have been attacked whilst worshipping their Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

In 2004 one of the most dreadful campaigns of mass murder was unleashed upon the Tutsi people of Rwanda. In just 100 days more people were slaughtered, many in churches, than have died from atomic weapons in all of history.

Dr. Peter Hammond's book "Holocaust in Rwanda" documents how gun control, media manipulation, liberal church leaders and the U.N. played a role in this disaster.

When I visited the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a missionary, I was told of rebel soldiers burying Rev. Mungomba, the pastor of a local church, alive in 2001. His congregation refused to stop praying as demanded by the rebels. Two evangelists were cut up in pieces by rebels in 1998 and 2002 respectively. It is very difficult for armed thugs to perform such tyranny if the local population were legally allowed to be armed and could defend themselves.

I, too, have lived through a church being attacked, and am blessed to be able to tell the story...

Click here to read the entire op-ed from WorldNetDaily.com.