{"id":5204,"date":"2014-07-14T10:36:22","date_gmt":"2014-07-14T10:36:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/?p=5204"},"modified":"2014-07-14T10:38:19","modified_gmt":"2014-07-14T10:38:19","slug":"hostility-re-my-post-on-guns-in-georgia-a-lesson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2014\/07\/hostility-re-my-post-on-guns-in-georgia-a-lesson.html","title":{"rendered":"Hostility Re: My Post on Guns in Georgia\u2014A Lesson"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Fellow saints and sinners, it&#8217;s with some sadness and more fascination that I write after seeing the onslaught of fierce and even violently ad hominem attacks in response to my post from two days ago about Georgia&#8217;s new gun rights legislation.\u00a0 From here on out, these sorts of responses won&#8217;t be tolerated at this intersection between life and God, but today, as a means of investigating the sharp political and cultural divide that afflicts our country, I&#8217;ll let them stand for themselves.\u00a0 &#8220;Highlights&#8221; were my being called a &#8220;bedwetter,&#8221; a &#8220;liberal, lying witch,&#8221; and, a &#8220;cretin.&#8221;\u00a0 I had to look the last term up: the definition of a &#8220;cretin&#8221; in the words of the <em>Oxford Dictionary\u00a0<\/em>is a &#8220;stupid person (used as a general term of abuse).&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Now that I&#8217;ve been called all these names, I&#8217;m going to sign up for an NRA membership and put an AK-47 bumper sticker on my car.\u00a0 (Sarcasm is still allowed here.)<\/p>\n<p>But one reader who called me a witch had a good point: he reminded me that it&#8217;s a federal law that you can&#8217;t carry guns on planes, so I may be wrong that Georgia residents will be able to take guns on to planes. I stand corrected.\u00a0 Gun owners may only be able to take their guns through TSA lines, I guess\u2014that is, so long as a tired, over-worked TSA agent catches the gun in their carry-on bags&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>From now on, the name calling stops; today, it serves as a helpful educational exercise for me and all my &#8220;liberal&#8221; friends advocating sensible gun regulation about the deep cultural divides in this country and the vociferousness and violent rhetoric (in many cases) of a small, angry minority.<\/p>\n<p>[For the record: I am politically independent and become uncomfortable when Christians from either side insist that to be a good Christian one must vote Republican or Democrat.\u00a0 And, once again, for the record, I am advocating sensible gun regulation as part of a holistic approach to preventing future massacres like Newtown.]<\/p>\n<p>Here are some of the comments which, incidentally, with the exception of one &#8220;like&#8221; on Facebook from another of the silent majority, were the <em>only<\/em> comments to this post; (you can catch the others at the bottom of this post):<\/p>\n<p>James in North Carolina writes: &#8220;Typical liberal hogwash. Trying to point to an event that caused them angst and a law they don&#8217;t like and present a fictional cause and effect between the two.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"message\">\n<p>&#8220;Teebonicus&#8221; writes: &#8220;Personally, I liked it better when you WEREN&#8217;T speaking out.\u00a0 It&#8217;s the law. Get used to it, you bed-wetter.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Mark Harper writes: &#8220;Hmmm&#8230;Kristina&#8217;s embarrassed that she received the Young Republican Women\u2019s scholarship but this cretin has not refunded the money. She thinks people can walk onto planes with loaded weapons. She also thinks if someone abuses their rights, then OUR rights should be removed\/restricted. She puts the words rights and liberty inside quotation marks. Kristina, if you are so concerned about government employees rummaging through your stuff, complain about the TSA looking for bottles of liquid that are more than three ounces.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>One reader (Frank) offered some reasonable-sounding advice: &#8220;If there is a threat of criminal gang members bringing guns, then searches are the only way to catch them, regardless of the restrictions on permit holders. If there is NOT a threat of criminal gang members bringing guns, then the Atlanta natatorium is choosing to prohibit concealed handguns and searching your bags for no good reason, and it is to them that you should express your resentment.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for reading, Frank. And thank you to all of you who are willing to offer constructive work towards bipartisan solutions around the use and regulation of guns by private American citizens.\u00a0 Since my original post, I&#8217;ve: a) met a man with an amputated arm who lost his arm in a gun accident as a child and b) heard a non-gun-owning friend regale her fear to discover that as she was relaxing at her local spa, another private citizen strolled into the spa with a handgun strapped to his belt.\u00a0 Apparently we proud Georgians can also take guns to the spa now!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"comment-actions\"><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fellow saints and sinners, it&#8217;s with some sadness and more fascination that I write after seeing the onslaught of fierce and even violently ad hominem attacks in response to my post from two days ago about Georgia&#8217;s new gun rights legislation.\u00a0 From here on out, these sorts of responses won&#8217;t be tolerated at this intersection&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":461,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,180],"tags":[2186,2185,2178,1387],"class_list":["post-5204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity-and-culture","category-christianity-in-politics","tag-gun-safety","tag-guns-rights","tag-nathan-deal","tag-newtown"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Hostility Re: My Post on Guns in Georgia\u2014A Lesson - Fellowship of Saints and Sinners<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hostility Re: My Post on Guns in Georgia\u2014A Lesson - Fellowship of Saints and Sinners\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Fellow saints and sinners, it&#8217;s with some sadness and more fascination that I write after seeing the onslaught of fierce and even violently ad hominem attacks in response to my post from two days ago about Georgia&#8217;s new gun rights legislation.\u00a0 From here on out, these sorts of responses won&#8217;t be tolerated at this intersection&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2014\/07\/hostility-re-my-post-on-guns-in-georgia-a-lesson.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Fellowship of Saints and Sinners\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/kristina.robbdover\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-07-14T10:36:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-07-14T10:38:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kristina Robb-Dover\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@saintplussinner\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@saintplussinner\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Hostility Re: My Post on Guns in Georgia\u2014A Lesson - Fellowship of Saints and Sinners","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Hostility Re: My Post on Guns in Georgia\u2014A Lesson - Fellowship of Saints and Sinners","og_description":"Fellow saints and sinners, it&#8217;s with some sadness and more fascination that I write after seeing the onslaught of fierce and even violently ad hominem attacks in response to my post from two days ago about Georgia&#8217;s new gun rights legislation.\u00a0 From here on out, these sorts of responses won&#8217;t be tolerated at this intersection&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2014\/07\/hostility-re-my-post-on-guns-in-georgia-a-lesson.html","og_site_name":"Fellowship of Saints and Sinners","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/kristina.robbdover","article_published_time":"2014-07-14T10:36:22+00:00","article_modified_time":"2014-07-14T10:38:19+00:00","author":"Kristina Robb-Dover","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@saintplussinner","twitter_site":"@saintplussinner","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2014\/07\/hostility-re-my-post-on-guns-in-georgia-a-lesson.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2014\/07\/hostility-re-my-post-on-guns-in-georgia-a-lesson.html","name":"Hostility Re: My Post on Guns in Georgia\u2014A Lesson - Fellowship of Saints and Sinners","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/#website"},"datePublished":"2014-07-14T10:36:22+00:00","dateModified":"2014-07-14T10:38:19+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/#\/schema\/person\/4c3cdf7104b785db2790c0ea54388e75"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2014\/07\/hostility-re-my-post-on-guns-in-georgia-a-lesson.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2014\/07\/hostility-re-my-post-on-guns-in-georgia-a-lesson.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2014\/07\/hostility-re-my-post-on-guns-in-georgia-a-lesson.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Hostility Re: My Post on Guns in Georgia\u2014A Lesson"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/","name":"Fellowship of Saints and Sinners","description":"Beliefnet Voices...thoughts at the intersection between life and God for anyone converted, unconverted or under conversion","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/#\/schema\/person\/4c3cdf7104b785db2790c0ea54388e75","name":"Kristina Robb-Dover","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/dcf\/dcfc687b5670420584dc52026042422ax96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/dcf\/dcfc687b5670420584dc52026042422ax96.jpg","caption":"Kristina Robb-Dover"},"description":"Thoughts at the intersection of life and God from one saint and sinner for anyone \"converted,\" \"unconverted,\" or \"under conversion.\"","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/author\/krobbdover"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/461"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5204"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5212,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5204\/revisions\/5212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}