Monday, September 9th | Apalachee High School Shooting

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Where's my Mountain Dew? You're listening to Clear View Today with Dr. Abbadan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Ryan Hill.

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Go ahead and leave us a good five star review on any of your podcasting platforms, Spotify, iTunes, anything that will help us keep the conversation moving forward for the gospel of Jesus Christ. We're here with our host, Dr. Abbadan Shah, who is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism. Dr. Shah, we're responding to the school shooting that happened just last Wednesday in Winder, Georgia, in Apalachee High School.

Four people were killed, two of them students, two of them teachers, and at least nine others were wounded. And it seems that this is becoming increasingly frequent in our country. And yet it seems like the conversation always moves to a place that's unhelpful. Right, which is gun control.

Gun control. It always, always, always, always moves there. Winder, Georgia was not very far from where I went to college in Toccoa, Georgia, which is northeast Georgia mountains. And Winder is to the northeast of Atlanta and kind of towards Athens, Athens, Georgia, University of Georgia, south of Gainesville, I guess, in a way, if you look at the map. So it's kind of sad to think about because this is a, things have changed there now, but at one time, kind of a rural community, you know, outskirts of Atlanta, not much going on. And then to see this and hear this was very sad, very sad for me to hear about. Well, it's close to home. It's somewhere where you spent a lot of your adult, young adult life and some of your adult life too. You guys were married in Georgia, right?

Yeah, yeah. We were married in Georgia and actually in Toccoa. But Nicole's dad pastored outside of Toccoa. And so Winder would be maybe 45 minutes to an hour from where I was at. And I didn't often go to Winder. I went to Gwinnett, which is to the north of Atlanta, coming down I-85 past Gainesville into Atlanta. Winder would be like coming down I-85, Gainesville, and go straight down instead of go down west. You just go southwest.

Instead of going southwest, you go straight down. So it kind of feels like it just happened in an area where I grew up kind of thing. Yeah, I can imagine so. It's heartbreaking to hear, you know, these news stories, especially with, you know, the suspect, he's, he's 14.

I mean, that's just like, I think about 14 year olds, I work with 14 year olds. And just to think about, you know, that this is the trajectory that your life has taken. This is, this is the choices that you've made. It's, you know, on one hand, it's despicable and it's heinous and it's evil. But on the other hand, you know, this is a child who made this decision. It's just heartbreaking. And his whole life, whole life now is negatively impacted by this.

There's no getting out of this. Of course, you know, we know the grace of God and the forgiveness of God and God can use this for something good in his life and through him. But what you sow is what you reap.

And this harvest is going to come and keep coming. It's very tragic. You know, you're listening to this right now on September the ninth, we're recording this on the sixth. So it only just happened two days ago. So by the time you listen to this, more information may be available than what we're able to give you right now. But a lot has happened. You know, he's been charged as he's been charged with, with four felony counts of murder. His father is being charged with him.

And I think, I believe his name Colt Gray, he used a semi-automatic assault style rifle to kill two fellow students and two teachers on Wednesday, only two days ago from the time we're recording this. So again, a lot of these things that are coming in, they're not changing and shifting, but it's coming in piecemeal. So again, by the time you listen to this, there may be more revealed that we won't cover in this show. But like, I think what you said kind of hits home.

At 14 years old, you know, your life has barely begun. Yeah. What would possess you to even consider doing something like this? You know, the fact is you go to school to learn, to study, to have a good time, to be with friends, to play sports, whatever, but to go in there with a deadly weapon to kill something seriously went wrong in this young man's life. That's true.

That's true. It shows us the impact of, you know, the environment that people grow up in. I mean, his decisions are his own, but it shows the impact of, you know, parents or even a support system.

We talk about the church being a support system. It shows the importance of those godly adults coming alongside a young person, especially through the teenage years and helping guide them because the teenage brain is, it really is sort of a perfect storm. You've got adult sized emotions with child sized reasoning, and it's very difficult for them to parse and process things that are happening to them. So you need that adult presence to help guide during the teenage years. And if you don't have that or teens are guided wrongly, I mean, we see the result. And I think one of the things that you've always hit on both in this show and from the pulpit, Dr. Shah, is the need for godly fathers.

You know, the role, and I think we're seeing this played out right in front of us now. What happens when the father is not a good influence? You know, now this is an extreme case and we know that not all instances of poor fatherhood or poor parenting end up like this one will. At the same time, it does demonstrate a very real need that, or a very real truth that fathers are desperately needed, godly fathers are desperately needed in a child's life.

And we don't even know for sure if this is a father related issue, at least right now. And again, thank you for clarifying. There's only been two days for us. Right. Right.

But by the time this show airs, it'll be an entire week. So maybe more has come out about this dad and what he's done, but at least for now, he's been charged. And I'm sure for some valid reasons or some credible reasons, but still, you know, this child, this young man made a decision. Is his family really involved? And we can say, yes, yes, yes. Maybe, maybe, maybe. I don't know. We don't know that yet.

We're saying that this family messed up, but are we sure that this family messed up or this young man went on the wrong road? Right. Yeah. It's too early to say, but we know, you know, that this is, this is just one of many and it's, it's kind of a sad truth that this is becoming more and more common. But the way that we have to deal with this along with the world that we're living in is changing. You know, I think we're going to talk about that later this week. This moral decline. In fact, we actually have already recorded those episodes.

This kind of just happened. So this has taken the place of a regularly scheduled episode, but all that to say, we are seeing this moral decline across our nation. And I feel like, and Dr. Shaw, maybe you can speak to this too. We're prescribing, we're blaming the wrong things and prescribing the wrong solutions when at the heart of it, this is a moral issue.

This is a problem of the heart. The further we get away from our Judeo-Christian foundation, the further we get away from our biblical values, and yes, biblical values, not those generic moral values that somehow are the common denominators of all religion. I don't buy into that junk. These are biblical values.

Okay. Further, we get away from that Christian culture. Forget about being conservative. Forget about being, oh, I am just an old time, you know, old timer, or I'm just, you know, just a traditionalist. I don't care about that. I think that holds zero water for me.

I want to hear how much does the Bible impact your thinking and your worldview. You may be old-fashioned, but more than half the world is old-fashioned. Does that make them right?

Come to India. We'll show you what old-fashioned is. It goes back thousands of years. Does that make it right?

So being conservative and being old-fashioned is not the answer. The answer comes from the truth of the word of God, the Bible, the Old and New Testament. And those words of God were the foundation on which this nation was built. Does that mean every person who was in the founding of our nation was born against solid evangelical Christian?

No, we know that. But we do know that they were operating from that worldview. Not everybody in those days was just committed Christian, but they were operating from that worldview.

There's a big difference. Yeah, because that worldview permeates everything that you do. The way that you see the world with or without God is going to... Let me rephrase. What I mean is whether you see the world through the lens of God created this, God is our King, God is our Father, or you don't, that's a huge difference. It's not just a matter of personal belief. It determines everything that you do and think as a person.

What's happening in Europe, okay? This started out with a biblical foundation. That was the turning point in Western culture. The history of the Western culture, and I'm talking about European culture, goes back thousands of years. And they knew the truth, and yet they wandered away from the truth. It's Christianity that I believe brought them back on that path of truth, not before a lot of dark ages had passed. And I'm not even talking about medieval times.

I'm talking about prior to the medieval times. I'm talking about while the Greek and the Romans were flourishing, those were the dark regions or dark areas in Western history. Prior to that, they had some kind of an understanding that there is truth and there is salvation and there is that one person who's gonna come and give his life. They had that, but then went into exactly Romans 1, departed away from God. And then with the coming of Christianity, it was like a coming back.

And by the second century, Christianity was already coming into places like England, even though it was Anglo-Saxon at the time, coming into England and parts of Europe. And it's like they came back to the truth. But that truth came life and science and all the rest followed, maybe a thousand years later, but it followed. In a sense, the East lost it and the West found it.

East had it the whole time and they lost it, but the West now had it. And look where God has brought the Western culture. But we're walking away from those foundations. And in a sense, we're going back to the dark ages. Well, I like the way that you framed it because it wasn't that it was love and compassion, it was truth. It was truth. And I truly feel, and I know all of us around this table agree that that's what's missing in our society right now. We're advocating for a return to Christian values, not as a means of fostering more compassion and more morality, but as a means of fostering truth in our society.

Because when I know the truth, all of us, we're reasonably well-educated guys. We know it's not a good idea, both legally, morally and spiritually to go and shoot up a school. So we're not going to. But there are people who are so spiritually blind and so spiritually lost and dark because there's no Christian values, because there's no, like you said, godly father in the home that, hey, things like this, I feel like are, I hate to say it and maybe I'm wrong, correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like they're almost inevitable. Well, I'm not even saying yet much about the godly father in the home thing. I don't know this young man's situation.

I don't know. I think his name is Colin Gray. The father's name is Colin. The father is the father, yes.

The son is the son. I don't even know much about this family. Maybe they are a dysfunctional family.

Maybe they're not. I don't know. What I am saying is more than just a family has broken down. Okay. Yes.

Yes. That's true. I'm going even further, deeper, which is we have, we are losing our grip on the foundation of the American culture, which is biblical. Out of that culture comes a value that all human beings are made in the image of God and are worthy of my respect . I may not like them.

I may not get along with them. I may dislike certain things about them, but they're made in the image of God. They're not believers. They're not necessarily going to heaven because they're born in the image of God. They're just born in the image of God. It means they're valuable.

And because they're valuable, made in the image of God, I cannot just go out there and kill them. Right. Family or no family, that is part of our, what we derive from being in a Judeo-Christian culture. When that Judeo-Christian culture, that foundation is weakened, of course, the next to follow is a family because family is the incubator where the young are raised. So the family begins to break down, which I've already said before, one of the biggest drawbacks between the West and the East is that the East still has the family. It doesn't mean that they're all happy, loving. Yeah. That's not always the case, but at least they're a family.

The West, that's one of the biggest strikes against the West is that our family has broken down. So yes, that's also there, but I don't want to say that that's the only reason why this young man did what he did. Because I think then I'm saying something that the family will save us.

Not necessarily. I feel like conversations like this, and we talked about this a little bit earlier, but they always turn toward gun control. Like, let's get rid of all the guns. Let's eliminate all the guns.

Just take them away from everybody and we'll solve this problem. I think that's one of the more disgusting parts of when things like this happen. You always know that there's someone ready to jump on that argument to take advantage of a situation like this.

Should private citizens own guns? That's what it comes down to. But it turns into this whole sympathy thing where it's like, I have sympathy for the victim. I have sympathy for their families when really I'm trying to lobby to get this thing that I support, that I want to take away control of all the people who live in this country. So I'm going to use this because this is very convenient for my argument right now. And how can you argue against it? There's a bunch of people who've lost their lives.

So you're going to argue against me for that at a time like this? And it seems like this is the formula for how things go nowadays. So we have to examine this question on three different levels. First is the constitutional level. Second is the historic level.

And the third is the biblical level. Constitutionally, the debate centers on the Second Amendment. That's what we're talking about here. And according to the Second Amendment, it says this, a well-regulated militia.

I think we've covered this before in our show. But I think we need to hear that again. A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. So not only is it a good idea, it's necessary.

It is necessary to have a well-secured state. Right. So the question comes down to whether this amendment protects individual rights to own guns or if it pertains solely to those who are in the armed services or in the law enforcement. I mean, that's the question. Was the Second Amendment for me to have personal weapons or was it only for those in uniform?

Yeah. I mean, I guess at the time, I mean, I don't know. I guess I don't know what a well-regulated militia meant to them at that time, because at the time it was citizens. It was citizens making up that militia. So in 2008, the Supreme Court case called District of Columbia versus Heller, the court upheld that the right to possess a firearm is unconnected with service with a militia. Okay.

So this is in 2008. The court upheld that the right to possess a firearm is unconnected with service with a militia. Meaning you don't have to be in law enforcement. You do not have to be in the military to own a firearm. To possess a personal firearm. The word militia was defined to include all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense.

Okay. So not those who are necessarily enlisted or in some sort of public service. This is like the army. If it comes down to it and you need to step up and protect, you need to make sure that you're able to do so. If you're able to, you are allowed to.

And U.S. Justice Antonin Scalia further opined that self-defense was the central component of the right itself. Mm-hmm. I mean, it makes sense. No, that's pretty clear. So if you just go by, we're not a militia anymore, you know, then of course we're going to go down the direction of then we don't need the guns anymore. But this is why we have experts who interpret this and help us understand this in the context and in today's application and self-defense was the central component of the right. So it was not just about the militia, it was about self-defense. Right.

Here comes the British well-trained army. We don't stand a chance unless we have something that can equalize the chances, the odds. Something will equalize it like a gun, like a firearm. That's right.

They are the great equalizer. So the bottom line is this, the founding fathers made sure that the people of America would have the right to defend themselves, hence the Second Amendment. Yeah. Yeah. Do you find that when people make this argument, it's because they're either afraid of owning guns, have no knowledge of what owning a gun is like, or they just genuinely don't want you to have them? I think it's very surfacey to say, well, I don't want Americans to have guns so that this won't happen. But it will happen. Yeah.

It will happen whether or not guns are allowed. Well, bottom line is when you try to take up guns, the good guys will always give up their guns. Right.

The bad guys never do. Right. Right. Because it just seems odd to me, and maybe there's some argument of it that I'm missing.

Maybe there's some magic golden puzzle piece that makes all of it make sense, and I'm just missing it. But it's like the goal is it has to be illegal to own guns. It's like the kid's 14.

It was illegal for him to own a gun. That's already done. Yeah. Yeah.

So I don't know what the rest of us are to do. Also, if a person is intent to set, like if they're setting out to do an illegal thing, such as take another person's life, like commit murder, if they're going to commit that illegal act, the chances of them committing a lesser illegal act to get a gun, I mean, come on, of course they're going to. And look, there's tons of unregistered illegal immigrants in the country who own guns, and that's illegal. Now, if they shoot someone, we can't say, see, this is why guns have to be illegal. It was already illegal for him, don't it? It didn't stop him. Not at one point did he say, man, I really want to hurt someone with this gun, but I can't because it's against the law.

If laws stopped criminals, there wouldn't be any criminals. Right. Exactly.

Exactly. And not just constitutionally, but also historically, the guns have been integral to the American way of life. So in the early days of our nation, individuals and families who went out to the frontiers to start a new life, they needed protection against outlaws, hostile tribes, and even wildlife. And guns were that, just like we mentioned a few moments ago, they were the great equalizers. Not only do they equalize the strength, but also the distance. So if you're coming at me, I can meet you more than halfway by firing a gun, stop you where you are.

Or if you are a big person, you can pummel me in the ground by using this gun, I'm now a big person who can fight back. So they are the great equalizers. So historically, in this big land, when I say great, I'm not just talking about great as in the greatness of America, I'm talking about the fastness. Guns were a must.

Yeah. There's something that I'd like you to kind of talk about, because you do have that unique perspective where you are from the East and you've seen things like this happen. A lot of times what people will say in events like this is, right, we're talking about handguns here. But this kid, and I think in this case, Colt Gray did use an assault rifle.

He used a gun that was either, it was or it was similar to an AR-15. And so they'll say, but why do you need, why do you as a private citizen need an assault rifle? And when you bring up, well, the founding fathers did put that in there so that you could protect yourself and, you know, uprise against the government should it become tyrannical. People will say, really?

You really think that's going to happen? But coming from the East, you've seen governments go corrupt, you've seen governments become tyrannical and start really genuinely oppressing the people of its state. Yeah, constantly.

Constantly. And so my mom's family came from the state called Uttar Pradesh. Uttar means North Pradesha State. So it's the name of a state. It's to the north of India. And the people from there are known to be quite fiery.

I mean, they'll fight back. And this state was known for big landowners oppressing the poor people and just making their life a living hell for generations, not just like once or twice a year, but for generations. Can you imagine that?

For hundreds of years, your family is in this servitude to these landed gentry and you have no way of getting out. How many years? Seven hundred years. Wow. Can you imagine that?

Seven hundred years. Yeah. You know, that's just what your life is. Your life is because your great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather took out a loan to plow the field in the sixteen hundreds and you're still paying for it. Wow.

That's about right. So about that time, there were a lot of decoys that rose up in the state. And I remember my mom and grandma, they were afraid to go to visit family because we had to go in the daytime by train and get out. The train needs to land by no means to get to the station by no later than four o'clock in the evening so they can pick us up.

We can go to the house by six o'clock so we can be in the house. This was a big deal because decoys are out. Now you're wondering, who's a decoy? I mean, they were like outlaws with guns and gun belt and everything. Just like you see today in like the cowboy films of the eighteen hundreds.

That's what they were doing in the sixties and seventies. Wow. And I remember the train arriving at one of these stations and seeing out on the train platform people standing there with big shotguns, I'm like, oh my goodness, where are we as a little boy? And my mom's like, are you okay? You're okay. Uncle's here to pick us up and we're going to be going to the home.

You'll be fine. But you see everybody standing with big guns and bullets like this whole, you know, strap across their chest. I'm like, this is like real outlaws for real.

These are the real deal. But this is how they fought back against the oppression. You know, they fought back against some of the things. So yeah, maybe we can say, oh, this will never happen in America.

But what if? Yeah. Oh yeah. David just sent me this. I can tell you who that is.

The young lady in the middle. You want to throw it up on the TV? Yeah, you can throw it up there. I can talk about that. Yeah.

That's too funny. It might take a second. Well, we'll get it up on the TV. Yeah, I can talk about her. So you know them? Oh yeah, of course. This is a very famous person. So yeah, there is a picture, yeah. So that lady, you see her right in the middle. With the hat?

Yeah. It's not a hat. It's just like she's wrapped a shawl or something around her head because it's a cold.

Her name is Phoolan Devi. And she was the famous dacoit from that part of the country. The families of takurs, unfortunately, some of our family came from the takurs. They killed her family.

And I mean, like, lined them up and pow, pow, pow. So is this like a feud, like Hatfield and McCoy style, or is this government versus the people? No, no, no, no.

This is landed gentry against the poor peasants. Gotcha, gotcha. Yeah.

Okay. And so these people rose up to fight against that oppression. They rose up to fight against the oppression.

Wow. Because if they hadn't done that, this is what they were doing, raping and killing people. So they used those guns to fight against. And okay, so the police captured them.

Okay, so these are all dacoits. The ones on the ground right there, the guy standing next to her. Now, the rest of them over there are police, are military, actually, who caught her. In fact, they didn't catch her. She surrendered.

She said, I'm coming in. I'm surrendering. Wow. And she surrendered. And she went on to become a politician. Really?

Yeah. She went on to become a politician. She fought for her people. And in the end, I think somebody killed her. Wow. Like a revenge killing. Right.

They took her out. But anyways, the whole point is this. We lived in that part of the world where if there were no guns, I mean, it's not like 50, 60 years. Hundreds of years. Right.

Yeah. It's weird to think. And it's very, I think, disingenuous to claim that tyranny is not an option in the United States. And the United States government will never become tyrannical. I'll never have to deal with this because we in the West are so enlightened, we're above such things.

Well, have you not seen the past few years where oppression has come? Right. And that's also what they'll say.

Those same people who say that will also say there's a lot of oppression coming from the right. But maybe that's not today's, that's not a discussion for today's episode. Right. Right.

Because we'll be here all day. That's right. If we start poking holes in their logic. The whole point is this. To say that guns are bad. That's hasty. Okay.

Yes, of course. This person, this young man made a very wrong decision. We also talked about how the American worldview has shifted away from a biblical centered understanding of life and justice and righteous and all that. So that's also part of that.

Maybe his family is also responsible for this. But to immediately run after gun control is not only going against our founding fathers understanding but also historically how these have been integral to our ability to maintain our freedom. Right. And also for those of you who say, you know, oh, well, Jesus said somebody slaps you in one cheek, turn the other and all that stuff. Yeah, of course. We are against vengeance, but not self-defense. That's right. Okay. The Bible still talks about in the very previous verse, Matthew 5, 38, I think you have said that it was, you have heard that it was said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

So Jesus did not say no for that. Right. And that is important. Defending the innocent or the weak or the helpless is important.

A hundred percent. That's right. It's so good. And it's so important for us to talk about things like that, especially, you know, like you said, people sometimes capitalize on things like this to try to push their own agenda, but it's important for us to have a measured view and talk about the real issues behind what's going on.

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