America In Crisis

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Share it. But most of all, thank you for listening to the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. Welcome to Man Talk, brought to you by TAWCMM, talking and walking Christian men's ministry, where they're devoted to breaking down the walls of race and denomination and challenging men to take their God-assigned role.

Here's our hosts, Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr., a black guy and a white guy. Welcome to Man Talk Radio Podcast. We thank God for all of you listeners out there. Yes, we do. And it's just been, you know, Roy, it's been a sad, sad few days, you know, and it's a solemn time in America right now.

And we know that sin is propagating throughout the land. But we're going to talk today about the shooting. In Texas, yes. That happened in Texas. And we're also going to mention the shooting, of course, that happened 10 days before this in Buffalo, New York.

At the grocery store. Yes, because I think that also mentions talking about, too, because it was sort of like in that same category of mass shootings with a different motive. Exactly. You know, when we think about mass shootings, used to be mass shootings was was a very rare thing as we were younger, Will, but it's certainly become more frequent over the last 10 years. And one of those things that everybody wants to point fingers at the guns and they want to talk about gun control and all those things. But we're going to talk a little bit deeper tonight about what's going on in our country.

And we stand on the fundamental reasoning that people have gotten away from God and they've gotten away from the nuclear family. So there's too much time on a lot of these children's hands. And I think most of the shooters over the last several years have been 18 or below in these school shootings, and which is quite alarming.

I'm sure you heard that on the news as well. Yeah. And, you know, when you when you talk about the shooters in both of these cases, you know, and we have a tendency to look at the news and we we say, you know, these individuals, they were just like off the deep end. Well, when you when you start looking at the life of these individuals, for example, the shooter that was in Buffalo, this was not something that he just up and said, today, I'm going to go and do this. He planned it out because he had body armor. Yeah.

He had three weapons with multi ammunitions with them. So this was something he thought about. And of course, they're still digging, I think, Roy, into the motive behind the shooting there in Yovaldi, Texas. I hadn't heard much in reference to what that motive was behind. But I do know they reported that he had shot his grandmother first.

Yeah. Before he went to school. Just crashed his car and then went inside and shot up the students.

One of the things I read just before we started the broadcast was that he had actually made it. And I don't want to say a threat, but he had put it out on social media. He was about to do it. And I don't know what the timing was from that post or that piece on social media versus when he actually got to the school. But apparently it was it wasn't long before he arrived at the school. He had put that on social media. He was on the way.

And, you know, I think the same thing occurred with the shooter in Buffalo. You know, he did the same thing. In fact, he was live streaming. And I forget the app that he was using, but came in.

Yeah. But they said two minutes after he put it on the social media app that they took it down. But individuals had already did snapshots of some of the stuff he had done.

Yeah, he was showing. And so that's still circulating out there. But I think it, you know, when we look at things that's happening across our country and we asked ourselves the question, how do these things get to this mass shooting point? And like you, you started to talk about, Roy, in the introduction is that when we take God out of the picture, which we have done totally, totally, all things are possible from the standpoint of the worldview, meaning that anything can happen on any certain day with any certain person because God has taken out of the mix. Now, I believe that when believers get together and pray and they come together, that there is so many instances that people have wanted to do mass shootings, but all of a sudden the mass shootings were foiled. And I sit here today and strongly believe it's because people got together and prayed.

And someone may have known something about the individual who was planning this and the plan got foiled. Yeah, that's a great point, Will. I think as believers in Christ, we need to be praying on all things.

And this is a great example. Children are going to school every day across this country and across the world. And we know that if we're prayer warriors and we start lifting them up before the day starts, that nothing like this would happen, that God will hear our prayers. Now, we know that evil exists and some things, it just happens, right? We don't know the reason why.

It just happens. And even with prayers, sometimes things don't go the way we think they should, but it's the best solution, at least in this moment, that everybody be praying for their children and praying for the schools, and also praying for people that are struggling with whatever's going on, not just the people that are potential victims, but the people that are looking to instill harm or to make harm over different people. We need to be praying for those folks. This young man, from what I understand so far, there was no previous convictions. There was no evidence of mental illness to my knowledge.

It was just, he went off the deep end and we're not quite sure why. It'll be interesting to see what the background is behind it. Will, you and I have talked many times in the past, as men start getting their minds distracted. And we know the two major things we talk about all the time are pornography and gaming, that they don't have a reality check, that they're living in a dream world or a fantasy world. And my fear is that when this all said and done, or my hope is that they'll get to the bottom and say, hey, there was four years of playing excessively violent video games, was a loner, which would indicate the things we talked about. Children need men and meet their fathers and their mothers in the picture. And if a man's sitting there beside of his son can talk through these things and work through these things, it's going to be interesting to see what happens if it's a, if he was part of a regular family or not.

Let's see. And on the opposite side of that, the young man in Buffalo, New York, who did the shooting, he did have a mental health issue. And so he actually made threats before against the school and against individuals within the school system. And so that in and of itself with a trigger and they sent him to the hospital and did an evaluation and then they sent him home.

But see, there were, there were flags there that were either missed or overlooked. And so, you know, and then I think on top of all of that, I don't know where his parents stood in all of this. If they saw anything but didn't say anything or didn't want to acknowledge anything, because typically from the parent's standpoint, you know, if there is something going on with a child, typically the parent don't want to acknowledge that there's something wrong.

Outside of the home. Exactly. Why do you, what do you mean there's something wrong with my child or my child is going through this or, you know, so, so you, the school system and the teacher in particular have to deal with all those things as well. Right. Well, and that's a good point. If the parents aren't willing to acknowledge it, then how can folks be looking for it?

Right. So it used to be back when we were growing up that it was, it was a tribal raising of children, right? There was, everybody was involved in raising the children.

Neighbor would bust your backside just like your mom or dad would if he saw you doing something you shouldn't be doing. Today, we've gotten so introverted as it relates to society that we don't want anybody to know about our issues. We don't want to share the challenges we're having with our children, with other parents. And that's a great point, Will. It makes you basically just pause and say, what do we need to be doing different in today's society? We've taken God out. We have no moral compass.

Everything's go. Doesn't matter if it feels good, do it. Doesn't matter what the harm or the consequences are. And I think this is some of the by-product quite honestly, of the society we've laid the groundwork for, for the last 50 years, since we took prayer out of school, 60 years. Exactly. And, you know, it's sad to say, but true that what we see what we see is only going to get exponentially worse.

Yes. And I think the born again believers see, we are under that umbrella that God have placed over us. And so I think a lot of things that will be happening, it's going, they're going to be happening to those who simply don't know the Lord, because when you, when you can see and understand how God has kept you throughout the time that we have spent on this earth, and you say, you know, at 16, I should have been out, you know, six feet under. When I was 32, I should have been six feet under.

When I was 48, I should have been six feet under. So we can look at times in our lives to where we say, we know that God intervened because if things happen, and if I didn't know God back then, would I still be here talking to you today about the issues that we're facing in our country? Yeah. He protects us from so many different things. We have no idea. It's going to be interesting.

It's going to be a beautiful day when he reveals all that to us when we're home. So let's folks, we talked about 19 children that were murdered, two teachers that were murdered by roughly an 18 year old young man yesterday. And this is just a really, really sad thing. And we need to pray for those families, pray for just some sort of supernatural insulation that God can do around the heart and the spirit to discomfort them. Even those non-believers, we just need to pray for them that God will somehow open them up and just make their heart tender to receive his love and care through this journey and come to know him. And when children are involved, there's just no rhyme or reason, no matter what.

It hurts. And we put it in our own perspective with our own children. And Will and you and I have talked about that, praying over our kids and to keep them protected. And this just came to put the especially raw place in my heart this week, because my son's a police officer in Georgia, and just thinking how quick things change for our families. And he goes out every day and and we pray every day that he's working, but you don't expect to have to deal with these kind of issues when you send your children off to school.

Exactly. And I think we as God's people, you know, when we come to that point of agreement and say that we know we have an issue. So as born again believers, we come together and we say, God, we know that you are in the mix. Amen. So we thank God for coming up on a break. But when we come back, we're going to be talking about more about the shooting that happened.

Join your hosts, Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr., a black guy and a white guy. Praise the Lord, everybody. Praise the Lord. We are back talking about the shootings that happened in Yovaldi, Texas and Buffalo, New York, you know, 10 days ago. And Roy, I have a few statistics here that to date, according to Gun Violence Archive, which is just a watch site that tracks violent shootings and mass shootings that occur in the United States, we've had two hundred and fourteen mass shootings, which is about 10 per week.

10 per week. A mass shooting is defined as anyone who has been hurt or killed in a group or in an area, depending if it's a city, school, hospital, restaurant, whatever the case may be. And in 2021, the whole year, there were six hundred and ninety three mass shootings. And again, mass shooting is defined as four or more people hurt or killed, you know, in a shooting or any type of attack. And so that would include, to make sure I understand the definition correctly, that would include block parties, nightclubs where somebody starts shooting all of those things. That's right.

If it's a shooting anywhere, if it's on the beach, if it's in an airplane. It's got multiple people there. Exactly. Four or more people. OK. Four or more.

That's how it's defined. Well, so I was looking up some of the numbers out of curiosity, because, you know, what ends up happening when something like this happens, there's always that tendency to immediately point fingers or push buttons or say we need to do away with this or get rid of this or do something different. So I was just curious what the total number of deaths were by gun violence. And the rough number is about forty four or forty five thousand deaths by guns, not violence, but by guns of that number. Twenty four thousand a year. This was in 2020. The most recent data I found was was by suicide. And then on murders with gun with guns was about nineteen thousand three hundred or so in 2020. And then that doesn't include the ones that are guns that police officers have had to use in self-defense or shooting of a, you know, a crook or thief or somebody trying to hurt or harm them. So those those numbers against the population, what, three hundred and forty million people, three hundred thirty three hundred forty million people in the U.S., it seems small in perspective, but it's really not small.

Right. People have lost loved ones. We've lost precious children this week. And there's a there's a conversation that needs to take place about how to better secure schools, how to provide better, better law enforcement at the school level. And and I think if we can do some of those things and put it into play and spend money where we need to spend money and protecting our children, I think we can make a difference. But the problem is nobody wants to step out and say that's the things that need to be done. We're doing some of it, but we're not taking it wholesale that we've got to fix it. We've got to fix this problem. It shouldn't be easy for anyone to get into a school.

It just should not be easy. Exactly. And I think I think that's the that's the right track, because if we continuously are having these mass shootings at schools and we're not making any improvements of any kind. Right. You know, we're just talking about it and and we're not taking action against it. Because the truth be known, we're not going to stop each and every person who wants to do a violent act. No, we're not. Never can.

Doesn't matter what it is. But the thing about it is, is if we recognize that there is a gap somewhere within security or some gaps that we need to enforce, then we need to take the necessary actions and put these things in place. And one thing that I'm glad the police forces are doing around the country, which I read this was about two or three months ago, that officers are getting more training on mental health so they can help identify if a child's out of whack at school or something. Well, not not only that, but an adult as well, because you've had a lot of adult men who have been shot. They've been shot. They've been seen who have been shot. And when a police officer come on the scene and if they're acting erratically, immediately.

It must be drug use involved, but it could be a mental health issue. And so the officers are getting training on how to identify mental health by maybe asking the questions or seeing certain things, bodily movements or certain actions that an individual might project to give them an indication that this is a mental health issue and not a drug issue. Yeah, just a typical criminal act. So that's going on. And of course, I applaud that because, again, that means that maybe there will be less shootings when an officer encounters an individual who may be acting erratically and who may not be armed.

Yeah. Let's let's hope that helps. We'll appreciate you bringing that up because that's our officers.

And we thank you for our officers, for those of you that are serving, doing a great job every day. We know how difficult a job that is. There's so many things that have to be balanced in those few seconds when they're in the middle of a situation like that. And any tool that we can give them to help them identify the proper situation versus just immediately, to your point, Will, reacting that it's got to be drugs or just a criminal behavior.

This person's out to kill people if they recognize it's a mental problem. We've equipped them to do a better job. And then it's also built more trust into the public. Exactly. Exactly.

Good. Well, back to the school, Will, what comes the Sandy Hook thing comes to mind many years back. And here we are, another elementary school with 19 children that have been with their lives taken out so so early. And and I just can't fathom what the parents are going through right now. You know, and the brothers and sisters of these children and the relatives and and all the classmates and just and the teachers that were lost.

I think there were two teachers that were trying to protect their children, but they gave up their lives as well. And it's just a really sad place we're at in our society. And folks, we talk often about men taking leadership roles in their families and communities. And because this is man talk and we own some of this as men of followers of Christ, that we're need to be vocal. We need to be sharing the gospel. We need to stand up for the things that are right and wrong. There is a more there is a more the need for a moral compass in our country.

We don't talk much about that. We just say, hey, if it feels good, just do it. Long as you don't hurt anybody. Well, this is the result of that mentality.

Eventually, it does start to hurt people. And it comes in so many different ways. And this young man, it's going to be interesting, as we said earlier, how this unfolds when we get to his history, his background, what his makeup was, you know, and if there's any indication of what's what sent him down this path. Yeah, because the Buffalo shooting, I think we know, you know, what, where that originated from, and what direction he was going in, because he actually wrote a letter. And in the letter, he talked about some of the things that he was going to do, where he was going to go, he went and actually scoped out the place where he could get the most destructiveness occurring.

And so he he came maybe twice to this location after driving around and the area from for several locations. And so, you know, when when you look at this, and and that young man is 18. And of course, the young man in your who was a shooter in Uvalde was 18 years old. And I'm going, they're 18. And they're just starting their lives. And now their life is over. Right. And of course, they had to take the young man who in Buffalo, they had to take him out of general population. Yeah, you know, because he's, he's, he's more than likely if he's put into general population murdered, he may not make it.

Yeah. And when I was doing prison ministry, Roy, I tell you, it it was that that's a hard ministry to do. I think it's almost as hard to do a street ministry, because everybody can't get out there, stand up on a milk carton, you know, or or the gospel crate and talk about Jesus, you know, to people and things like that, because you get heckled and all these these other things. But when you get into the prison system, and you look a prisoner in the eye, and you start talking to them, and they start opening up to you, some of them shut down, other others want to open up to you, and they tell you things. And one young man, I remember years ago, he shared, he said, depending on what you're in here for, will depend on, first of all, who you are, and then who you ultimately have to align yourself with. Because you can't be an individual.

Yeah, yeah. He said, you just can't be an individual, you're going to have to align yourself with someone. And in order to do that, you may have to do certain things that you may not want to do in order to align yourself with these various groups for protection. So I imagine this young man, he's going to be a target if he doesn't quickly align himself.

Oh yeah, and the same for this other shooter, right? Especially when it comes to children. From what I understand, the prison population has no tolerance for anything that's done to children, no matter what it is. So, you know, Will, as I was hearing the story, reading more about it, you know, it went through my mind, what part of a young man's life has gone wrong that he sees that it's okay to go kill someone, someone in general, but then much less to go kill a bunch of children?

I mean, just think about that. You know, you've been, you've served in the military and been shot at and know what it's like to be in the line of fire or to have to consider shooting someone else. But what goes through an 18 year old's mind that says, hey, it's okay to go kill people in a grocery store. It's okay to go shoot up a school and kill all these children.

Folks, that's the million dollar question. We need to be loving on people and sharing the gospel because you never know, your one seed plant might be the one life that you save. Amen, Roy. And, um, and I think in addition to that too, is we need to understand what our children are doing and talk to them when they come from school, you know, because you'll get more information from a child because a child wants to open up.

Yes, they do. Well, folks, we're about to close the show out here. We thank you so much for joining us and we'll be back with you next week. And, um, thank you so much. We love you folks.

Will, it's always good to see you. Likewise. And we just pray that all is well with you listeners. We thank God for you.

Amen. As we wrap up today's show, be assured that T A W C M M talking and walking Christian men's ministry is building a community of men that are Christ followers with the desire to be servant leaders in their homes, communities, churches, and work environments. Check out our website for upcoming events and regularly scheduled meetings. Drop us a note for topics that you would like to have us visit in the future. Thank you for joining us on Man Talk today. Visit us at www.tawcm.com. Men walking the talk. This is the Truth Network.