The Desert Eagle

Thank God for the Second Amendment. The founding fathers knew how important it was to the American goodwill to blow crap up every once and while- it relieves so much stress! I am, as you might tell, an avid fan of the right to bear arms and an enthusiast when it comes to anything gun related. My father and I are into looking at what new guns we can purchase and what kind of targets we can destroy. Our forte' are hand guns. I have shot just about everything from dingy .22's to the big boy handguns. So when the gun convention came to Roswell this year, my father and I jumped, skipped, and hopped our way into a host of NRA, weapon wielding cowboys, always good for laugh if you're into the Jeff Foxworthy Redneck stuff. We saw some stuff we liked, other stuff we didn't l

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ike, but our appetite was whetted by what we saw towards the end of the show. The Desert Eagle, .44 magnum, semi-automatic handgun. The barrel of this weapon is the size of my forearm and it weighs several pounds. I added a picture of a smaller model just to give you an idea of the capacity of this thing. It is huge, no doubt about that. It is powerful, no doubt about that. It is impressive, no doubt about that either. So we bought it.

Out at the range, we pick up the bullets for this thing (about the size of my little finger mind you), and loaded them carefully, almost reverently into the chamber. I stood back as my father gleefully sauntered up to the line like he was Clint Eastwood with less hair. He raised the gun up high, squeezed the trigger gingerly, and let the first shot rip. Standing 20 yards away, I could feel the sound wave hit my chest. Of course, my dad and I look at each other, started grunting loudly in approval, and danced around the desert like a bunch of weirdos, but I've never seen anything quite like it. Then it was my turn. I raise the weapon, squeeze the trigger, then remembered seeing fire explode out the side of it, a cartridge fly out, and peg me, flaming hot, right between the eyes. In pain, I knelt down, let out a cry of pain, then a cry of joy, another cry of pain, then some more joy. Best thing I've ever shot. Before the day was done, the gun had blown up cans, Clorox bottles, and sheared through an iron spinner target with ease. Indeed, a man's man must have built this weapon.

So yeah, I know a little about guns. I also know how to spot a wanna-be, gun lover a mile away. They think they know stuff about guns, but really, they are morons. I don't mean to be insulting... well, kind of... but I also mean to make the point of how idiotic it is to not know what you are doing. I grew up with a reverence towards guns pounded into me at a young age. Little 6 year old Kyle was out there with his dad, shooting piddly guns and squinting when it went off. My dad would show me how I should hold it, aim, and especially not squint when I shoot. I respected the gun and knew what I was doing even then. So now, when I see a couple of homies buying a civil war gun at a gun show with the intention of shooting it, I call them morons since if they knew anything about guns, it's that you don't shoot a 100 year old revolver... EVER! It's dangerous to not know what you are doing more than anything else.

But isn't that how we end up doing things sometimes? We think we know our P's and Q's about things when in reality, we rarely ever keep ourselves in check. How foolish. When we run headlong into a crowd knowing absolutely nothing about what we believe, we end up hurting ourselves more than we hurt anybody else. Basically put, it's getting cocky. "I don't need to read a Bible every once and a while; I already know all the stories." "I don't need to listen to this message; I know what the speaker is gunna say anyways!" Then we aim, we squeeze the trigger, and hope that the shell doesn't explode in our face or worse, misfire and hit something or someone we shouldn't have hit.

Guns need to be cleaned, oiled, tended for, checked over, and be in hands that know what they are doing before they ever get fired. The irony is, though, that when we get so confident in the way we do things today, we hardly ever focus on why we do them or who we do them for. You clean a gun so it won't jam up or misfire. You go to the range to make sure your aim is straight and your gun isn't broken. You take the gun apart to not only clean it better, but ensure the parts are working correctly. Yet translate that to our lives, and we hardly ever clean, inspect, or secure the parts of our lives that need it most. We overlook our everyday routines of praying or giving unto others because they are so basic and mundane, we disregard the necessity of maintenance. If you want to see an example of this in the Bible, read 1 Samuel 5-7 and see how the Israelites got cocky and lost their most precious treasure. They figured since the Ark of the Covenant, or God, was winning all their battles, they would place it out in front of them and not even fight. When the Philistines came running by, lazy Israelites farting around, they grabbed the Ark and took it with them. The Israelites lost sight of what was important, they didn't keep their hearts in check and lost nearly everything in one, fatal swoop.

So here is to never letting your guard down. No matter how mundane things may get, it is never worth losing everything over to just let your guard down. Here is to understanding how vital everything we do in Christ is. We should never lose focus on the prize, never forget the sacrifice made for us. Also, here is to Bubba Gump at the Roswell Gun Show, the one with the police baton and brass knuckles- you are weird and should not be allowed near guns.

KB