While waiting on my wife to return to my truck, I popped in my CD of Willie and Johnny singing duets and having fun talking about writing their songs. Johnny told about, “Don’t Bring Your Guns to Town.” Sad song. If there were no sad country songs, surely half the songs would go away. You know what you get when you play a country song backwards? You get your dog back; you get your truck back; you get your wife back …

    In Texas, where issues get hotly debated because the temperature soars, a Baptist church holding a business meeting had posted this sign on the door, “No guns allowed.” If words were bullets, a lot of so-called saints could be considered “armed and dangerous.” Some folks have a Black Belt in tongue.

    School shootings happen. So do church shootings. But the police can’t be everywhere. Recently Arkansas passed a state law allowing each congregation to decide if they want to authorize guns at church. I say, “Why not?” We carry concealed sin into church … why not concealed handguns? Hey, just kidding.

    I once saw a deranged person try to disrupt a church service. He got tackled by ushers, carried out, and hauled off. But what if he had fired a gun? Truthfully, the only thing that can stop a bad man with a gun is a good man with a gun. Maybe our church ushers need to take special training. Or be prepared to take a bullet like in the Secret Service. Any volunteers?

    When I grew up in Florida, every truck had a gun rack in the rear window. You knew the driver was “carrying.” An Ohio pastor told me about the days when he was a new believer and went to a Bible conference at a family camp. He was greeted with exuberant bear-hugs by the men, but he especially bonded with one brother when, as they hugged, they discovered they both were “packing.”

    An old friend of mine was an evangelist in the fifties. He held a tent meeting in a rough neighborhood in Chicago. When he was confronted by a gang leader who didn’t like it that his customers were getting saved and delivered from drugs, Richard opened his coat and showed him the two revolvers strapped to his belt. End of threats.

    I agree with what Gov. Huckabee said about the right to self-defense. He said if an armed intruder breaks into his house, the second thing he will do is call the police. I once saw a sign on the fence in front of a house: “Don’t worry about the dog. Be afraid of the owner.” As one policeman said, “When you need help in a matter of seconds, we’re only minutes away.”

    A week ago my brother sent me a link to a story on the Internet. The headline said, “72 killed as Massachusetts Governor sends troops to confiscate weapons in Boston.” It shocked me! I searched to see if any networks were reporting it. None. A cover-up? Then I read the story and sighed in relief. It was a repeat of a true story from 238 years ago, the incident that sparked America’s Revolution. Citizens rose up to throw off a repressive regime that threatened their freedom. Will it happen again?

    I think it is time to overthrow the government … not with bullets, but with ballots. Let’s go back to the republic the framers of our Constitution had in mind: one with strong states and a limited federal government that spends within its means and doesn’t choke off our God-given rights.

    Ron Wood ministers at Trinity Assembly of God. 601-483-8189. www.trinitymeridian.com. Hear Ron on The Father’s Power radio program, 8 a.m. and 7 p.m., each Sunday on WZKR, 103.3 FM.