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As America waits for the next tragedy in our schools, this blog is a message to the next school shooter- The one plotting the next mass killing. The one counting down the days to unleash evil, wickedness, and carnage on unsuspecting classmates and teachers, many who are dealing with the same struggles in life that you are (life is tough for everyone). The one thinking grandiose thoughts of fame and celebrity status you hope this brings to you. The one who thinks that there will be some great gratification in doing this. The one who thinks those who did this in the past are legendary rock stars.
I can only hope this gets in front of one of you. I am hoping this will be shared across social media as much as possible because you need to hear the truth! The truth that no one will tell you about…But I will!
And why? Because my heart breaks for you…because you are valuable…because you have something to offer way more than this…because you are not thinking long-term and only thinking short-term…because I know that what you are about to do WILL NOT BE worth it…and before you do this, there is still time to ponder the consequences, turn to the Hope that is offered to you in your life, and change the course of your eternal soul!
The message I have for you is going to be blunt, straightforward, and, more importantly, the truth. I am not going to pull any punches or hold anything back. It won’t be popular and might even come across as harsh, but maybe it needs to be. As I already mentioned, I doubt you will ever hear this anywhere else, but this will happen to YOU all the same. If you are looking to carry out this evil, the stakes for your life are at the highest human level possible at this very moment in time as you read this. If you carry out your current intentions, the consequences for you will NEVER end…NEVER as in permanent punishment…YES, FOREVER.
So, with that being said, here’s the truth.
If you carry out a shooting and you do not die in the act by committing suicide or being taken out by law enforcement, but instead get taken into custody to spend the rest of your life in prison, here is what you have to look forward to for the rest of your life here on earth:
Your freedom will be gone! ALL OF IT! What you have taken for granted in your life up to this point will be lost for you. The average prison cell is estimated at 6 feet by 8 feet or about 48 square feet. You will have trouble finding the dignity of being able to use the bathroom in private, and when you take a shower, not only will there be no privacy, but also no safety. Safety is something you can forget about altogether…every second of every minute…for the rest of your life.
You will no longer get to choose what you eat. Instead, you get to eat whatever they slop on your plate, whether you like it or not. And I don’t believe prison food is anywhere near the top of the edible list.
If you think bad food and no privacy are not that big a deal, well, I am just getting started. Those are the best things you have to look forward to.
If you’re used to sleeping in or going to bed whenever you want, ditch those ideas. You won’t get to sleep in, and lights will go out like clockwork. You will get told what to do and when to do it.
If you end up with a cellmate, which is almost a given, the chances of you being the alpha dominant one in your tiny prison cell will probably be slim to none…and even if you get lucky to be the one, you still better sleep with one eye open. You can forget comfortable sleep. There is no such thing in prison. And with you being a killer of kids, you will have no allies in prison, only enemies.
Your sexual orientation will be forced on you. Yes, it will be FORCED on you! With the type of crime you will have committed, you will have a target on your back. The more famous the crime, the more attention you will get in prison. But here’s the thing: This will not be the attention you want, as there is nowhere to hide. In prison, this kind of attention will bring an opportunity for other prison inmates to make a name for themselves at your expense…from beat downs to forced sexual activity to attempts on your life, and anything else you can think of when evil has no boundaries…that is what awaits you. And in prison, evil has NO boundaries. And let me tell you why. In prison, the prison guards are not there to protect you. No, they have families they want to go home to. If you think they are going to risk their life to stop another inmate from doing whatever they want to you, you would be sadly mistaken. They are there to keep all the inmates inside the prison walls. Keeping you from having things happen to you might not even be in their top 10 of job duties, let alone their priority list, and rightfully so.
Prison guards don’t have much say in the society of prison life. This is why prison is so heinous. Inside prison walls, law and order rules of a free society you have been used to up to this point in your life get removed to allow for evil to run rampant with nothing holding it back. This means some inmates get what they want from other inmates. The chances that you will fall into the “other” inmates category will be almost a given. There are gangs in prison that get what they want from the weakest of inmates. When you carry out such a gutless crime as the one you are contemplating, you will be that weak inmate. There will be nothing stopping other inmates from preying on YOU! You will do whatever they want you to do whenever they want you to do it. You being able to say the word “no” won’t be an option. The word “no” is offered to free people, not incarcerated ones. Survival of the fittest rules the day, every day, inside the walls of a prison. And you won’t be the toughest person in the joint. In fact, instead of putting on an orange jumpsuit, you might as well put on a jumpsuit with a target printed on your back. Every inmate will know who you are before you even get to their prison, and they won’t be lining up for autographs. Instead, they will be lining up to make a name for themselves by doing whatever they want to you. Every second of every minute of your life in lockup you will have to have your head on a swivel. Every move you make or decision you make will need to be calculated to survive, and that will get exhausting. Whatever gratification you think you will get from doing this crime will be gone in an instant, the moment you realize exactly what you got yourself into for the rest of your life.
Now, if you’re thinking…this won’t be me, I have a death wish. I will either commit suicide when I am done shooting up a school, or I will get taken out by law enforcement, so everything you just told me will not apply to me.
Sadly, I have a sobering truth for you. What I just told you; is the best you can expect, not the worst. The worst of your problems will come if you are taken out. If you die during your senseless crime, your soul will now enter your eternity. No turning back, no way to undo what you’ve done. Nope…only the harsh reality of your soul’s forever torment. Yes, I said, FOREVER TORMENT. A real place called Hell will be ready for you. It doesn’t matter if you believe in Hell or not. If, after you die and the truth is that there is a Hell, then there is not a thing you can do about it. The fact that you didn’t believe in a Hell won’t do anything for you. Instead, you will deal with the truth that is. Let me try to help you with what you have to look forward to, as this will make living in a prison and staying in a prison cell sound like a 5-star plush hotel! You see, here on earth, you will deal with the punishment carried out by men, but in eternity, you will deal with the punishment carried out by Almighty God.
Jesus said in Matthew 10:28- “And do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul, Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” The Hebrew word for hell is Gehenna (or Ge-Hinnom), used as a name for the place of everlasting punishment. A place with everlasting fire that cannot be quenched. It is worth stating again… A place of ETERNAL fire!
Jesus also describes eternal death as a place where there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 8:12). Before we just blow by this, let’s quickly understand what “gnashing” means. This means the grating of teeth, as in, grating your teeth in pain or rage. That is how horrible this place will be.
Jesus gives us a clear-cut example of how horrible this place will be in the story He tells in Luke 16:19-31 regarding the rich man and Lazarus. I encourage you to grab a Bible and read this quick passage. The rich man dies and ends up in Hades (another word for Hell), having lived a selfish life of luxury on earth while ignoring a poor man in Lazarus who sat at his gate in sores, wishing to just be fed from the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. Lazarus also dies. The rich man, while in anguish and agony in hell, sees Lazarus afar off with Father Abraham, with a great divide between them (a divide between heaven and hell can be assumed). The rich man begs for Lazarus to just be able to dip his finger in water and bring it to him, just to cool his tongue. His request is denied. The rich man then begs that word be sent to his brothers who are still living on earth to try and keep them from the place of torment he found himself in. But all his requests were denied altogether because the result of his life is permanent. His punishment is everlasting. Again, his eternity is to now be PERMANENTLY in pain and anguish!
Here is my feeble attempt to prepare you for this eternal existence. I encourage you to do a quick study. Take a lighter and light it. Slowly move your finger toward the flame until you have to pull it back from the flame being so hot on your skin that it hurts beyond toleration. Now think of your soul stuck in an unquenching, eternal fire, that will make that lighter flame feel like soothing bath water. This is where your soul is headed when you die after you carry out your plans.
I can only hope that the truth I have laid out for you above sounds very, very harsh because the truth is…that is exactly what it will be!
But wait a minute!
If you have not yet carried out your plans to shoot up a school, then you are not yet beyond saving you from all of the above. There is still Hope for you, and I want to share that with you. Because the truth is, I don’t want to see anyone, first their human existence and then their eternal soul, end up this way because there will be no END to it…and I do care about YOU! If I didn’t care about you, do you think I would waste my time writing this blog and then praying that somehow God gets it in front of you to read before it’s too late?
Instead, you can rise above whatever circumstances you are facing…whatever circumstances that have led you to what you are planning. There is still time for you to find the ONE that can save you from ALL of it. That ONE person is our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! You may have heard of Him before and disregarded Him. You may come from a background and upbringing that has rejected Him, or maybe even one that clings to Him. No matter what your background is, whether or not Jesus Christ is the real Savior of your life is available for you to find out! If any of this even gives you a moment of pause to your plans, or it has you thinking this whole thing through, then I lovingly ask you to do this: I want you to go to a place where you can have privacy. I want you to simply say, “God, if you are real, I want to find you and have a relationship with you. Please take away whatever pain is bringing me to want to do what I currently have planned. Instead, if you are real, I want to find you, God. Please reveal yourself to me. I want to turn my life around before it’s too late.” If you have a heart to want the Truth of the One true, living God in your life, He will answer you! This is what God promises ALL of us.
If you have come across this blog, you are on HaveCharacter.com. The ultimate goal of Have Character is quite clear if you navigate the pages of this website. I have laid out the plan of Salvation through Jesus Christ on my Eternal Life page. I have a page dedicated to the Evidence of Christianity with many resources from others who have made it their life mission to study the truth of Jesus Christ, the triune God of the Bible, and the Bible as the Word of God. If you were to read the many blogs I have done, you will read about what God has done in my personal life, even my times of great struggle.
To conclude, I will just say this: If you carry out what you are planning in shooting up a school, don’t die in the process, and live out your life in a prison cell… all without Jesus Christ…then your existence will endure both the horrible experience of prison life in the here and now and then the eternal torment of your soul to come after you die!
HOWEVER, if you change paths and turn your life around with Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you will avoid ALL of it and then can start learning what an eternity with the God who created you will be! As one who has a personal, unique relationship with Jesus Christ, there is nothing better. You still have life’s struggles. Lord knows I have had mine and there will be some up ahead. God is not a puppet God who just takes all your problems away. However, He will give you peace and comfort in dealing with them that goes beyond all human understanding. (Proverbs 3:5-6). I am telling you, it doesn’t get any better than this, and I will tell you why. When I am struggling in life, I know that I can turn my problems over to the ONE that not only has the power to do the miraculous, but also loves me more than I can ever love myself. So, if things don’t go my way, I know God has something better in store for me or has something to teach me. Either way, I will be better off for it; I just have to be patient with God’s timing. The current struggle I am dealing with will always be temporary if I call the One true living God, my God.
So, to the next school shooter, God bless you truly, and I hope I never hear about you in the news because if I do, my heart will break for you, knowing that whatever gratification you got for your few minutes of evil will only be met with what comes next for you. Evil will not go unpunished, and that punishment will last FOREVER!
If you’ve read this far, could there be a reason bigger than both of us as to why you’re still here on this page? Maybe, just maybe, what you’re planning to do does NOT have to be YOU!
There is still time to change course! That is my prayer for you as YOUR eternity hangs in the balance!
Have Character!
J. Noah Russell
