David McElroy

I was working at my desk on a recent Saturday afternoon when I noticed two cat ears poke above the surface of the desk. Then there were two intense little green eyes staring at me.

Bessie and her sister, Molly, are feral girls who I took in about seven years ago. They’re both tiny, weighing slightly less than five pounds. Bessie has only three legs and she’s never gotten over the fears she brought with her from that early life on the streets.

She runs if I get too close. It’s an ordeal if I have to touch her for medication or flea treatment. If I’m able to catch her to pick her up, I can feel her tiny heart beating very fast with fear.

Every now and then, it seems as though Bessie might get over some of her fears and trust me, at least a little. This was one of those times. She was sticking her tiny head over the edge of my desk and she seemed to be thinking of coming up onto the desk to see me.

She just stood there, though, and watched me.

Although I was able to snap a quick picture, she decided the risk was too great to trust me. She jumped back down and left the scary human alone. That wasn’t going to be the day when she got over her fears and took the chance of trusting me.

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I don’t really like guns. I’ve fired a gun a few times, but I’d prefer not to be around them. I find them dangerous and unnecessary for my purposes in life today. If I see a gun on someone, I’m wary. Whether it’s a cop, a hunter or a thug, I see a gun as a danger.

But as much as I dislike guns, I’m absolutely opposed to efforts that would ban them or limit access to them. Why?

The murders of two Virginia journalists this week on live television has once again stoked the fires of those who want to ban guns or place strong restrictions on who can have them. Those people say we have a gun problem, but I strongly disagree. We have a “human problem.” We have a problem with human beings who have evil in their hearts and minds — and who are determined to hurt people they dislike.

Banning guns wouldn’t solve that problem — and banning guns would create a long-term problem far worse than the one it would allegedly solve.

Progressives who want to ban or limit guns are just as irrational and emotional as the many conservatives who want to ban or limit recreational drugs. In both cases, the position is taken for strongly emotional reasons and the person holding the belief has to ignore the evidence that his “solution” is worse than the problem it attempts to solve.

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A woman I know sent me a few pictures of her young daughter Friday. I hadn’t seen pictures of this little girl for about six or eight months — and I wasn’t prepared for how seeing her would affect me.

This little lady is beautiful. Her mother is beautiful, too, so that’s no surprise, but she’s already getting to the point that she looks more like a beautiful little girl than just a drooling baby. She has some teeth and you can see depth of personality in her toothy little grin. You can see some kind of beauty that transcends physical appearance in an inexplicable way.

Looking at those pictures almost made me cry, because I was overwhelmed with a beauty that pierced my heart and pointed me once again toward the joy of living in this amazing Creation.

Saturday evening at sunset, I was walking in a local park when I realized the sky had suddenly started turning pink and orange and red and gold. I stopped walking and just stood there trying to drink it all in. For about 15 minutes, I felt as though I was watching a Master Painter put on another showing of the world’s longest-running art show. The western sky glowed and changed colors constantly for a few minutes, but even the sky overhead and on other sides was a delicate pink and orange.

A little girl came walking by with her parents and she looked at me as she pointed to the sky.

“It’s pink!” she told me with excitement in her voice.

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