I have seen some extremes in watchtower, one sister telling me that if someone broke into their home and raped her daughters she would have to let it happen….”turn the other cheek”. (It’s true, she actually said that). The other extreme is the gun culture - a cultural issue without resolution. But what is a normality for you guys in the States, would be seen as an extreme in England….at least, the one I grew up with. I still have on my conscience, shooting a sparrow off a chimney pot with an air gun decades ago. Why did I do that? I do not know if I am being naive, but gun or no gun, is not so much a question of safety, but of values and the only weapon I can answer with is that Jehovah is my gun, and I load it with faith. The scripture says that the days will be cut short if any flesh at all is to be saved, and thus if this is true, having a weapon does in no way protect the one wielding it in terms of solving the issue of personal safety, but may (or may not) increase temporary life-span in terms of time alone - yet it adds to their ultimate test, the issue of legitimacy in taking another life. The question being justification - and as we can only guess at the outcome of such legitimacy in taking another life, it leaves open the question of the personal core value of our faith, ergo, one more issue of and in our judgement by Jehovah. At what point then, if the death of another at our own hand is evident, do we trust in Jehovah for our salvation? It seems that having faith in Jehovah to protect us only after we have taken a life to save our own, rather weakens our prayerful pleadings for preservation He had already promised to us. ‘Fear not those that kill the body but cannot destroy the soul.’ It is best to resolve that issue sooner rather than later. (I am not criticising, just wondering how culture moulds our thinking across the cultural soup of the Atlantic!) .