Why are hundreds being gunned down in the U.S. today?
Why has there been no SOLUTION to the worldwide rise in crime?
Read why leading authorities ADMIT failure — and HOW the problem of crime WILL BE SOLVED!
ELEVEN-YEAR-OLD Cindy heard two dull thuds as she watched television one afternoon. She believed the muffled sounds came from the TV.
Later, Cindy began wondering why her mommy and daddy hadn't joined her yet. Curious, she went to the bedroom to investigate. There she faced a grisly scene. Both parents were lying on the floor — DEAD!
Cindy's stepfather had SHOT her mother — and then himself!
But WHY?
Ideas — but No Solutions!
Legislators claim TOUGHER gun-control laws will curb mounting crimes of violence. But this is blaming the gun for the crime and overlooking the criminal!
Just hours after Senator Robert F. Kennedy died from gunshot wounds, June 6, the U.S. Congress passed an omnibus anticrime bill.
President Johnson called the bill a "watered-down" and "half-way measure." In a radio and television address to the nation, the President said he wanted even tougher curbs on gun sales. Mr. Johnson pleaded: "I call upon Congress in the name of sanity, in the name of safety — and in the name of an aroused nation — to give the nation the gun-control law it needs."
The President has a reason to be alarmed.
According to the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, 750,000 Americans have been killed by privately owned guns since the turn of the century. That's more deaths than in all the wars the U.S. has been involved in since the Civil War.
Each year, in the United States alone, guns are used in more than 6,500 murders.
Guns are also involved in 10,000 U.S. suicides, 2,600 accidental deaths, 44,000 serious assaults, 50,000 robberies and in 100,000 nonfatal injuries each year. Every day, an average of 50 Americans die by firearms misuse — more than one death every 30 minutes!
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CRIME CLOCKS
U.S.A. 1967
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The U.S. — an Armed Camp!
The U.S. has been involved in a domestic arms race — spurred largely by racial tension.
Beyond a few basic facts, information about the gun count is anybody's guess.
But supposedly knowledgeable estimates range all the way from 50 million to 200 million privately owned guns of all types in the U.S. — or one for each citizen!
The U.S. has become a virtual ARMED CAMP! One Negro leader said: "There are more guns in Los Angeles than in Saigon" — at least 3 million! Last year in Massachusetts, 1,100 gun dealers sold enough guns to equip an army of 56,000. In Washington D.C., alone, handgun sales have risen by more than a third in the past year.
"People are overly alarmed," worries Frank Flanagan, commander of homicide for Chicago's police department. "White and black people are overreacting, and it's just snowballing."
Nothing seems to convert a fleeting murderous human impulse into action more effectively or finally than a gun! But remember, guns don't commit crimes — people do! Those people who allow the spirit of hate and murder to control their thinking and their emotions.
As Detroit Police Commissioner Ray Girardin puts it: "When people have guns, they use them. A wife gets mad at her husband, and instead of throwing a dish, she grabs the gun and kills him."
The Commissioner continued: "Two friends have an argument. One pulls a gun and shoots the other, apparently just because he's got the gun." (Statistics show that two thirds of criminal assaults in the U.S. and three fourths of all U.S. homicides result from quarrels among family or friends!)
Of course only a small percentage of people who have the means to murder — or even the impulse — actually go so far as to take another person's life. Most people maintain some control over their emotions. But far too many people have not been properly trained to exercise self-discipline and to control their emotions. In the U.S. this problem especially affects certain ethnic groups. In Switzerland, where almost all homes have firearms, few murders occur because people are taught to control their emotions.
Needed: "A Way to CONTROL Aggression"
There is a CAUSE for every effect! And for the past 6,000 years, men have been trying to treat the results of this world's problems, instead of getting at the ROOT CAUSE!
The real cause of crime and of all the world's ills is simply UNRESTRAINED HUMAN NATURE. The real solution can be simply stated in just three words: CHANGE HUMAN NATURE!
World leaders and philosophers recognize man's nature must be changed if today's problems are to be solved. But they have to admit man is utterly incapable of effecting this change!
Time magazine phrased it this way:
"To cope with what Sir James Frazer describes as this 'standing menace to civilization,' many authorities suggest that a WAY must be found to CONTROL AGGRESSION. . ." (Time, June 21, 1968, p. 18, emphasis ours)
Human nature — with its pride, vanity, lust and greed — is the problem. But the way to solve the problem has eluded philosophers and statesmen through the centuries.
What the great philosophers and statesmen haven't realized is that the way to solve the problem has been available all these years! They just have refused to believe it! There is a book that tells all about human nature — what it is, and how to change it!
That book is your Bible!
It reveals the solutions to the BIG problems confronting the world — the problems of crime, of war, of sickness and poverty. It reveals that this present generation is destined to see the END OF WAR AND CRIME!
Sound impossible?
It would be — if it were left up to MEN. But man is about to be rescued from his own folly. God has promised it.
There is coming a time — soon — when all instruments of destruction will be converted into useful, peaceful products. Take a glimpse of what the world tomorrow will be like: "They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, NEITHER SHALL THEY LEARN WAR ANY MORE" (Micah 4:3).
Anything wrong with that? People taught to live at peace with each other! No more shootings, muggings, robberies or suicides! And the detection of potential crime will be so fantastically swift and sure, that would-be criminals will be discovered at the very moment they begin to MERELY THINK of committing some criminal act!
But exactly how will all this be achieved? Human beings cannot solve the crime problem by gun laws.
Only a HIGHER and infinitely wiser Power than man can effectively put an end to all crime, and bring suffering humanity world peace! Only the Spirit of God within man can do it. Only the power and authority of the very government of God can do it!
The very One who created man with human nature will show how human nature can be CHANGED — and why we have had human nature in the first place!
What Will It Be Like?
The pages of your Bible are full of the good news of that wonderful WORLD TOMORROW. They tell you all about the coming time of world peace and prosperity, and what it will really be like!
But if you're like most people today, you wouldn't know where to look in your Bible. That's why we've prepared the Ambassador College Bible Correspondence Course.
The exciting lessons of this dynamic, revealing course show you WHERE to look in the Bible for this, and other vital information.
This course is a totally new and different method of Bible study. It makes the Bible plain and simple to understand. And it makes the Bible RELEVANT in the space age!
The first lesson of this fully illustrated course asks — and answers straight from the Bible — the question: "Why study the Bible in the SPACE AGE?" It begins with the meaning of the chaotic times in which we are living, and shows you HOW to understand the Bible!
This course of Bible understanding pulls no punches. It tells the truth straight from the shoulder — from the Bible!
You've never seen anything like it before!
The Ambassador College Bible Correspondence Course helps you find the answers to the really BIG QUESTIONS of life you have always wondered about. And it helps you to see the very PURPOSE for your existence — the reason why you are breathing air and experiencing life itself.
Over 100,000 enthusiastic students around the world are now enrolled in the Correspondence Course — in four languages. They are learning for the first time that there IS HOPE for the future — that there are solutions to the absolutely terrifying and seemingly insoluble problems of today! They are learning the laws which lead to success, financial security and the HAPPY ABUNDANT LIFE we all desire.
What Our Students Say
Here are a few excerpts from the thousands of letters our students have written. We begin with one from Milwaukee.
Since I had the advantage of a good deal of this world's education, I feel qualified to make this next statement. Although the Correspondence Course is written so that anyone who can read the Bible can easily do the work; in quality and thoroughness of instruction, it is easily the equivalent of courses given for college credit by the better colleges and universities. It is really superior. . .
Even if you lack this student's education, don't hesitate to enroll. Notice:
Please tell people they don't have to have a high education to take the Ambassador College Bible Correspondence Course. I didn't finish high school and that kept me from writing for it a long time. Now there isn't enough money to buy the lessons from me that I have received.
Student, Tavares, Florida
From the Midwest comes this letter:
What amazes me is that you ask the questions and tell us which scriptures to read and then the Bible itself explains it. I've heard you say many times on your radio broadcasts, "Let the Bible interpret itself." It really can and does, if people would only give it a chance. Thank you so much for letting me be a part of this wonderful course.
Mrs. P.L., Youngstown, Ohio
Another comment:
I have just completed my first four lessons of the Bible Correspondence Course. Suddenly I realized the amazing change in my understanding of the Bible as I recalled the days before I ever requested the course. It has helped move me out of complete misunderstanding, myth, guesswork and bewilderment, and into a clear and ever-revealing knowledge of the Bible. The comments in The PLAIN TRUTH magazine about the wonderful course, I used to regard subtly. But now I also share those other people's great enthusiasm.
Edward M., Hanford, California
Would you like to prove that God exists? Here's how this student did:
Your Bible Course really shows one how to study the Bible and what the Bible really says. Most people don't realize that the Bible is a book for our day and age. They have never proved that it is true or that there is a God. You give the proof. I now believe that there really is a God, and that the Bible is His Word. The Bible has become a new book to me. I never realized what the Bible said until now.
D.M., Apache Junction, Arizona
Another adds:
Words cannot tell how much I enjoy this course. It makes the Bible so plain and understandable. For people who do not willfully close their eyes, it makes the prophecies come alive by showing us how today's world-shattering news is simply prophecy being fulfilled.
R.L., Dallas, Texas
Perhaps you are a housewife? Bored with your daily routine? This person was, until —
I am a housewife and for a time I became bored doing the same thing over and over again every day, with nothing exciting to do. Then I began reading The PLAIN TRUTH and became enrolled in the Correspondence Course. And now, I have never in all my life had anything like it. It really is plain, simple, and easy to understand. And most inspiring. I enjoy it to the fullest. And since I've been studying the Bible, there is love, happiness, and contentment in our home. Thank you for helping me to find the truth in this time of trouble.
Mrs. M.S., Ridgeway, Virginia
Don't Delay!
Enroll today! You, too, can begin to share in these same experiences. You can begin to UNDERSTAND the Bible!
The only qualification necessary for taking this course is the ability to read. (A limited number of taped lessons for the blind are also available) No prior college training or other advanced education is necessary. God's Word is made plain and simple so even a child can understand! And the only required textbook is your Bible.
And remember — the Ambassador College Bible Correspondence Course is absolutely FREE of any tuition cost to you!
Your enrollment has already been paid for by others who are voluntarily helping to send this Course to the world as a public service WITHOUT ANY COST whatsoever. You may continue receiving monthly lessons as long as you wish. You'll never be billed or solicited in any way!
So if you want to know what present world events mean, what life is really all about — if you want to learn how God will soon begin changing human nature — if you want to know where you, personally, are headed in the next few short years — then write immediately to the editor in care of our office nearest you, and ask to be enrolled in the Ambassador College Bible Correspondence Course. (See inside front cover for the addresses)
Do it right now — lest you forget! And remember to mention you read this article.