Guns and an Evil Spirit

A young person purchased military style weapons in Nashville. This person shoots her way into a Christian school and proceed to kill 3 adults and 3 children before being killed by the police. The response of politicians seems to be that they can do nothing. Wasn’t it the politicians who made it possible for this person as well as many others to purchase these weapons? I am reminded of the 3rd century hermit monk, Evagrius, who taught about the eight passions. Those passions will be later interpreted as sins or the work of the Evil Spirit. Evagrius wrote that the first task of these evil passions is to blind the person(s) to their presence so that they will not be able to see the evil spirit that has inhabited them. Isn’t it ironic that the Evil Spirit is also named the Prince of Darkness in John Milton’s Paradise Lost. It seems to me that the Evil Spirit(s) are alive and very efficient today and our sense of “paradise” has surely been lost. There have been too many public evidences of the Evil Spirit(s) work although too many of our leaders seem to be blind to its presence.