Pastor Rick Warren’s son, Matthew(27 years old), took his own life this past Friday:
According to Orange County Sheriff Dan Aikin of the coroner’s office:
Matthew died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Young Matthew struggled with suicidal thoughts much of his life and finally succumbed to the agony despite intervention from a variety of sources. Pastor Warren expressed that his young son gave into a momentary condition of despair.
Pastor Warren is senior pastor of the Saddleback Church in Lake Forrest which is one of the largest congregations in the United States. Warren is well known for his best-selling novel “The Purpose Driven Life”. Nearly 20,000 people attend the weekly services conducted at Saddleback.
Yeah, I know a little something about “momentary conditions of despair.” I’ve dealt with depression in my family my whole life. My favorite aunt, who did things like take me with her to my first concert(The Kinks), was a beautiful soul. She danced and sang and loved to pick me up and give me the wettest, sloppiest kisses as a kid, and I loved her for it. She had “momentary conditions of despair” most of her adult life that would never be placated with all the alcohol and drugs in the world. She had shitty husbands who abused her, spent time in jail for shoplifting because her jobs never paid her enough to get away, or get out from underneath the weight of the everyday grind of working-poverty.
She didn’t use a gun, though, but only because she couldn’t afford one. In her darkest moments, she would always insist that “if she only had a gun, she’d end it all.” I’ve had several people close to me in my life assert the same exact thing.
According to public statistics,
“In the United States, firearms remain the most common method of suicide, accounting for 50.7% of all suicides committed in 2006.
The US Department of Justice reports that approximately 60% of all adult firearm deaths are by suicide, 61% more than deaths by homicide.”
Suicide, by way of the gun, is something the sickos at the NRA and their terrorist accomplice buddies in congress might call, “assisted suicide.”