Houston Police Chief: God ‘Hasn’t Instructed Me to Believe that Gun Rights are Bestowed by Him’

Houston police chief Art Acevedo used a May 18 Facebook post to call for followers to share their views on the Second Amendment while making clear that he has yet to receive supernatural instruction confirming gun rights come from God.

His post came hours after a 17-year-old used two of his father’s legally owned firearms to shoot and kill ten people at Santa Fe High School.

Acevedo wrote:

To all my Facebook friends. Today I spent the day dealing with another mass shooting of children and a responding police officer who is clinging to life. I’m not ashamed to admit I’ve shed tears of sadness, pain and anger.

I know some have strong feelings about gun rights but I want you to know I’ve hit rock bottom and I am not interested in your views as it pertains to this issue. Please do not post anything about guns aren’t the problem and there’s little we can do. My feelings won’t be hurt if you de-friend me and I hope yours won’t be if you decide to post about your views and I de-friend you.

He continued: “I have never accepted the status-quo in anything I do and I’ve never accepted defeat. And I won’t do it now. I will continue to speak up and will stand up for what my heart and my God commands me to do, and I assure you he hasn’t instructed me to believe that gun-rights are bestowed by him.”

It is worth noting that our Founding Fathers declared independence in 1776 based on the conviction that our natural rights flow from God, not government. Thomas Jefferson wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

It was under this declaration of rights from our Creator that our Founding Fathers pledged to “each other [their] Lives, [their] Fortunes and [their] sacred Honor.”

The Houston police chief indicates God has yet to confirm to him the origin of our gun rights.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.