Mass Shooting at Florida State University, Canadian Leadership Debate, President Trump Will Visit the UK
Two people were killed in a mass shooting at Florida State University yesterday. Phoenix Ikner, son of a deputy sheriff, took his mother’s handgun and shot seven people. He had been on a “number of training programs” at the local sheriff’s office. He was shot and taken to the hospital.
“I’m a big advocate of the Second Amendment,” said President Donald Trump after the shooting. “I have been from the beginning. I protected it. And these things are terrible. But the gun doesn’t do the shooting. The people do.”
Few details on Ikner’s motive have been released, but our article “The Motives for Mass Shootings” shows why these tragedies are becoming all too common.
Canada held leadership debates yesterday, with Liberal leader Mark Carney trying to distance himself from his predecessor Justin Trudeau. “I know you want to be running against Justin Trudeau,” he told his rival, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre. “Justin Trudeau isn’t here.” Mr. Carney presents himself as a nonpolitical expert, having previously run the Bank of England and Bank of Canada. He’s a classic technocrat.
“I’m familiar with the word technocrats because of Ron Fraser,” wrote Trumpet managing editor Joel Hilliker. “For years he wrote in the Trumpet about how the European Union government was crawling with them—unelected, unaccountable individuals, deeply persuaded of their own sagacity and magnificence, who justify their existence by regulating the minutia of other people’s lives, expanding government and amassing power almost imperceptibly, incrementally, guideline by guideline, footnote by legalistically written footnote.”
Mr. Carney would at least have electoral legitimacy if he wins the upcoming election. But there is a danger in rule by experts. They believe their educated opinion points to the only solution. But as Herbert W. Armstrong often pointed out, man’s biggest problems are spiritual in nature. Man’s education is grounded only in the physical and material. Carney’s education gives him a lot of confidence that he has the only answers. But it brings him no closer to solving Canada’s problems.
President Donald Trump will visit the UK in September, he said yesterday. “It’s a very great honor,” he said as he signed executive orders. “It’s an honor to be a friend of Charles,” he added. “I have great respect for King Charles and the family … William ….” Britain is hoping to persuade the president to agree to a low tariff deal with the UK.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni met with President Trump in the White House yesterday. She was the only EU leader to attend President Trump’s inauguration. “Our relationship is great,” said Mr. Trump yesterday. The two were confident they could broker a U.S.-EU trade deal. Meloni is Mr. Trump’s favorite EU leader, and she is the one most willing to work with him on trade. But there is a danger here. Meloni’s party, The Brothers of Italy, is an offshoot of the Italian Social Movement—a party founded by fascist dictator Benito Mussolini after his party was banned.
“They talk a lot about Europe’s Christian heritage and the importance of family,” wrote Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry. “These points sound good—but we must put them in this historical context. Mussolini’s alliance with the Catholic Church bore terrible fruits! The Bible specifically warns us to expect a return of the same empire that Hitler and Mussolini led, with the same relationship with the Catholic Church.”
It’s also worth noting that former German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg—a man we’ve been watching for many years—talked about Meloni filling this exact role. He said that “we will probably even need [Hungarian Prime Minister] Orbán and Meloni in order to find solutions in the European interests that also affect them”—including tariffs. She may look like President Trump’s best friend in Europe, but we must remember this prophesied warning.
