Image via St. Louis Fox2Now.

St. Louis pastors have come up with an ingenious new way to fight violent crime in America’s sixth most crime-ridden city. Their simple-minded idea: signage. “Violence Free Zone” signs to be more specific. No one ever told them that magic spells and wishful thinking in the face of a threat can be hazardous to your health.

Neighborhood Scout scores the city of St. Louis a “one” on a scale of 100 in terms of a crime index. On their scale, 100 means the least crime and greatest safety. So it’s not like golf, where the low score wins. Unless you’re a criminal, that is.

But that doesn’t stop well-meaning pastors from enchanting the mainstream media with their “revolutionary” idea to stop violent criminal actors.

From Fox2Now:

The Joshua Transformation Project has launched a new initiative designed to help prevent gun violence. The non-profit organization is placing “Violence-Free Zone” signs in a St. Louis community to help keep residents safe.


Who is the Joshua Transformation Project?  From their website:

The Joshua Partnership Project is “neighborhood specific project”. That is, we organize and train churches in the “same neighborhood” or same demographic area of their city, how to develop a united front against violence, drugs, gangs, and criminal activity. Churches in partnership with each other, and the neighborhood community, is the catalyst for change to stop the killing and reduce violence. We are losing too many of our young people to gun violence. The result of this church based neighborhood organizing and training is a reduction in loss of life, less violence, less crime, and safer communities.

Let’s face it, if “no guns” and “no violence” signs like this worked, criminals would have to find a new line of work.

How well have these worked?

But why stop with guns?

no coronavirus covid19 covid-19 sign
Bigstock

We could post “No Chinese Virus Here” signs at our homes and workplaces to remain healthy and uninfected.

A silly sign will do nothing more to repel violent crime than a No Chinese Viruses sign will repel the COVID19.

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102 COMMENTS

  1. Wonder if the “violence free” zones will cause as many deaths as the “gun free” zones!?

    • When I was in the army we called this stuff eyewash. Looks good. Doesn’t do anything.

    • Our high schools have “Drug Free Zone” signs out front. I’m guessing there’s no drugs there. Hah.
      Question: Do these officials know that the kids are laughing at them?

  2. Let me see here,,, Hmmm, you mean pasters & reverends like emmm , Al Sharpton, Aaa, Jessie Jackson,,, Aaaa , Faracon you, like those reputable preachers, ? Ya , that would work.

        • Racism is the resort of the ignorant. No one race has the corner on ignorance or violence.

        • @former paratrooper, in St. Louis there is certainly one race that has cornered the market on violence and ignorance. To say different is being ignorant, or just plain stupid.

        • they have a right to life. that is the extent of my mercy towards the childish, impulsive, inexplicably prideful, inherently violent and willfully cruel Black population in the USA.

  5. All ya gotta do is pop a few rounds of .22short through those signs and it takes away the magic. I don’t think this is gonna be really effective.

    Or… we could use the sign to hit a few Democrats over the head and maybe wake them up.

    • Make a resolution to shoot a few signs and you’ll see which calibers penetrate, and it ain’t the .22 short.

    • If there there like them foam signs the county is putting up in this state shooting them just ain’t no fun no more. No satisfying ring or pretty hole. Gotta blow them to hell with a shotgunm now

      • What state? What the heck is a “foam sign”. (yea I know it’s foam, but…..)

        • The state of Confusion It’s a damned sign that looks like metal but is a plastic film stuff over foam. You shoot them and think you missed but nope there’s a hole in it.

  6. The stupidly of the liberals never ceases to amaze me. Every time that I think that they can not get dumber, the prove me wrong

    • The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits. Stupidity does not.
      These signs should work just fine – all the demotaters know that criminals obey the law and know how to read!

  7. Perhaps the pastors think that the criminals will shoot the signs, thereby giving citizens a head start to finding shelter from the violence?

  10. Maybe they can get some kind of federal grant. At least the sign company is making money.

  11. Regardless of whether “Chinese Virus” is or isn’t in actuality racist, it is perceived that way. Continuing to use it simply reinforces anti-gun forces perception/declarations that gun-owners are just a bunch of racist white males. Therefore, from a strategic standpoint, I eould like to encourage TTAG to, across the boardn stop using the term. The fight for freedom is difficult enough without feeding into the anti-gun’s tropes. And this is a fight I want us to win.

    • I am not into the idea of giving the chicoms any room on this one. They tried to cover up instead of intervene. They can have it named after them. Just like many other diseases such as West Nile, Lyme, Ebola, Zika and a myriad I’m skipping.

      If you want sympathy for China go read something written by someone paid for by Bloomberg.

      • How about Chinese Wuhan apocalypse death virus?!? Or mebbe Chinese Commie scum we hate you disease? Too subtle troll? Oh not to change the subject but around 69th & Ghetto in Chiraq a certain fadda Phflegger has these same scam er safe zones…

    • too late. chinese chopsticks. chinese checkers. chinese flu. red commie chinese wuhan pangolin with bat garnish (kudos to whoever that was) pnumonial influenza virus. from china. suck it.

    • Well, Golly, Dude, I just want to share with you how much your sentiments resonate with all of us unwashed cretins here! Every so often, we ignorant, gun-crazed masses of purulent racism need a gentle reminder of just how badly we fail to live up to the principals enshrined in Social Justice Warriordom. You will never know just how grateful we are, and we thank you for pointing out our many grievous errors in how to properly pander, nay, to genuflect to Communist China and other misunderstood regimes.

      In return, I feel that you should know that if you scrunch yourself into that corner over there, you just MIGHT be able to successfully have sex with yourself.

      • Great stuff! I could hear Everett McGill of Oh Brother Where Art Thou fame reciting this. LOL

    • I’m tired of this politically correct Free Speach. Calling it Chinese virus has nothing to do with gunms. I’m also tired of the U.S. doing business with them. “Grandpossum, what happened? Why are we starving and poor. Is it because every fckn thing bought in America says Made in China.” Silence that talk my young one, your going to spill the Masters tea.

      • “evryting weh gwaan a foreign, di yardman get di blame
        ask di queen di yankee dem call love yardie name”

    • If “Chinese virus” is racist (really sounds stupid), how about “Spanish Flu” (1918), maybe “Russian Flu” (1975)” ? Aren’t those equally racist? Or does that simply depend on whether Donald Trump is involved? Can’t we at least TRY to wake up? I mean, if the Prez mentions that today is Friday, he is accused of racism.

  14. Can we please stop the “Chinese Virus” labeling BS. There is no reason to label COVID-19 as the “Chinese Virus” unless you are intending to inflame anti-Chinese sentiment. It’s perfectly fine to bash China as a nation and especially the Chinese Communist Party. The broader effect of this type of language manipulation is that Americans of Chinese ethnic origin are feeling increasingly unsafe and targeted. We don’t need more internal division in this country.

    • Racists don’t need any encouragement to beat up racial minorities, they do it just for fun. Many years ago, I broke up an impending fight were a someone (outside a bar, of course) wanted to beat up an Iraqi because of the Iranian hostage crisis. Idiot. Stuff going on here is no different. I mean, it isn’t the fault of Chinese Americans that the Chines government screwed up and failed to tell the world about an impending crisis due to the virus for three or four weeks, meanwhile allowing tens of thousands of people to leave Wuhan for parts all around the world to spread the disease. But for some reason, that doesn’t stop the yahoos from attacking people here who had nothing to do with it. You can’t fix stupid.

      By the way, here is another location specific disease. Remember MERS, the scourge of hospitals around the country? I didn’t know this until recently, but it stands for Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome. (The CDC says so.) This is just one of many examples, as others have noted.

      • The proper scientific way to name a novel disease in terms of lay speech is to name it for the place of origin.

        Hence, West Nile, Lyme (named for Lyme, NY) MERS etc. Wuhan Virus is a perfectly acceptable nomenclature for this disease and the Chinese will complain about such a name the same way they will about calling it the “Chinese Virus”.

        People don’t really get the way this works. SARS isn’t a disease per se, it’s a set of symptoms caused by a disease. So, for example SARS-Covid-19, a manner of saying things that’s acceptable, is Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome caused by Covid-19.

        Sometimes people shorthand this kind of thing because it’s redundant. SARS-MERS-12 is SARS caused by MERS/EMC-12/HCoV-EMC/2012 but no one says it that way because SARS-MERS sounds stupid and redundant but MERS is, in fact, a unique Coronavirus that causes SARS and SARS is not a specific disease by a syndrome caused by various diseases with different names.

        • Just like the Colorado and California wild fires. They were named after the place where they started. Was the “Yellowstone Fire” of 1988 offensive to anyone?

        • We can all bicker about the name(s) till the cows come home, but human nature will persist regardless.

          The “Spanish Flu of 1918” actually started in 1917, and isn’t believed to have originated in Spain, but that’s what history has called it for a century, and how everyone refers to it. Has nothing to do with denigrating Spaniards.

          Just call it the Wuhan Flu, the 2020 Pandemic, or whatever you want. Everyone ten years from now will know what you’re talking about.

    • no. chinese wuhan virus it is. unless you want to elaborate. that’s fine too.
      my buddy san has us laughing about how he gets treated when he’s out in public. and his pal wanger. funny guys.
      asian sesonal disorder don’t cut it.

    • Generally virus and the associated diseases are named for the origination of the diseases. Is calling legionnaires disease anti veteran? Is the Spanish flu racists? MERS anti Arab? You know the rest of them.

      When someone tells my calling it the Wuhan Flu is racists I ask where it originates. Then I tell them they are blindly following a cult that intentionally wants to distort their reality and make them feel superior by the use of ignorance.

    • Virus originated in China, therefore is “Chinese Virus”. If racism is involved, the virus is racist since it chose to pick on China. Concerning yourself over whether something is racist or not is seriously stupid, shouldn’t we concern ourselves whether something is REAL or not, instead? It was his Holiness Osama who pointed out that the biggest violence numbers in the US come from young black men killing young black men! I did not hear a single person claim he was a racist, did you?

    • There is a reason. Trump is intentionally doing it because the Chinese are stating the US military is responsible for unleashing this. This isn’t about racism of whatever lefty position you are taking.

  16. The signs are silly, of course – but I’m glad to hear of the other work they’re doing. It’s better to prevent people from becoming criminals than to have to deal with the criminals later.

    • Not so. Those magic signs are showing very promising impact. The St Louis Defective Citizens are laughing so hard they can’t “do no bad.”
      I live near St. Louis in Eastern Missouri. This sign thingy is so embarrassing. But, that’s what you get with 70+ years of Democrat/Socialist “leadership”.
      Forest Gump was so right…..”Stupid is as stupid does.” When you got a big box of chocolates, you always know what you gonna’ get……a shit pot full of crime and Government Plantation Dwellers..”

  19. Christians would do well the ostracise such pastors. They’re part of the reason ya’ll take so much shit.

    Seriously, this is on par with some of the dumb spells Wiccans claim to cast. When members of your group hit that level it’s time to cast them out or walk away from the group.

    • These days the word Christian is so misused to refer to groups that are vastly different in thier value system. In fact at this point, it may well be a meaningless term. I say that, sadly, as a disciple of Christ.

  22. I wish that so called christians would read the bible for themselves. Instead of depending on a pastor to tell them what’s in it. Martin Luther was so correct when he said read the bible for yourself. And that goes for the atheists as well. Because they are just like the christians who don’t read the bible, and rely on their atheist leadership to tell them what’s in the book, they hate so much.

    As I’ve said before on TTAG. There are “guns” in the bible. There is open carry and carry at work in the bible. And there is the proper storage of guns at a church in the bible. And there is “gun control” in the bible as well.

    FYI
    1. God and Guns podcast. @ Firearms radio network
    2. Reverend Kenn Blanchard, The black man with a gun podcast.
    3. Armed Lutheran Radio podcast. @ self defense radio network.

    From Student of the Gun
    4. Faith and the Patriot: A Belief Worth Fighting For. by Paul Markel
    5. The Intolerant Christian Book, (the open and public persecution of modern Christians
    for the sin of “intolerance” ) by Paul Markel
    6. When Violence Is the Answer. by Tim Larkin
    7. God and Guns: Why I am Not a Pacifist – Kill Your Attackers in Christian Love. by Greg
    Perry
    8. Shooting Back: The Right and Duty of Self-defense by Charl van Wyk. On the 1993 saint james church massacre.

    And there are many more books out there.
    https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/book-review-time-kill-myth-christian-pacifism/

    • Religious or atheist the proselytising folks are almost always ignorant assholes. Just like the morons proselytising for Ford or Chevy.

      And yes. I’ve read the Bible and, in fact, studied it seriously for years. I have a deeper knowledge than most Pastors I’ve come across which is exactly why I tell Christians to stop listening to that jerkoff on Sunday and read the damn book for themselves and THEN shop around for a Church that makes sense to them. Maybe get some secondary sources to go along with the Bible to boot.

      Without significant study outside of religion itself you won’t understand the Bible (or any other major religious text) as well as some [religious and non-religious] scholars do, nor as well as many old-school philosophers, but you’ll understand it a hell of a lot better than if you just take the word of some idiot who wants your money and your adoration.

      At this point in history I wouldn’t put much stock in anything a “religious leader” says unless they’re like a Monk or a Nun who never leaves a monastery and whom you’ve personally gone out of your way to find. The others have an agenda and “you understanding God to the best of your ability” ain’t in that agenda.

      • my pops had a parish in the catskills, later outside detroit. learned greek so he could read original texts. taught us reformation had to do with personal interpretations and not letting squid head tell you what it meant.

        • Your pops was a wise man.

          There’s a Jedi Mind Tricks song where one of the guys says “You ain’t gotta go to Church to get to know your God”.

          I said that to someone at one point and a guy who overheard it told me I was wise beyond my years (I was maybe 23). I admitted to having simply quoted someone else immediately and at that point and so he starts talking to me about the implications of the quote. Turns out he was (and I assume still is) a Lutheran Minister and to this day he’s one of the smartest and most honest people I have ever met.

          He’s also one of the first people to admit that theology schools these days teach a lot of old philosophy and then specifically instruct their students not to share it with “the flock” because all doing that kind of thing does is cause friction with people who took Sunday School too seriously.

        • Your pops was a wise man. Your two line description of him reminds me of a Lutheran Minister that I know. He’s one of the most honest, smartest and humblest men I know.

        • fortunate to have had him in my life for twenty years- i was an oops at his 59…
          southern baptist, converted to presbyte by my mom.
          ww1 vet, the belt, the yardstick. the three generation gap took some edge off.

      • Righteous. At least you didn’t mention Dodge. Most sheeple don’t want to take he responsibility of reading and studying things for themselves.

      • So you’ve studied the Bible for years and you refer to it as a ” damn book”.
        “You keepa using that word. I no think it means what you think it means.”
        Keep studying, bro.

  24. If the Bible is God’s word (which I trust it is) to all humanity as it claims then you should be able to understand it without extra theological/philisophical/scholastic training from men. God’s word means what it says. And in Luke chapter 22 Jesus commanded if you dont have a sword sell your cloak and buy one. These pastors are disobeying God’s command by not being ready or willing to defend their families and congregants with proper tools.

  25. The Lou, especially on the Northside has plenty of “churches” and “pastors”, sometimes on every other corner. Neither the “churches” or “pastors” have ever made a dent in the violent crime rate of the city. This is just the long death rattle of a once great city, its been going on now for nearly 60 years.

  26. i’m fine with those signs as long as it means i can’t initiate any violence but i can carry there to prevent or halt any that occurs.

    • Well, if the sign is on a post that you can yank out of the dirt, you have yourself something of a blunt force weapon to beat on the bad guy with.

      Though any baseball bat or golf club would be much more effective.

  28. And getting your theological “education” on TTAG is a fool’s errand. Christianity begins & ends with JESUS CHRIST. GOD the SON. You must be born again. Period. HE’S returning quite soon to rapture HIS church. This little kerfuffle is a prequel. Pestilence,war,famine(with a plague of locusts no less) and great persecution of believers. Time is short. Don’t die without JESUS!

    • I managed to get my wife to watch the entire set of Star Wars movies. In three days.

      The end is most certainly nigh.

      • gat yer churchin’ wherever you can. christ approves.
        i knew kids who stood in line to see star wars over and over when it released. i’ve avoided the whole thing so far.
        i have seen the bar scene from the first one. someone wanted to show me that chicago’s mayor was there.

        • Yes Star Wars is a religious film. At least the orginal first three films.
          And one of the greatest science fiction films ever made is really a gun confiscation movie. The Day The Earth Stood Still. The Black and White version from the 1950s.

    • Good grief. If there is but one god, why do Christians worship 3, except for catholics who worship hundreds, and manufacture a few new ones now and then?

  29. I am fine with these signs. As useless as they are, at least they identify the action and not the item, like “Gun Free Zone” signs.

  31. During the height of the LA Riots, I remember attending a conference put on by some churches and the local university (mine). Dr. Cornel West, an ultra-left-wing theologian and philosopher, was speaking. He went on and on about social injustice (which I believed in as a 20yo Marxist college student), pacifism, and so on.

    But even as a 20-yo Marxist, I knew something wasn’t right when Koreatown was burning and Beverly Hills was protected by a cordon of cops. So I asked West what Korean-Americans should be doing.

    His answer: “Get a gun. Use it to protect yourself and your property.”

    He cited the passage about selling your cloak and buying a sword, and pointed out that MLK was a gun owner.

    #RooftopKorean

  32. All “responses” like this are no better than most of the legislations passed by anti-gun politicians – a feel-good measure that appears to do something, but in reality, is totally ineffective because it doesn’t affect the root cause. While these signs may be well intended, they’re actually dangerous because innocent people (who don’t think critically) will falsely act and feel safe increasing their vulnerability to a predator. How do you all feel when you enter the signed so-called “gun-free zones”? Does anyone in their right mind really think criminals are going to read the sign and go “Gee, I better go put my gun back in the car.” What makes people think these areas wouldn’t actually be targeted more often because the criminals know no one will be armed to shoot back?
    ***Steps back down off his soapbox***

  33. I’m tired of the phrase “gun violence”. It’s like saying the spoon made me fat. Both statements miss the point of the human element.

    Gun control is the same as saying I wish there were no spoons. People will find a different tool.

    Digging the evil out of the heart of man is difficult, and why solutions that ignore the human element are doomed to fail.

    The sign is all well and good as a statement of ideals.
    Roosevelt said “Speak softly and carry a big stick”.

  34. Former paratrooper “Racism is the resort of the ignorant. No one race has the corner on ignorance or violence.”

    Go look up crime by race at the FBI website. Rape and murder are unusually high to the minority population I’m thinking of.

    Maryland just took a pass on putting gun toting folks in jaoil who did not have a permit.

    In Charlotte, NC, https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article227195269.html

    It’s by race you idiot. Read this article and you’ll understand. I’m no racist but I do understand data. and you’re and IDIOT.

  35. If only saying something would make it so, . . . (Little children and even barking dogs, meowing cats, etc. realize THAT doesn’t work.) “Idiots”.

  37. Re: “A silly sign will do nothing more to repel violent crime than a No Chinese Viruses sign will repel the COVID19.”
    Of course it will because a virus can’t read and a bad guy, ER! ..uh, a victimizing victim (?) can read. So there. Nana nana booboo. 😉

  38. If they would have just had one of those signs in both Sutherland Springs, Texas and Fort Worth, Texas churches. Would have saved many lives. ( For the Libtards reading here…..that’s sarcasm.)

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