Whether you think of yourself as a gun rights person or a
gun control person, if your response to yet another mass shooting is to
articulate your position and denigrate other positions, you are contributing to
the intransigence that is costing people their lives. Anything you do to
preclude or prevent analysis and critique of your position adds to deadlocking
the dialog needed to work together to save people’s lives. Citing selective
statistics to stifle conversation has fatal consequences. Deflecting culpability
from your position by saying “gun (rights or controls) are not the problem, but
the problem is mental health, drugs, political or religious extremism, not
enforcing existing laws (or even removing prayer and the Ten Commandments from
school, for those who connect that sort of thing) prevents taking practical
steps to save lives. Indeed mental health, drugs, extremism and law enforcement
are all part of the problem, but guns are absolutely in the middle of this mix.
Refusing to address all of this simultaneously is killing people. But these
things only begin to scratch the surface of comprehensively addressing mass
killings. Notice I did not say shootings. Timothy McVeigh used fertilizer and
fuel oil.
Seeking simplistic single solutions that distance ourselves
from culpability perpetuates the environment in which deadly violence
flourishes. In 1624 John Donne wrote in his poem No Man Is An Island, “Any man's death diminishes me,/ Because
I am involved in mankind,/ And therefore never send to know for whom the
bell tolls;/ It tolls for thee.” Walt Kelly’s (1913-1973) comic strip character
Pogo frequently said, “We have me the enemy, and he is us.” Addressing mass
killings must begin by acknowledging that each one of us participates in a
culture that glorifies violence for excitement, entertainment and assumes it is
suitable for problem solving. Though it cuts across the grain of our American
hyper-individualism, all who have any respect for Judeo-Christian Scripture and
faith should seriously consider Daniel’s prayer of confession (Daniel 9:4-19)
and note that Daniel confessed as though he was personally responsible for the
sins of Judah in which he did not himself participate. Psalm 106:6 confesses, “Both
we and our ancestors have sinned.”
Chris Mintz has, rightly I believe, been hailed as a hero in
the recent shooting in Oregon. Though his military background may have helped
him respond rapidly and effectively, he was not a “good guy with a gun” who
shot the “bad guy with a gun.” He relinquished self-protection and intervened
for the good of others. Yes, he took several bullets and might well have been
killed, but he effectively saved lives. Imagine if he had tried the “good guy
with a gun” strategy and shot at the shooter. Other such “good guys with guns” might
easily have mistaken him for a second gunman and shot at him, arousing other “good
guys with guns” to shoot at them. The prospect for geometric escalation is
real. Only a split second hesitation prevented a “good guy with a gun” in the
parking lot where Gabby Giffords was shot from shooting the man who intervened
to disable that shooter. I am convinced that such self-surrender is the most
effective and moral form of heroism in such cases.
I feel compelled to add a theological excurses on the US
Constitution. While I have a great deal of respect for the US Constitution
(what other country has had the same foundational document for over two and a
quarter centuries?), but the framers knew it was a fallible, human document, so
they built in a realistic but arduous amendment process. They knew, and I vigorously
affirm, that for all its merits (even allowing for God’s sovereign supervision
of its framing, though God is not mentioned in it), the US Constitution is not
divinely inspired, reliable and authoritative Scripture, as I consider the
Bible to be.
More than once I have heard the Second Amendment cited as
supporting “my God-given rights to keep and bear arms.” God did not give the
right to keep and bear arms. That was a human, political decision. I was taught
in high school (’64) and college (’69) that it addressed state militias to a support
a citizen army, and in part for the pursuit, capture and return of runaway
slaves. Only recently have the courts extended the right to keep and bear arms
to individuals. I wouldn’t presume to imagine what the founders would think of
modern firearms technology, but it is certainly a far cry from the late
Eighteenth Century when a rifle was an essential agricultural tool.
I am not suggesting a constitutional debate or revision. I
am pleading for life saving action. In grief I have written from a deep yearning
that people in this country, especially those of us who consider ourselves to
be serious disciples of Jesus Christ, refuse to participate in the stalemated
gun debate and begin to explore how to reduce lethal violence in our society
without preconditions or preconceptions. Recognizing the political polarization
and gridlock of our country, I still have hope and believe that if we will
listen to learn from each other and work together rather than try to convince
each other and win debate points, we can change the deadly trap we have built
for ourselves and save the lives of many people.
