Facing this Fearless Generosity Toward Guns

I’ll come to the point quickly:

America, we can no longer afford the right of each individual to have unquestioned access to guns. 

For my part, as a Christian, Presbyterian minister, I feel forced to ask again and again—for the sake of Jesus’ “little ones” (innocent children), and for the sake of our future as a people—“What should people of Christian faith do about these gun deaths that afflict our communities?” 

But shouldn’t all Christians be asking this question?  Especially, Christian gun-owners? 

I am no longer able to be “fearlessly generous” in the face of so many people who appear to care more about the right to bear arms—or what’s being interpreted as any citizen’s right to possess and use a firearm—than they care about children and others dying!  No!!!  All the pictures I see of armed citizens walking into banks, hospitals, and restaurants actually make me FEARFUL!  And inviting more people to “have guns” and “bear arms” in public has not led to saving lives.  I’ve watched as more and more people have died for this “right” or as a result of this right. 

So, now that it’s being widely reported that in 2013 more preschool-aged children were shot dead (a total of 82) than police officers in the line of duty were shot dead (a total of 27), isn’t it abundantly clear that the suffering caused by unquestioned access to guns is completely and totally unbearable for all of us?  Preschoolers AND police officers are being shot dead at alarming rates!  

I know!  We want to spin it the other way, to BELIEVE—SOMEHOW—that guns don’t kill people, that it’s really people who kill people.  But it’s just not true. 

Until today, I might have been tempted to believe that my ministry hasn’t been tinged by “gun violence.”  But here’s my story. 

My first call to ministry was to a congregation in a small town in the middle of Nebraska.  Compared to Richmond, Virginia where I had lived during my seminary education, during the time when Richmond was on the top ten list for gun-related murders in the country, the rural, “middle-of-the-country community” seemed blissfully safe.  Still, the day came when one of the faithful members of the congregation called with a spiritual need, telling me that her teen-aged granddaughter, who lived in Phoenix, Arizona, had been shot to death. 

The news rocked our small town, forcing us to remember that sin is indiscriminate.  Things like this weren’t supposed to happen! 

She was a good kid.  She lived in a suburban neighborhood.  Her parents had a curfew.  She was an “A” student.  She had good friends.  On the night she was killed, her parents had noticed that she was in the back yard talking on the phone with a friend; they’d even hollered out to her that it was getting close to bedtime, and she’d acknowledged.  When she didn’t come in, they found her slumped, with a head wound.  No one had heard a gunshot, yet there she lay in the emergency room shot to death.  Her friend on the phone would say later that a “crash” had ended their conversation. 

The autopsy revealed a bullet had entered her head from above, and judging from the angle of entry, had traveled more or less straight down, leaving the presumption it had been a gun fired into the air and not aimed intentionally.  It was an accident, or perhaps not at all on purpose, but leaving no way of knowing where the bullet had come from, how it was fired, or who fired it.  This tragedy led to a change in Arizona’s gun laws, so that firing a gun into the air, today, is a crime. 

Nearly twenty years ago, this didn’t seem like “gun violence;” but today, I have a different answer.  Yes.  Not only does the aftermath of every gun-death, intentional or accidental, share devastation; all gun deaths share one thing in common—a gun. 

Our problem is that every gun is equal in its uncaring-ness.  An 8 year old child can shoot a 10 year old neighbor “in fun;” or a teenager can unlock the gun cabinet and the ammunition and use the gun to kill himself.  A toddler may discover a gun in mom’s purse and be an accidental but active shooter of a woman in Wal-Mart; or a person in a fit of anger and hurt can get the gun kept in the nightstand for “self-defense” and shoot a spouse in order to end an argument.  Increasingly, very well-meaning armed citizens or even highly trained police officers can’t clearly identify the bad people with so many guns about; nor can they prevent bullets from passing through a wall or a body to cause collateral damage, just like bullets fired into the air don’t always fall harmlessly. 

No.  It is ever, increasingly more clear, that guns kill people.  Guns concealed or carried, guns locked in lock-boxes or left in nightstand drawers.  There are so many guns, in fact, that it’s statistically only a matter of time.  We no longer live in a world where it’s necessary for our children to endure lock-down drills, and hiding exercises, preparing for the day when a person, armed with a gun comes into school shooting in hallways and classrooms.  We live in a world, right now, where statistically, we must seriously consider counting the days to when our children—OUR OWN CHILDREN—will be the victims. 

You don’t want to believe it?  I know.  I don’t either. 

But as I’m writing this post, fresh news stories reveal a gunman caused a lock down at Philadelphia Community College--just a day after bomb threats disrupted college classes in and around Philadelphia.  Thankfully the reported gunman turned out to be only two men arguing.  The Police Commissioner said eventually, “The two men have a history.  He said they know each other, there was an argument, and one of them allegedly produced a gun.” 

Can we at least agree, it’s a totally different scenario minus the gun? 

 

School drills with bulletproof disaster gear for sale

We live in a world where accidents happen.  Guns kill people, even when people don’t want to kill people.  And increasingly people are CHOOSING to live in this world.  Without remorse!  People have become convinced in large and small ways “this is now how our life has to be” and for many reasons.  We justify the necessity of “deadly force” and “killing,” rather than decrying it.  We fear what might happen to us if we didn’t have these “protections” even as they kill our children.   

This, however, is NOT a CHRISTIAN view. 

The Pope, in his recent visit to our country, didn’t mince words.  He said, “If you’re a gun manufacturer, you’re not a Christian.”  If this is true, what does it say about gun owners? 

As one of my spiritual heroes says, “God does not kill.” 

I believe Jesus teaches there are options, but that killing isn’t one of them.  Ever. 

So, for the followers of Jesus, who are in fact called to “sell our possessions, …then come and follow Jesus,” isn’t the need for guns understandably way more qualified than any “right” the Constitution of the United States may wish to guarantee in one form or another?  In fact, in my view, following Jesus simply doesn’t square very easily or at all with using or even owning a gun.  There are always other, better options. 

To be sure, these better options begin with solving problems long before we get to the point of involving weapons of deadly force.  And any solution to “gun violence” and “gun-deaths” necessarily involves solving other social problems and ills!  There is no “quick fix” or painless inoculation to be had. 

We have to start somewhere.  And I’ll start by calling out Christians. 

So for me, a Christian, Presbyterian minister, I’ll be praying for Christians, in particular, for Christian gun-owners, that they begin to see the light of Jesus Christ.  I’m fearful that my generosity in allowing more and more guns will mean more and more and more deaths.  So I am placing my generosity in fearlessly praying that those with guns will come quickly to see that they are no longer needed, required, or desired.  That Jesus gifts us with other options to resolve our differences and needs. 

I already know.  This prescription tastes like the doctor’s advice to a patient with high blood pressure who needs to give up table salt.  We may not like it, but for the sake of survival we have to figure out how to do it.  But unlike the patient with high blood pressure, it’s not just our own lives, it’s the lives of our children—that rely on our “beating our swords into plowshares.” 

If Christians will start, others will follow.  Christians need this kind of fearless generosity toward life in the face of those who would be fearlessly generous with guns.