Remember the days when mass shootings in this country were rare events by rogue actors? Those days are long gone, as American-style mass gun violence – four or more people shot in a single incident – occurs daily.
The combination of readily available weapons and a society in crisis – politically polarized, beset by increasing inequality, exhausted by a pandemic – is making America less safe and more violent.
As religious leaders whose political views are shaped by theological convictions (and not the other way around), we say that it’s time to confront escalating gun violence with morality.
Jesus said not “fear” but to “love your neighbor.” His peacemaking advocacy was not based on the stockpiling of weapons, but upon human-to-human, face-to-face relationships. Yes, some relationships are risky in this day and age. But foregoing them is becoming more and more deadly.
We don’t propose to have all the answers. We call upon people to talk with one another -in neighborhoods, at town halls, and other public venues – to help shape how we should rightfully live together. And to consider the moral issues at play. We offer the following talking points.
The Second Amendment, historically, was to forge a power balance between citizens and a potentially over-reaching government. Extremists today stretch this understanding to “constitutional carry,” a dangerous interpretation championed by a gun lobby that profits (obscenely) from growing fears and chronic prejudices. It’s as if the political allies of the gun lobby are convinced that public safety is best carried out by crowdsourcing, even though many gun-toting “heroes” have never taken a gun-safety class or live-fire training.
Some fellow citizens warp the great American virtues of liberty and freedom to the point where these cherished ideals become excuses for irresponsible behavior. “I can do whatever I want” – cheat on taxes, vent and rage on an airplane or in other public spaces, and so on.
Violent assaults are on the rise. The “short-time-to-crime” window, where a weapon is purchased with the intent of committing a crime, has exploded. In 2020, the number of firearms purchased and then used in a crime within seven months more than doubled the 2019 rate.
When individual freedoms restrict and destroy communal freedoms, as they are now, it’s time for a social rebalancing, measuring the common good against an individual’s rights. Both need to be in play, but not submerging the other. This may even require amending the federal constitution.
This “anything I want” overindulgence spills over into allowing 18-year-old males to buy assault weapons. They can buy these modern-day killing machines and endless amounts of ammunition, but not cigarettes or alcohol. This, even though, the human neo-cortex, which regulates risk-taking behavior, isn’t fully developed until age 25. We call this “mature conscience,” and it should affect the age for gun purchases.
Politicians who take campaign donations from gun manufacturers and do nothing to change the purchase age of assault weapons – much less outlaw their sale entirely – are the leading enablers of mass killers. In our view, they are not acting like moral leaders.
The blood of innocent school children and their teachers, like those slaughtered in Uvalde and Santa Fe, Texas, is on the hands of politicians who do little to change the ever-worsening status quo.
The deterioration of community exacerbates this issue. We have innocent people knocking on the wrong door or driving their cars into the wrong driveway – only to be shot to death by fear-entrenched persons, cradling their smoking guns as they “protect” themselves and their property. Who is the criminal element in these appalling incidents?
Like most others, we have had enough. Mass shootings cannot become accepted as normal. Unless we make changes, we can expect them to happen again and again. What’s happened to American community values? Other countries have found the right moral balance between community safety and liberty, and have restricted mass gun violence.
Let’s work together to put a stop to “again.”
(Rev. T. Carlos Anderson is the Director of Austin City Lutherans. Rev. Jim Harrington, is of Proyecto Santiago at St. James’ Episcopal Church in Austin.)
Good words. What they express about gun safety in other countries is very true. I’ve spoken with Guardia Civil, city police officers, doctors, engineers, professors, health science hospital workers, teachers and bank officers during ten trips to Spain, Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands and France over the last few years. Finding out I’m from Texas, many have mentioned how insanely lax gun ownership is in the U.S. and I feel safer in Europe, especially in Spain, because of government concern for people’s well-being. Violent crime with firearms is rare there. They take safety and security much better there than here. I have firearms and a Texas Concealed Handgun Licence (CHL). I was taught gun safety by a Marine Vietnam veteran and scored highest out of 11 people in my CHL course, but I don’t agree with the idea of kids handling guns as if they’re toys, people openly slinging military-grade semiautomatic weapons to compensate for brains, and law makers too cowardly to pass sensible gun laws as they prostitute themselves for votes and accept money from the NRA, a group I would never join and consider an abusive and uncaring dangerous hate group.