It will be some time before the consequences of the Supreme Court's 2nd Amendment decision are clear. At the very least it will embolden adherents of gundamentalism in their belief in the inerrancy of the 2nd Amendment - that the right of the individual to own a gun protects all our other freedoms. This belief fuels the fervor of a minority of gun owners and makes it akin to the fervor of other kinds of fundamentalism. That's why I call it "gundamentalism."
But gundamentalism is a religious movement without spiritual grounding. Rather, it is rooted in the sale and promotion of violence. The mantra, "Guns don't kill people, people kill people," attempts to absolve gundamentalism's responsibility for the uniquely American epidemic of gun violence. This mantra is chanted over and over until it drowns out the Biblical mandates of "Thou shallt not kill," "Love your neighbor as yourself," "Forgive seventy times seven," "Do good to those who hate you."
Rather than offering a vision of community in which we are bound together by our humanity, gundamentalism encourages fear, teaching us to see each other as "The Other," a potential enemy, a threat endangering our family, our home, our person. Such fear blinds us to the image of God embodied in every human being. Even more it blinds us to our own connection to the Divine. How can we reach toward God with arms open wide if in one hand we are clutching a gun?
Gundamentalism creates a culture of fear then offers a seductive promise: with a gun one can live with out fear. It offers power, freedom, self-determination and protection all in the metal casing of a gun. With the gun as its icon, the 2nd Amendment as its creed, gundamentalism proclaims that nothing is as sacred as the right to own a gun.
