God Not Guns Blog

We Have Been Here Before

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The Knoxville Church Shooting: We’ve Been Here Before

Look up “sacrosanct” in the Oxford English Dictionary and you will find:

Of persons and things, esp. obligations, laws, etc.: Secured by a religious sanction from violation, infringement, or encroachment; inviolable, sacred.

As many of us were enjoying our Sunday afternoon this past weekend perhaps coming home from church, or grilling out in the back yard we heard reports that a gunman opened fire at a children’s production of “Annie” inside a church in Knoxville, Tennessee.

“Sacrosanct” doesn’t seem to mean what it used to. Many were saddened by the news, but few were surprised, because this is not a new event in America.

We’ve been here before.

In fact, CNN reported that this was the fourth shooting attack on a church in 15 months, the most recent being the Colorado church assault where a suicidal gunman was stopped by a former Minneapolis police officer who had been specifically tasked to be on the look-out for the shooter.

The accused gunman in Knoxville had a history of domestic violence and suicidal behavior, and had a protective order filed against him by his now ex-wife, back in March 2000.

One account reports that he once held a gun to his ex-wife’s head after “drinking heavily.” Apparently, he had also been charged with a DUI and refused to submit to a blood alcohol test.

If that isn’t enough, reports further say that he was motivated by a “hatred” of the “liberal movement” and targeted a church that to him symbolized advocacy of civil rights for African-Americans and gays.

When I say that we make it too easy for dangerous people to get guns in America, the accused Knoxville church shooter is exactly the kind of person I have in mind.

It seems this man couldn’t even get a job, yet he was able to walk out of an Anderson County, Tennessee pawnshop with the shotgun he would use a month later to kill two people, wound six others, and expect to be killed by police intervention.

On the other hand, it is important for us to take notice of the fact that the gunman could fire just three times because the shotgun he used was limited to three shells before he was forced to re-load.

Unarmed parishioners had the chance to tackle him while he paused. As bad as the Knoxville shooting was, it could have been much worse.

If we don’t have the laws to help keep firearms from a man like this, then clearly we are not doing enough in this country to keep dangerous weapons from dangerous people. Some say the answer is more private guns in church. But that simply accepts four church shootings in a year-and-a-half as “normal” in America.

We need to find ways to keep dangerous people from gaining easy access to firearms. There is much more we can do to protect our children and families and help prevent shootings that, if history is any guide, we can expect to happen again.

Paul Helmke

President Brady Center To Prevent Gun Violence

Gundamentalism at Work

It didn't take long. In just a few days after the Supreme Court ruled in the Heller case, the implications of its ruling are being tested. The NRA is the leading proponent of gundamentalism in America and law makers are too often at its beck and call. On Tuesday in Georgia a law took effect that allows people to carry guns in restaurants, state parks and on public transportation such as buses and subways. The problem is that gun rights proponents now claim that because the Atlanta airport is a place of public transportation and it houses restaurants, they must be allowed to carry their firearms onto airport premises. When city officials declared the airport a 'gun free zone' gun rights supporters filed a lawsuit. They want to be able to carry their guns up to the point where passengers go through security to board a flight.

Does the 2nd amendment right to own a gun mean that there are no limits? All our other constitutionally protected freedoms have limits - we have freedom of speech, but we can't yell "FIRE" in a theatre. We have freedom of assembly but we must get a permit. We have freedom of religion but we can't sacrifice animals on the courthouse steps. At some point all individual rights bump up against the good of the greater community. But advocates of gundamentalism know no bounds.

Who will counter the claims of gundamentalism? People of faith, it's time to speak out.

Gundamentalism's Day

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.

It's our "right", but is it right?

This morning's headlines blared the news: the Supreme Court has ruled that there is a constitutional right to gun ownership. I'm not surprised - disheartened, dismayed, disappointed - but not surprised. The photo accompanying the headline was of jubilant supporters of gun rights who carried signs saying, "Guns Save Lives." "The Great Object: Every Man Be Armed." "If guns kill people...do pens misspell words?" One man held aloft a sign that had a scorecard: there was a big red check in the box next to "Gunowners" while the box next to "Victims" was empty.

And that's the real problem with gundamentalism (and I do see this ruling as an offshoot of gundamentalism) It believes that nothing else is as important as the right to own a gun. Or many guns. Or many kinds of guns. The fact that 30,000 people a year, 80 a day, are killed by guns is not nearly as important as the right to own a gun. The day before the Court announced its decision, a worker in a Kentucky plastics plant shot and killed himself after killing four co-workers. Thank goodness he had the right to own a gun.

What are the responsibilities that go along with this newly bestowed right? The Court's ruling does make room for sensible gun control. But we must ask deeper and more difficult questions. We need to ask ourselves: Where do we place our trust - In God or in guns? Who do we serve - God or the 2nd Ammendment? Where do we find a sense of security, self-worth, and purpose - from God or from guns? How do we bring about God's Kingdom - with an open heart or with a gun in hand?

The longing of the human soul is for healing, not violence. The yearning of the soul is for peace, not fear. The truth of the soul brings us closer to the God in whose image we are made. Gun ownership may now be called a constitutional right, but it has nothing to do with the desire of the soul.

Gundamentalism

In her book, Battle for God, Karen Armstrong says that fundamentalism in every religion encourages a sense of crisis among its believers, fostering the conviction that they are the first and last defense against the corrosion of crucial values. Armstrong says that because fundamentalism is rooted in a profound fear of annihilation, its adherents see themselves in a fight for survival against society at large. I believe that this is precisely how gun-rights proponents portray themselves.

I believe that America’s gun culture is marked by zeal closely akin to that of religious fundamentalism. The gun-rights movement is built upon a system of belief that is both absolutist and aggressive. It has its sacred text, its creed, its icon and its ideology. According to its doctrine, only the right to own firearms offers protection against tyranny at the hands of criminals, foreign terrorists, even our own government. Its followers believe they are in a cosmic struggle to protect America’s most cherished value: freedom. I call this movement “Gundamentalism." In my next several entries, I'll be talking about this movement and its ideology.

Guns and Meat

A friend of mine who is a pastor recently visited the home of someone in his congregation. After dinner the host said, “I want to show you something,” left the dinner table, and returned with a double barrel pistol. The gun’s top barrel was a .410 shotgun and the bottom barrel was a .357 pistol. My pastor friend, who happens to be Vietnam vet, was astounded. What, he asked, does anybody need with a weapon like that?

I wondered that same thing when the Assault Weapons Ban was allowed to expire a few years ago. Why does anybody need a military-style assault weapon?

I also wondered the same thing when concealed carry laws became so prevalent. Why does anyone feel the need to take a gun to work, or to the mall, or to a public park?

Some people say that it’s their Constitutional right to have a gun, any kind of gun, when and wherever they want it. Because they believe they have the right, they want the gun. Others say they need a gun for protection, that the police can’t be trusted to arrive in time to prevent a crime. Still others say that the right to own a gun protects them from government run amok. Whatever the rationale to support a ‘right’ to gun ownership, the result is over 200 million guns in circulation in the U.S. today. And the result of so many guns? Nearly 30,000 Americans are killed by guns each year.

What do we need with so many guns? What happens when the perceived ‘right’ to gun ownership is complicit in the deaths of so many?

It reminds me of a similar (though much more benign) situation faced by the Apostle Paul when dealing with the church in Corinth. Some members of the congregation felt it was permissible to eat meat that had been offered to pagan gods while others believed this meat was defiled. The meat-eaters felt superior to those who refused it because they thought their higher knowledge freed them from such restrictions. This conflict was causing great confusion in the church and they asked Paul for advice.

Paul’s response was this: “Food will not commend us to God…Take care lest this liberty of yours somehow become a stumbling block to the weak…If food is a cause of my brother’s falling, I will never eat meat, lest I cause my brother to fall.”

I think we can apply Paul’s advice to our contemporary conflict between the right of gun ownership vs. the right to live free from the threat of gun violence. I think Paul might say to us, “Guns will not commend us to God…Take care lest this liberty of yours somehow become a stumbling block to another…If guns are the cause of my brother’s falling, I will not carry a gun lest I cause my brother to fall.”

Do spoons make you fat?

I was eating lunch yesterday at one of my favorite restaurants when I saw a man wearing a t-shirt with a large outline of a handgun on the back. Underneath the gun were the words: "If guns kill people then spoons made Rosie O'Donnell fat."

It's hard not to follow the logic. Here are a few more: "If guns kill people then pencils misspell words." "If guns kill people then cars make people drive drunk." Even I can think of a few of these...If guns kill people then lettuce makes Paris Hilton thin; books make people smart; hymnals make people sing. How about If guns kill people then wings make pigs fly?

The point of such slogans is to absolve guns of any responsibility for the actions of their owners. And it's true - a gun is an inanimate object that is harmless unless it comes into contact with human hands. But therein lies the problem. Often the human hands holding the gun belong to a child or a criminal, an abusive husband, a suicidal teenager or someone who is mentally ill. What then?

Because guns are lethal then we need to do all we can to keep them out of the hands of those who shouldn't have them. Rather than trying to ignore the deaths and injuries caused by guns, rather than trying to trivialize gun violence with a catchy slogan, let's do something to protect our children and loved ones from the dangers of a gun. Make sure background checks are done before any gun can be sold; make handguns childproof, ban the sale of assault weapons, and institute policies that will stop gun trafficking. Then we can have sensible slogans like "No background check? No gun!" Or, "Childproof Handguns...Because Children Aren't Bulletproof."

Idolatry of the Gun

I’m always a little apprehensive before a vigil. I worry about how we’re going to look, a small group of people, nowhere near a church, praying in a strange neighborhood or on a busy street where we obviously don’t belong. But we hold the vigils as a testament to the power of peace over violence. We hold them to lift up the life of the victim as a child of God and to pray for victim and perpetrator alike.

We pray for victim and perpetrator because we believe that to be human is to be created in the image of God – we are wonderfully made. To be human is to be connected to God – we are divinely made. To be human is to be created in goodness and blessed – we are mightily made. It is this connection to the divine and to each other that is desecrated in each act of gun violence.

I once heard violence defined as, “…that act of forgetting who we are; brothers and sisters of one another, each one of us a child of God. Violence can occur in those moments when we forget and deny our basic identity as God’s children, when we treat others as if they were worthless instead of priceless and cling to our own selfish desires, possessions and security. In the effort to claim our inheritance as loved children of God, we must claim our love for one another and choose life. We must remember who we are…”

Indeed it is time for us to remember who we are. As people of faith we must stand up and ask – What poverty of spirit causes Americans to so glorify their guns – in movies, on television, in video games, on the streets of our neighborhoods and in the halls of our Congress? It is time for us to awaken our country to the blasphemy of gun violence.

Our God is a God who said, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” When Charlton Heston held up a rifle at the NRA convention in Denver Colorado just weeks after the shootings at Columbine High School and shouted, ‘…from my cold, dead hands…’ he was making an idol of the gun. When our Congressional representatives give the gun industry immunity from prosecution, when they refuse to regulate guns as consumer products, when they refuse to enact gun laws such as the AWB that will save thousands of lives, when Congress does the bidding of the gun lobby in exchange for campaign dollars they are making an idol of the gun.

Idolatry of the gun seduces with false power and teases with illusive security. The idolatry of the gun make the American obsession with possession of guns seem like freedom when all it really offers is a life lived in fear. How can we see the face of God in every person or claim them as our brothers and sisters when we are so afraid that we think we must carry a concealed weapon everywhere we go? How can we stretch our arms wide towards God’s goodness when one hand is grasping a gun? How can we depend only on God when next to our hearts we’re wearing a weapon?

As people of faith we must stand witness to the destructive power of gun violence. We must say we will rely not on guns, but on God. We will affirm not guns, but life. We will bless not guns, but our common humanity. We must hold up a higher value saying that our children’s lives are a sacred trust and that human life is more important than the so-called right to bear arms.

Every time we hold a vigil we are standing up to violence. We are standing together black, brown and white, expressing our connection to each other and to the divine.

At our vigils we claim each other as brothers and sisters committed to the challenge of living peacefully in our homes and in our neighborhoods. Every time we hold a vigil we honor the lives lost to violence and remind ourselves and others that there is hope even in the face of the greatest of human evil.

It’s never easy to go to the site of a homicide. We never know what to expect. We don’t know who will be there, what someone might say, how we will be received. But somehow the most amazing thing always happens. Somehow the scene of a violent act becomes sacred space.

On Mother's Day: A Voice for Peace

In honor of Mother's Day, I thought I'd tell you something about its founder - Julia Ward Howe. You may already know she wrote the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," was an abolitionist and a tireless worker for women's right to vote along with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. You may not know that she was also the founder of Mother's Day. But the Mother's Day envisioned by Julia Ward Howe was a far cry from the cards and roses, brunch and lunch kind of day we now celebrate.

Julia became a passionate voice for peace after witnessing the carnage of the American Civil War. In 1870, at the start of the Franco-Prussian War, she wrote a proclamation calling on the women of the world to unite for peace. She envisioned a national 'Mother's Day' which would bring the power and influence of women to bear in preventing the wars waged by men.

Today we are experiencing war of a different sort - that of gun violence on our own streets, in our own cities, and against our own children. The deaths at Virginia Tech, UNC, Auburn, Northern Illinois Universities, the deaths of children in drive-by shootings in Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and other cities, the deaths of young black men killed by other young black men, the deaths of Amish girls in Pennsylvania are evidence of the carnage of our time. To stop the gun violence in our midst it's going to take the same kind of courage and passion that Julia Ward Howe had. That's why I think her Mother's Day Proclamation of 1870 is still relevant:

Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise, all women who have breasts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly:
"We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice." Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war, Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God.

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

Vigil

Today is the 10th anniversary of the Vigils Against Violence held in Raleigh, NC. The vigils were begun as a joint ministry of Martin Street and Pullen Memorial Baptist churches as the number of homicides soared in our city. In the last several years the homicide rate has hovered around 22 victims each year. And though the number of persons killed may change somewhat, the cause of death stays the same: handguns. There is no doubt that the drug trade also is a major factor in these deaths as is poverty and lack of hope. But the presence of a handgun makes any argument turn lethal. In this respect Raleigh is no different from Philadelphia, Chicago, Atlanta or Los Angeles. The number of gun deaths per year in our city is just a fraction of the gun deaths in these larger citites, but the pain is the same and it reaches out in all directions.

Today at 4pm a circle of people will gather on Coleman Street where a young, black man was shot and killed. We will pray for him, his family and his neighborhood. We will also pray for the two young, black men who shot Antonio McLean. As we prepare to leave we will say these words in unison:

We will stand up to violence. We stand together expressing our unity, our donnection to each other, and to the divine. We pray for transformation and for healing. Let the Spirit of our Creator move through us, helping us to transform and heal our communities. And let us begin by transforming ourselves.

We go in peace and in hope.

Remembering Virginia Tech

Yesterday, on the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill, we held a lie-in to remember the victims of Virginia Tech and students in North Carolina who have been killed by gun. These are my remarks:

One year ago today, 32 people were killed on the campus of Virginia Tech University in the deadliest school shooting and worst civilian mass shooting in the history of our country. We are gathered here today in remembrance of those who lost their lives at Virginia Tech, and for all the victims that have been lost to gun violence in the year since that shooting. Today we wear the colors of Virginia Tech – ribbons hand-made by the survivors and families of the victims of that shooting. We also wear the light blue of Carolina and the dark blue of Duke because we include in our memorial Eve Carson of UNC, Abhijit Mohato of Duke University, Denita Smith of NCCU, Lauren Burke of Auburn University, and the seven students killed at Northern Illinois University.

Gun violence is an insidious and mostly silent epidemic that is taking the lives of nearly 30,000 Americans each year in homicides, suicides and unintentional shootings. Thirty- two people a day are murdered by guns in America. Thirty-two today, tomorrow, the next day, 32 the day after that and 32 the day after that. These are killings with no end in sight unless we choose to act. More than any other, this generation of college students has been affected by gun violence. Whether campus shootings take one life or seven lives or thirty-two lives, an entire community is traumatized.

There are several things we can do…

1) Remember the victims. As we call the names of 35 students today we join hundreds of others holding events just like this across the country. Today we are part of something bigger than ourselves. We are part of a national community of support and remembrance for the students who were killed and injured at Virginia Tech and other college campuses.

2) Act on behalf of ALL victims of gun violence – by getting laws passed that stop the flow of illegal guns. As Marian Wright Edleman, the founder of the Children’s Defense Fund said, “Guns and violence are in every nook and cranny of America. Many children can get a gun quicker than they can get a book out of the library.” It should not be so easy to get a gun. Children, criminals, and the mentally ill should not have easy access to a gun. By requiring that every gun sale be contingent on a background check we can restrict gun purchases to responsible adults only. This is called closing the gun show loophole. No background check, no sale, no gun.

3) The last and most important – is to honor the victims of gun violence by living lives of peaceful purpose. We can choose to resolve conflict without violence, to choose reconciliation over revenge, and justice over retaliation. We can be a force for non-violence and we must start with ourselves. The power of peace is stronger than any bullet and we hold that power in our hearts and hands.

Thank you for coming. Go in peace.

Hello Kitty

Did you know it's possible to purchase an assault rifle with a "Hello Kitty" decal on it? It's pink! It's cute! It's deadly!

Every Nook and Cranny

I recently came across this quote from Marian Wright Edleman, the founder of the Children's Defense Fund: "It's everywhere. Guns and violence are in every nook and cranny of America. Many children can get a gun quicker than they can get a book out of the library. This puts us all at risk."

Next week is the one-year anniversary of the shootings at Virginia Tech University where a mentally ill gunman killed 32 people. I keep thinking about this generation of students and the gun violence they have experienced. My youngest daughter was in the sixth grade when the shootings at Columbine High School occurred. She was a sophomore in college when the shootings a Virginia Tech occurred. In the year since the Virginia Tech shootings, students at Auburn University, UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke, and Northern Illinois University have seen guns kill and injure on their campuses. These shootings have created a generation of children and young adults traumatized by gun violence.

Marian Wright Edleman is right - guns are in every nook and cranny in America and our children especially are at risk. Let's do something about this violent epidemic that is killing and injuring our children. Let's make ending gun violence our righteous cause.

Paralysis

Let me say, first thing that I've been away from this space for too long. I was paralyzed. Our community has been in shock because on Mar. 5, Eve Carson, the student body president at UNC-Chapel Hill was leaving the house she shared with roommates, on her way to do something for class when two young men with a gun happened to see her. They took her car and ATM card, and in return they got $200 and her life. She was 22 years old.

This hit especially hard for me because when my daughter was a 22-year-old college student she was, like Eve, approached by two men with a gun. They pushed her to the ground, put the gun to her head threatening over and over again to kill her because she was fumbling with her keys and wallet. My daughter was not killed. And for that I am eternally, heart-stoppingly grateful. I am grateful that 'our' gunmen were....what? Nicer? Smarter? Older and less reckless? They wanted her car not her life.

My gratitude for my daughter's life has made me more acutely aware of the grief felt by those who loved Eve and every other mother who has lost a child to gun violence. There but for the click of a trigger go I. So I've been paralyzed, not wanting to think about guns or write about gun violence. This epidemic is insidious and silent - it's an epidemic that kills and causes physical injury. But it's greatest threat is wounds it inflicts on our souls.

Let's Be Maladjusted

A friend included this quote from Martin Luther King, Jr. in a vigil notice,"There are some things in our society and in our world to which I'm proud to be maladjusted, to which I call upon all people of good will to be maladjusted, until the good society is realized...I never intend to adjust myself to the madness...and the self-defeating effects of physical violence."

Rev. King was so committed to the principal of non-violence that, in spite of threats to his life and family, he never carried a gun or allowed his bodyguards to carry a gun. Sometimes I wonder if we have so associated Rev. King with the civil rights movement that we have forgotten his equally strong commitment to non-violence. He never wavered in his conviction that non-violence was the path God wants us to follow. Dr. King believed that justice could not be served through violence.

What does this commitment to non-violence say to us today? 32 Americans are murdered each day by guns and it hardly makes the news. Even a catastrophic shooting like that at Northwestern Illinois University or Virginia Tech causes no great changes in our gun laws. Are we acquiesing to a society that takes such violence for granted?

If so, I will stand with Dr. King and say I'm proud to be maladjusted.