Introduction
For most of my sixty years I have
consciously and intentionally wrestled with what it means to be a patriotic
person of peace within our American culture of violence. As a straight, middle class, white man I know
I have benefited from – and been entertained by – my culture’s various violent
obsessions. I have been overtly and
covertly wounded and corrupted by them, too.
At times I have protested and railed against some of our more vicious
habits, spent time in therapy as a consequence of family rage and experienced
in my core the blinding fury that so easily erupts into acts of deadly
destruction. As a husband, father and
pastor I have also wept while keeping silent vigil with those who have survived
acts of murder and suicide.
“Life is hard – and agony accompanies
joy.” That’s how I have sometimes made sense of the sorrow born of our uniquely
violent culture. “Now we see as through
a glass darkly,” as St. Paul wrote, “later we shall see face to face… for all
have sinned and fallen short of the grace of God.” This is the theological gap between
comprehension and mystery I generally accept as another way of enduring the
heart ache – always, however, with the caveat that, “when we do get to see face
to face, God damn it, I want some answers because this pain is almost
unforgivable.” As a servant of the
Crucified but Risen Christ, I trust that God’s presence is with us all in the
agony of real life. And I believe by faith
that this present darkness will one day be redeemed, too.
But after the massacre of twenty
first grade and kindergarten children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in
Newtown, Connecticut – as well eight other adults including the shooter – it is
clear to me that my grasp of what it means to wait upon the Lord is too
passive. Now is the time for decisive
action to limit and prohibit the spread of certain semi-automatic weapons in
America. Military-grade hardware and
access to massive amounts of ammunition is neither necessary to protect the
Second Amendment nor to advance the joy of hunting and sport shooting. Indeed, I would argue that this is the hour to
turn our public conversation away from real or imagined Constitutional matters
and find ways for a variety of players to break bread together in patient and
civil explorations of the common good.
We don’t have much practice or experience with such gatherings these
days, but the hour calls for nothing less.
To my mind, there are four
inter-related components that deserve our careful consideration as a part of
this compassionate conversation if we are going to modestly challenge the
reality of contemporary American violence.
The easiest – and most immediately pressing – involves new legislation
that would inhibit and restrict the ability to purchase and sell certain
semi-automatic weapons while closing the loopholes concerning background checks
and gun registration. This should become
a public health debate fought with as much vigor as was brought against the
tobacco industry and their lobbyists.
The other three aspects of this challenge – delegitimizing the current NRA
and their influence in politics, honoring and understanding the healthy role
guns play throughout rural America and elevating the use of nonviolent conflict
resolution strategies – is a more demanding and long-term mission.
To do anything less , however, suggests
at the very least an addiction to the insanity of the status quo – noting that
the classic definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and
expecting different results – and perhaps moral cowardice and political
complicity. Back in the day the old
union organizing song asked, “Which side are you on?” For me, the haunting presence of the slain
children and their surviving families in Sandy Hook has reissued this question
for our culture – and the jury is still out how we will classify
ourselves. So let me share my
observations concerning each of the four challenges that give shape and form to
which side we are on – and where we might move together.
Personal
Context
At the outset, let me confess that I
am not an unbiased observer. Once upon a
time I attended Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT – for two years as
a small child – as did my younger sister and brother. I received my first Bible at the Newtown
church and sang in my first church choir, too.
Nearly fifty years later, while I was exploring a new call to ministry
that eventually led me to Pittsfield, I interviewed for the position of pastor
at the Congregation Church in Newtown – and took a quick side trip to visit our
old neighborhood – before the interview.
Let’s just say that I have great affection and respect for the people of
this small community. Unquestionably, proximity
has played a powerful role in my strong reaction to this massacre. But sharing some of the ties that bind with
families in Newtown is not the only reason for my change of heart.
After all, I knew Gabby Giffords from
my ten years of ministry in Tucson, AZ. From
time to time, we shopped at the same Safeway where she and eighteen other
innocent people were shot. And while the horror of her attempted
murder left me stunned and shocked – as did the carnage and death from the Aurora,
CO movie theatre shooting where 12 people died and 58 were wounded – like so many
other Americans I had sadly come to accept such violence as part of our
inevitable status quo. It was tragic,
emotionally incomprehensible and evil, to be sure, but also just a part of
another day in America where on average 18 people die every 24 hours by gun
violence. Intellectually this culture
of violence was repugnant to me, but my revulsion remained theoretical because
other demands captured my attention and imagination. Like C.S. Lewis before the death of his
beloved wife, Joy, the reality of American violence was only a vile abstraction
for me.
My heart was broken and my conscience
enflamed, however, when twenty innocent, small children were slaughtered as they
waited for their classes to begin one Friday morning in Newtown. Those babies looked like my daughters thirty
years ago – or the children who gather around me each Sunday morning in the
chancel of our church in another American small town in America – and I found
myself weeping uncontrollably in the aftermath of the attack. In many ways it felt like September 11th
2001 all over again. What’s more, seeing
the faces of my own beloved children in those murdered in Newtown, helped open
my eyes again to the faces and lives of other children who are just as beloved
by God and their parents but who are all too invisible to many Americans: children of color, children of poverty,
children of God. The words of Jesus,
“Whatsoever you do unto any of the least of these, my sisters and brothers, you
do unto me” took on another layer of significance.
So I am not ashamed to state that I
am still moved to tears whenever I fully consider how acts of mass murder can
be tolerated so casually in contemporary.
Since the domestic terrorist attack of December 14, 2012 at Sandy Hook
Elementary School, there have been 926 gun related deaths throughout the United
States – and truth be told, this is a conservative estimate. (http://www.taylormarsh.com/blog/2013/01/daily-chart-of-gun-deaths-since-sandy-hook)
With prophetic prescience both
General Stanley McChrystal and Representative Gabby Giffords were led to speak
out against the madness on the second anniversary of the blood bath in
Tucson. Ms. Giffords launched Americans for Responsible Solutions
writing in USA Today with her husband, Mark Kelly: “In response to a horrific series
of shootings that have sown terror in our communities, victimized tens of
thousands of Americans and left one of its own bleeding and near death in a
Tucson parking lot, Congress has done something quite extraordinary - nothing
at all.” As a part of a growing movement of compassion and common sense, “the
couple hopes to work with politicians to
take gun lobbyists head-on and engage the country in a discussion about
preventing gun violence.
They also hope to establish a
requirement for a comprehensive background check for the private sale of guns
and address the issue of the treatment of mentally ill people in the United
States.” As Kelly, a veteran who served in Operation Desert Storm, said: “the
only reason for a weapon to have an extended magazine is to kill people – lots
of people.” (ABC News)
Political Context
And so begins what I see as a three-pronged
campaign for a more rational gun control policy in the United States as well as
creative alternatives to our culture of violence: a) responsible gun owners will start to speak
out against our painful status quo; b) politicians searching for middle ground
will seek consensus; and c) people of faith and compassion will push the
envelope beyond what is expedient so that this kairos moment is not wasted. Former President Bill Clinton cut to the
chase when he said on January 9, 2013: “I grew up in the hunting culture, but
this is nuts. Why does anybody need a 30 round clip for a gun? Why does anybody
need one of those things that carries 100 bullets? The guy in Colorado had one
of those.”
Half of all
mass killings in the United States have occurred since the assault weapons ban
expired in 2005 - half, in all of the history of the country. So, I hope that
former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and other people who stepped up after the
Newtown tragedy will have some impact on this.
And there are going to need to be some armed guards in some schools where
there is a higher crime rate and kids themselves may take weapons to school,
absolutely. But it is not an excuse not to deal with this issue. (AboveTopSecret.com, January 10, 2013)
Former commander of the US war in
Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, framed the conversation like this: “I spent a career carrying typically either an M16 or an M4
Carbine. An M4 Carbine fires a .223
caliber round which is 5.56 mm at about 3000 feet per second. When it hits a
human body, the effects are devastating. It’s designed for that. That’s what our soldiers ought to carry. I
personally don’t think there’s any need for that kind of weaponry on the
streets and particularly around the schools in America.” General Colin Powell made a similar
observation on Meet the Press: “I see no need for Bushmasters in the
hands of an individual person who might be deranged… Want to fire a Bushmaster?
Go out to a range and fire a Bushmaster.” (http://www.mediaite.com/tv/colin-powell-on-gun-control-why-cant-we-test-everybody-before-gun-purchases/)
And New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, no darling of any
particular political ideology save pragmatism, put it like this: “It’s time for the president,
I think, to stand up and lead and tell this country what we should do — not go
to Congress and say, ‘What do you guys want to do?’ This should be his number
one agenda. He’s president of the United States. And if he does nothing during
his second term, something like 48,000 Americans will be killed with illegal
guns.”
Adam
Gopnik expressed the essence of American utilitarianism when it comes to common
sense gun control when he wrote a Jonathan Swift-like article for The New Yorker on December 20,
2012. “We live, let’s imagine, in a city where children are
dying of a ravaging infection. The good news is that its cause is well understood
and its cure, an antibiotic, easily at hand. The bad news is that our city
council has been taken over by a faith-healing cult that will go to any lengths
to keep the antibiotic from the kids.”
Some citizens
would doubtless point out meekly that faith healing has an ancient history in
our city, and we must regard the faith healers with respect—to do otherwise
would show a lack of respect for their freedom to faith-heal. (The faith
healers’ proposition is that if there were a faith healer praying in every
kindergarten the kids wouldn’t get infections in the first place.) A few
Tartuffes would see the children writhe and heave in pain and then wring their
hands in self-congratulatory piety and wonder why a good God would send such a
terrible affliction on the innocent—surely he must have a plan! Most of us—every sane person in the city,
actually—would tell the faith healers to go to hell, put off worrying about the
Problem of Evil till Friday or Saturday or Sunday, and do everything we could
to get as much penicillin to the kids as quickly we could.
We do live in such a
city. Five thousand seven hundred and forty children and teens died from
gunfire in the United States, just in 2008 and 2009. Twenty more, including
Olivia Engel, who was seven, and Jesse Lewis, who was six, were killed just
last week. Some reports say their bodies weren’t shown to their grief-stricken
parents to identify them; just their pictures. The overwhelming majority of
those children would have been saved with effective gun control. We know that this is so, because, in societies
that have effective gun
control, children rarely, rarely, rarely die of gunshots. Let’s worry tomorrow
about the problem of Evil. Let’s worry more about making sure that when the
Problem of Evil appears in a first-grade classroom, it is armed with a
penknife.
It is beginning to be clear among
people of good will that a common sense consensus is emerging that holds the
potential for significant and lasting change.
And a key ingredient includes challenging the ideology and influence of
the NRA and its allies. Top Republican
strategist and pollster, Frank Lutz is illustrative of this when he said on the
CBS program “This Morning.” “The public wants guns out of the schools, not in
the schools, and they're not asking for a security official or someone else."
I don’t think the NRA is
listening. I don’t think that they understand. Most Americans would protect the
Second Amendment rights and yet agree with the idea that not every human being
should own a gun, not every gun should be available at anytime, anywhere, for
anyone. That at gun shows, you should not be able to buy something there and
then without any kind of check whatsoever. What they're looking for is a
common-sense approach that says that those who are law-abiding should continue
to have the right to own a weapon, but that you don’t believe the right should
be extended to everyone at every time for every type of weapon. (Common Gunsense, December 28, 2012)
Former GOP congressman, hunter and social conservative,
Joe Scarborough, has been equally blunt:
“The NRA’s extreme response to Newtown changed everything… and any
defense of the types of weapons used in the Sandy Hook Elementary school
shootings is nonsense,” he told his audience on MSNBC. “These weapons are part of a culture,
but they're not part of my culture, they're not part of your culture.” He went on to offer this advice to Republican
partisans who seem betrothed to the NRA:
"Do they want to be seen…as the party of
Glocks? The party of Bushmasters? The party of combat-style, military weapons?
Rapid-fire magazine clips? If they want to go around and debate that for the
next four years, good luck. (I would rather the GOP) fight for less taxes,
balanced budgets, smaller government and a restrained foreign policy. But if
the party wants to defend Glocks and Bushmasters…we will lose. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com
/2012/12/18/ joe-scarborough-gun-control-newtown_n_2322017.html)
Could it be that for the first time
since the passage of the Brady Act, we are ready to consider the facts?
· Fact: Empirical evidence
shows that creating even the smallest impediment to crime – any crime from rape
and assault to petty theft and gun violence – significantly reduces a
criminal’s incentive – and thus makes all crime rarer. What the New York City police have
discovered – despite all theorizing to the contrary – is that crime is
“opportunistic.” When you “build a low
annoying walls against criminals… crimes decrease.”
Hard and objective experience
dismantles the status-quo arguments that posit “social pressures, slum pathologies, the profits to be
made in drug dealing and the ever ascending levels of despair” will always
necessitate more guns to defeat an ever more deadly cult of ruthless, social
predators. The facts, however, show that
simply making it a little harder to acquire guns will profoundly reduce gun
violence because criminals are lazy.
(New Yorker, December 20, 2012)
·
Fact:
More guns never
create greater safety. In the Tucson
shooting of Representative Giffords, in addition to the weapons of the
assailant a number of by-standers were also armed. Given the chaos, however, they chose not to
open fire because no one knew where to direct their deadly fire. What’s more, states with stricter gun laws
have fewer gun murders, fewer suicides and fewer accidental deaths by gun use
according to studies conducted by social scientist, David Hemenway of Harvard
University. (NY Times, December 12, 2012)
·
Fact:
The United States
experienced 12, 664 murders in 2011 – 8, 583 involved fire arms. In the UK, with both a different culture
towards guns and greater regulation, the murder rate is 550. In the USA there are 89 guns for every 100
citizens; in the UK it is 6 per 100.
(Guardian, January 10, 2013)
Gun
control does matter. Deterrents do make
a difference. And the former
conventional wisdom that stipulates that “Guns don’t kill people: people kill
people” is being questioned at every level. In this rapidly moving social context, the
political mojo of the moment has taken
four broad forms that deserve careful attention. The first is the work of Senator Diane
Feinstein of California who has proposed an aggressive and comprehensive
legislative change to make the sale, possession and transportation of 100 types
of assault weapons illegal. Her focus
would also require a thorough background check for all weapons and ammunition
while grand-fathering over 900 weapons clearly identified with hunting and
sporting. The on-line Courage Campaign initially tried to
stir interest for this initiative, but the reality is that both elected
officials and the wider public are paying little attention.
A second initiative is that spearheaded by
Gabby Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly, the retired astronaut, and it is
picking up popular momentum. The their super
PAC goal for Americans for Responsible
Solutions is to offset the political clout of the NRA – which annually
spends $24 million on lobbying and political activity – by raising $20 million for
the 2014 elections. Kelly articulated
their work like this: “I’ve taken a gun
to work. I flew in combat in Operation Desert Storm off the USS Midway,
carrying a 9-millimeter.”
I certainly understand the importance and the
right to own a firearm in our country. I certainly get that. Gabby and I want
to protect people’s Second Amendment rights. But I personally believe, and so
does Gabby, that assault weapons used to kill a lot of people all at once should
only be used by the military… Achieving reform to reduce gun violence and prevent mass shootings
will mean matching gun lobbyists in their reach and resources. (Washington Post, January 9, 2013)
A third national
exploration of recommendations for action is the Federal Task Force set in motion by President Obama and coordinated
by Vice-President Joe Biden. This panel has worked quickly to hear the wisdom
of a broad cross section of Americans including Wal-Mart, the film industry as
well as various gun rights advocates including the NRA. On January 16, 2013 the President announced a
comprehensive 23 point national initiative.
It includes policies to be implemented by executive action as well as
legislative recommendations including restrictions on the sale of certain
weapons, closing the loop holes on background checks, public health proposals,
increased funding for police as well as research into the effects of violent
video grams. Local state governments in
Delaware, Connecticut, Maryland and New York are also moving quickly towards implementing
similar new legislation.
And the fourth
comes from the National Rifle Association – the NRA – who seeks to advance a
radically different set of proposals. A
week after the Sandy Hook murders, Wayne LaPierre addressed the nation suggesting
that the “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a
gun… a minute away.” At the NRA press
conference of December 21 Mr. LaPierre was clear: “I call on
Congress today to act immediately, to appropriate whatever is necessary to put
armed police officers in every school — and to do it now, to make sure that
blanket of safety is in place when our children return to school in January.”
Before Congress reconvenes, before we engage in any lengthy debate over
legislation, regulation or anything else, as soon as our kids return to school
after the holiday break, we need to have every single school in America
immediately deploy a protection program proven to work — and by that I mean armed
security.” (http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/14018-nra%E2%80%99s-response-to-sandy-hook-federally-funded-police-in-every-school ) Since that
time, the NRA and its allies have attacked any proposals except their own – and
have recently launched an inter-net video designed to degrade President Obama’s
proposals.
The intensity
of public debate is palpable – and clearly drives the political considerations
for new legislation for the first time in decades. I support both the Obama initiatives as well
as those offered by Representative Giffords.
I believe that these reserved steps warrant our political and moral
support. After all, politics is the art
of the possible and real progress must not be compromised in stubborn pursuit
of the perfect. Dan Gross, president of
the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, observed that “There is a natural
gravity that happens toward the ban (of assault weapons) in the wake of
tragedies… But it’s very important to point out that background checks could
have an even bigger impact.” (NY Times, January 11, 2013)
Other
thoughtful proposals include those offered by Nicholas Kristof: limit gun
purchases to one per month, make serial numbers harder to erase, put microchips
in new weapons so that they can be traced effectively and make it illegal to
sell weapons privately without a back-ground check. (NY Times, December 12, 2012) As well as those being developed by a
coalition of parents and family members of the children murdered in Newton
called The Sandy Hook Promise.
This is a longer-term
process of civil conversation concerning many of the issues at play in the
massacre including the state of mental health services in our communities, the
effect of violence in video games, the NRA’s “shield of safety” at schools
proposal as well as stricter limitations on the types of weapons that should be
allowed throughout civilian America.
Organizers state that: “the SHP mission is
to work to identify and implement holistic, common sense solutions that will
make our community and our country safer from similar acts of violence through
education, outreach and grass-roots discussion. SHP believes the time has come
to enter into these discussions with equal parts of Love, Compassion, and
Common Sense.” (http://www.sandyhookpromise.org/about)
There is wisdom
in such modesty – and I believe people of good will and common sense can rally
behind whatever is strategically possible – and celebrate these changes with
vigor. At the same time, I also know
that faith communities and their allies must keep our eyes on a more profound
prize – the beloved community – a way of living and interacting that is not
constrained by political expediency.
Poetic/Prophetic
Context
To acknowledge
the limitations of politics is not to denigrate the important work that takes
place in this realm. Compromise, careful
listening and seeking common ground in a respectful way is an essential
component of caring for the common good.
It is also incomplete for without a vision that is greater than
ourselves, the people perish. Political
realism can only make a contribution to the beloved community, for politicians
will never be in the vanguard of social transformation. This requires visionaries, poets, prophets
and artists.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a social realist
guided by the poetic vision of the Hebrew prophets, once said that: All mankind is tied together; all life is
interrelated, and we are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality,
tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all
indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you
are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am
what I ought to be - this is the interrelated structure of reality. (Address at Oberlin College) MLK understood and honored the limits of
political engagement. He also found ways
to speak to the heart and soul of the nation that tapped into our hunger and
thirst for justice and peace.
M. Craig Barnes, the new dean of Princeton
Theological Seminary, has studied the arc of social transformation in the
United States. One observation
concerning the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s is salient: while the Civil Rights Act of 1965 would
never have passed Congress without the tireless work of President Lyndon
Johnson, the consummate political realist, “it fell to someone else, a poet, to
inspire the nation to accept the dream of a color-blind society.”
Without the dream, the legislation would
never have passed. The Reverend Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. led the country into that dream only by taking us into a
painful discovery of the injustice that lurked in the corners of our hearts.
That was the truth behind the reality.
But the white majority culture didn’t accept this dream easily. The
African-American community, whom Dr. King had empowered with one biblical image
of freedom after another, led the rest of us to it. They began by marching in
the streets, and after the nation watched them mercilessly attacked by police
dogs, fire hoses and angry mobs, they marched into our hearts. But it took a realist and a truth-teller, a
politician and a poet… because someone has to teach the people how to dream. (The Pastor as Minor Poet, p. 20)
A sacred
invitation to move beyond the confines of political realism – to seek a vision
for life in America that celebrates safety for our children while refusing to
accept domestic terrorism as a fact of
everyday life – has been passed on to the pastors and poets, the rabbis and
imams, the organizers, counselors, teachers, parents and citizens of our land. The Reverend James E. Atwood, a clergy person
from Columbine, CO who was at ground zero in the aftermath of that attack, calls
ours an era aching for a spiritual awakening:
for three generations our culture has been nourished on the barren
metaphors of the market place. We think
and act from the bottom line rather than the common good. Consequently our moral imaginations have
atrophied and our sense of connection to the greater community has been
manipulated into 15 second sound bytes that are offered up and pre-packaged for
consumption like everything else in our body politic.
Atwood
suggests an alternative in his all too timely book, America and Its Guns. First, he would have us remember that
time and again our chosen leadership chooses to keep us deluded and chasing
after shadows rather than telling us the truth.
He notes that when then: President
Bush addressed the community at Virginia Tech he said that the victims happened
to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But the truth is they were in the
right place at the correct time. They
were doing what college students do – going to class. In reality these students
were shot because of the “principalities and powers” created by America’s love
affair with violence, guns and power.” (Congregations, Alban Institute, p.
29) When politicians can be bought and
sold, they will obscure the truth – and this happens from the Left and the
Right and everywhere in-between whenever gun violence claims new victims. Faith communities must learn to seek the
truth and then speak it to power in humility.
Second, faith
communities must return to their calling of nourishing a vision of community
that reaches beyond naked self-interest.
We have been entrusted with the vocation of seeing the eagle inside the
egg – of wrestling with a reality that goes deeper than the obvious – and if we
don’t attend to this work creatively, then we cannot blame our people for
choosing the safety of the darkness. Sr.
Joan Chittister notes that “simply living with people does not by itself create
community.”
People live
together in armies and prisons and college dormitories and hospitals, but they
are not communities unless they live out of the same reservoir of values and
the same supply of love… (We have been called to articulate) and share a common
vision. We have to
want the good for one another. We have to be able to draw from the same well
together… otherwise we have privatized the blessings of the Garden of Eden. (Wisdom
Distilled from the Daily)
When cynics
snipe at our notion of the beloved community, we must reply: If you always do, what you’ve always done,
you’ll always get what you’ve always got – and while the murder our children is
currently what we’ve got, this can never be what we want. When those driven by fear or greed plot, we
must plan and organize. To paraphrase
Dr. King: “When the evil burn and bomb, the good must build
and bind. When evil women and men shout ugly words of hatred, good folk must
commit themselves to the glories of love.”
(Because) darkness cannot drive out darkness;
only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate
multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence and toughness multiplies
toughness in a descending spiral of destruction... The chain reaction of evil –
hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars, guns begetting more guns – must
be broken or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.
So it will fall to the poets and organizers –
the communities of faith and those not bound by the constraints of politics –
to advance the cause of the beloved community.
And I am increasingly convinced that this must include calling into
question the actions of the NRA and its allies while offering clear and
compelling alternatives in a quiet, faithful and often poetically playful way. Once again, Dr. King is instructive: “History will have to record that the
greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident
clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.” It is to this truth that I now turn my
attention: specifically calling into
question the current activity and moral legitimacy of the NRA at this moment in
history.
Challenging the Influence of the National
Rifle Association
In January 2013, after nominally participating
in the White House sponsored task force for new safeguards to increase the
safety of America’s children in the context of rampant gun violence, the NRA
issued a challenge to their supporters in Congress. Not only did they denigrate the effectiveness
of gun control but they sought to divert public attention away from the dangers
of easy access to assault-like weapons.
Their solution to gun violence in our schools
was not a more careful regulation of who can purchase weapons – or limitations
on the types of weaponry available to citizens – but rather the placement of
more armed guards in all of our elementary, middle and high schools. Further,
they tried to deflect any legitimate criticism of the American gun culture and
the violence it perpetrates by blaming the standard boogie-men of our culture
wars including Hollywood elites, the creators of violent video games and even
inadequate governmental support for mental health care.
To add insult to injury, on January 16, 2013
the NRA launched a thinly veiled racial attack on President Obama calling into
question his integrity. The video rant
accuses the President of being a hypocritical elitist because he is skeptical
about the efficacy of more armed guards in our schools while his own daughters
receive Secret Service protection. The
voice-over on the video also throws in a cheap, one-liner about raising taxes
on Americans during a time of economic uncertainty. It is offensive and mean-spirited, designed
only to polarize citizens trying to find common ground.
In a word, the NRA has decided to use their time-tested,
political double-speak to demonize their opponents. And to make certain that there was no ambiguity
they announced that they were going on the offensive against the Obama
administration.
The National Rifle
Association of America is made up of over 4 million moms and dads, daughters
and sons, who are involved in the national conversation about how to prevent a
tragedy like Newtown from ever happening again… we will
not allow law-abiding gun owners (and hard working tax payers) to be blamed for
the acts of criminals and madmen. Instead, we will now take our commitment and
meaningful contributions to members of congress of both parties who are
interested in having an honest conversation about what works — and what does
not. (NRA home page @ http://home.nra.org/#)
In my heart of
hearts, I have come to believe that individually and personally many within the
leadership of the NRA are as heart-broken about the massacre at Sandy Hook as
anyone in America. I am certain, too
that their management cadre is as interested in stemming the culture of
violence in the United States that has now reached epidemic proportions as the
President. At the same time, however, in
matters of public trust there is some wisdom to the old Watergate adage,
“follow the money.”
Because when you
do, the reality of contemporary NRA actions show an organization that is far
less a simple association of small town individuals and hunters and much more a
powerful lobbying consortium working on behalf of gun manufacturers. In 1990,
the NRA created a new “corporate sponsor” program designed, according to their
own Vice-President Wayne LaPierre, to be “an opportunity for corporations to
partner with the NRA … (in a way that is) geared toward your company’s
corporate interests.” (Violence Policy Center, www.vpc.org/pres s/1104blood.htm) As a
result of this policy change, the gun industry is now able to directly support
the NRA with financial gifts.
Of the 24 corporate sponsors, 22 are gun
makers including: Arsenal, Inc.; Benelli; Beretta USA Corporation; Browning;
DPMS Panther Arms; FNH USA; Glock, Inc.; H&R 1871, LLC; Marlin Firearms;
Remington Arms Co., Inc.; SIGARMS, Inc.; Smith & Wesson Corporation;
Springfield Armory; and, Sturm, Ruger & Co., Inc. And of those 22 gun
manufacturers, 12 specialize in assault weapons and/or the production of
high-capacity ammunition magazines. (Peter Drier, Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/nra-gun-manufacturers
_b_ 2468565.html and Friends
of the NRA http://www.friends ofnra.org/
National.aspx ?cid=2&sid=0)
According to Forbes Magazine, “the gun
industry – led by Ruger – and the NRA have both benefited tremendously from
this change in policy. According to IRS
fillings, between 2004 and 2010, the NRA’s revenue from fundraising — including
gifts from gun makers who benefit from its political activism — grew twice as
fast as its income from members’ dues.” (Peter Cohan, Forbes,www.forbes.com /sites/petercohan/
2012/07/23/the-nra-industrial-complex/) In 2005, in addition to the corporate donor
program, “NRA lobbyists also helped get a federal law passed that limits
liability claims against gun makers.
Former NRA President Sandy Froman wrote that (this act) “saved the
American gun industry from bankruptcy,” according to Bloomberg.
To be sure,
the NRA was once driven and funded by sports enthusiasts, individual hunters
and outdoors-people – an image it still works hard to publicize – but in
reality today less than half the organization’s funding come from program fees
or membership dues. "The bulk of
the group's money now comes in the form of contributions, grants, royalty
income and advertising, much of it originating from gun industry sources.”
Specifically since 2005:
The gun
industry and its corporate allies have given between $20 million and $52.6
million to it through the NRA Ring of Freedom sponsor program. Donors include firearm companies like Midway USA,
Springfield Armory Inc, Pierce Bullet Seal Target Systems and Beretta USA Corporation. Other supporters from the gun
industry include Cabala's, Sturm Ruger & Co, and Smith & Wesson. And the NRA also made $20.9
million — about 10 percent of its revenue — from selling advertising to industry companies marketing products in its many publications
in 2010 according to the IRS Form 990. (http://www.businessinsider.com/the-nra-has-sold-out-to-the-gun-industry-to-become-their-top-crisis-pr-firm-2012-12#ixzz2Hz5YPBuT)
Walter Hickey
of The
Business Insider has noted that by turning away from their original
mission as a member-driven organization dedicated to gun safety and education
to a corporate lobbyist, two important changes have taken place in the NRA:
· First, the gun industry has created a highly effective marketing
mechanism with sympathetic consumers through NRA sponsorships and gun and
ammunition manufacturers have reaped record profits.
· Second, these same manufacturers have been shielded from direct
blame for such acts of mass violence as Virginia State, Aurora, CO, Tucson, AZ
or Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT.
The NRA staff has run effective interference for the corporate CEOs who
are not held directly accountable for the massacres created with their products
nor compelled to personally testify before Congress.
It's possible
that without the NRA, people would be protesting outside of Glock, SIG Sauer
and Freedom Group — the makers of the guns used in the Sandy Hook Elementary
School massacre — and dragging the CEOs in front of cameras and Congress. That
is certainly what
happened to tobacco executives
when their products continued killing people. Notoriously, tobacco executives
even attempted
to form their own version of the NRA in
1993, seeing the inherent benefit to the industry that such an effort would
have. Philip
Morris bankrolled
the National
Smokers Alliance, a group that
never quite had the groundswell of support the industry wanted. Notably, the
tide has shifted slightly in the wake of Sandy Hook, with Cerberus Capital
Management's decision to sell
Freedom Group, the company
that makes the Bushmaster rifle. (http://www.businessinsider. com/the-nra-has-sold-out-to-the-gun-industry-to-become-their
top-crisis-pr-firm-2012-12)
This is a far cry from original
intent: when the National Rifle
Association was created in 1871 its founders were two Civil War veterans, Col.
William C. Church and Gen. George Wingate, whose experience in combat led them
to believe that poor marksmanship contributed to the Civil War’s bloody
duration. Their solution was to
“promote, teach and encourage rifle shooting on a scientific basis." (http://www.nrahq.org/history.asp) In time, the NRA opened shooting
ranges with trained instructors throughout the country to advance careful
marksmanship and gun safety. After WWII,
they expanded their educational efforts to include the world of hunters in 1949
and later still to address the need of law enforcement in 1956.
Since its inception, the NRA had
consistently supported common sense gun legislation as well as consumer education
and training. In 1934 they endorsed and
helped secure passage of the National Firearms Act that prohibited the sale and
distribution of sawed-off shot guns and machine guns. It was understood that this legislation was
essential in leveling the playing field for law enforcement officers in their
fight against organized crime. Likewise,
in the 1968 after the assassinations Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King,
Jr., a law was passed to make the guns used in these – and the assassination of
President John Kennedy in 1963 – harder to acquire. “When he testified before Congress on the
legislation, NRA President Harold W. Glassen said that "200 million guns
did not strike down Senator Kennedy; only one did." And the NRA endorsed
the law.” (http://www. nationaljournal.com
/congress-legacy/the-evolution-of-the-nra-s-defense-of-guns-20121221 )
This commitment to common sense
legislation was altered, however, by a dramatic leadership change in the 1977. In what some have called a corporate coup,
the NRA’s former emphasis on sport gun education and safety was supplanted by a
highly conservative political agenda that not only resonated with the Republican
Party’s emerging “southern strategy,” but also enflamed rural America’s fears
over alleged or potential violations of the Second Amendment. In the rapidly changing social and racial
turmoil of this era, this new direction proved to be golden politically and
economically for the NRA.
At the beginning of the decade, there
was growing support for increased gun control during the 1970s. In what was clearly a backlash against rising
urban crime and the abundance of Saturday Night Specials, public opinion was
eager to reduce gun violence. In this
milieu, the old guard NRA leadership decided it was wise to leave the world of
Washington politics, relocate to a more rural Colorado Springs, CO and deepen
their mission to hunting and sports enthusiasts. Their primary interest in any gun legislation
at this time was still limited to issues of safety, encouraging better
marksmanship and advancing recreational hunting. Jonah Sugarmann, in his history of the NRA
writes that the old guards’ “concerns over gun control were limited to
their effect on traditional sporting activities.” (http://www.vpc.org/nrainfo/chapter2.html)
As was
true throughout the United States at this time, there was also a growing
socially conservative – and sometimes politically fear-based – movement within
the NRA. They believed that a narrow
focus on recreational weapons was politically short sighted and naïve.
From their
perspective, the right to freely own weapons was intended by the Constitution
to protect citizens from criminals and the government; any curtailment of gun
ownership was seen as evidence of an emerging dictatorship and public safety
hazard. Consequently, writes Sugarmann,
the new cadre within the NRA was enraged by plans to move the organizational
headquarters of the NRA to Colorado.
Under the leadership of Harlon Carter, a radical social conservative:
The hardliners
secretly organized against the NRA's moderate leadership at the annual meeting
of the membership in Cincinnati. Manipulating the rules of order, the
hardliners staged a coup from the floor. When the sun rose the next day, the
entire leadership of the NRA had been replaced by strong advocates of the right
to bear arms. Rather than move to Colorado Springs, the new NRA built a larger
headquarters in the Washington, D.C., area and made its central mission to
fight against gun control. The hardliners' answer to gun violence wasn't more
gun control. It was more guns. If only more law-abiding people were armed and
prepared to fight back, then criminals wouldn't be able to so easily victimize
Americans (In this) the new NRA became an important member of the New Right coalition that lifted Ronald Reagan to the
presidency. (http://www.sfgate.com
/opinion/article/NRA-took-hard-right-after-leadership-coup-3741640.php)
Harlon Carter’s 1977 “Revolt at
Cincinnati” set in motion the transformation of the NRA from a mainstream
organization committed to the common good and gun safety to a more polarizing,
political action network with a fear-based understanding of the federal government. For thirty five years, they have carefully cultivated
their peculiar perspective of what gun ownership and the Second Amendment mean
in America. And in doing so have not
only contributed to the legislative gridlock that keeps common sense guns laws
from seeing the light of day, but have also emboldened uncompromising and often
bigoted politicians who are taken seriously whenever they advocate for God,
guns and the Constitution.
Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi chief of
propaganda, once said, “If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the
truth.” And apparently he was right as
many 21st century Americans now believe that the NRA’s misreading of
the Second Amendment trumps the Constitution’s call to keep all US citizens
safe. But uber-suspicious, ginned-up conspiracy theories and apocalyptic
scenarios about creeping socialist dictatorships ought not to drive public
policy considerations. The political rhetoric of the NRA is incendiary – red
meat to hungry and wounded souls left behind by the current American Dream – designed only to exacerbate fears not find
common ground.
For nearly 40 years, they have
effectively linked their conservative fear-mongering with the cultural habits
and traditions of rural Americans who teach their children to hunt responsibly
and practice self-defense and self-reliance carefully. In a culture where guns are a part of life –
necessary on the farm and essential in the forest – the NRA regularly plays
upon people’s worst fears. At times they
have been more than willing to manipulate their political base with race
baiting, too. Just think back to Willie
Horton if you sense I exaggerate. Strategists
like Lee Atwater and Karl Rove – masters of the so-called “Southern Strategy”
of the Republican Party – have proven time and again how important
manufacturing fear in rural gun country can be in building a winning electoral
coalition for conservative politicians.
Small wonder these same political operatives are so opposed to the Obama
administration, who both outfoxed the foxes, but did so with a coalition of
minority voters.
From my perspective, the callous and
calculating machinations of the current NRA leadership are dangerous – a clear and
present threat to public health and safety.
But let me be clear: I do not
begrudge the NRA their political effectiveness.
They know how to work the system and are unmistakably effective. But
after Sandy Hook I believe a countervailing voice must be raised to challenge
their sense of what best constitutes the common good. Their way does not work – more guns do not
keep our children safer – and their rhetoric leads to more polarization in
American rather than greater cooperation.
So here’s what I have learned over
the past 30 years of listening to people whose lives are very different from my
own: when you sit down around a table
and break bread together, you begin to rebuild community. Parker Palmer, in Healing the Heart of Democracy, puts it like this:
Open and honest conversations in
a setting of deep hospitality, held in an ongoing way, can plant seeds of
healing and civic unity around… a variety of contentious and painful issues in
our time. And when a meal between
conflicted parties begins with everyone bringing food to share, the silent
subtext of the conversation is “We have the capacity to care for another and
collaborate toward a common good.”
I am not a hunter – or a man of the
military – but for 30 years I have served faith communities where women and men
have used guns responsibly. In Michigan,
I learned about the hunt from those who had walked the woods in love and
tenderness for generations. When they shot
deer it was an act of worship. In
Cleveland, I had the privilege to learn about the importance of keeping the
peace from WWII veterans. They were wounded healers who having been in harm’s
way once were now more committed to keeping the peace than many of the so-called
peace activists I encountered on the picket line.
In Tucson, this one-time pacifist,
conscientious objector pastor was invited into the homes and hearts of active
duty military personnel. Time and again I
was given the sacred honor of corresponding with men by email after they
deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. They
asked me into their homes on base. When
they were in country, their families were in my congregation – their children
were part of my spiritual care – and their prayers became mine own. With an Air
Force base just a mile from our church, I learned a lot by breaking bread with
active duty and retired military men and women who knew a lot about what it
means to keep the peace – sometimes using deadly force when every other option
ran out. They changed my life and my
understanding of the world.
I will never forget one Veteran’s
Day, when I asked those who had served their nation in the military to stand, and
people from every conflict since 1943 to the present rose in quiet and humble
reverence, until almost a third of the Sanctuary was at attention. As my religious tradition puts it: Greater love have no man but that he lay down
his life for a friend – and these folk knew this in spades. And now after
almost six years in Pittsfield, I have been given the occasion to work with and
learn to love returning vets wrestling with PTSD. From sitting around kitchen tables, breaking
bread and drinking coffee – or beer – these heroes have shown me the healthy
role gun ownership plays in our society
Further, I have spent decades
exploring male rites of passage – how our hunters, warriors and soldiers can train
boys to use their wild energies for the common good – knowing that without
these rites of passage, young men who think they are immortal will often do
violence to those they most ache to protect.
It is not a coincidence that some urban youth turn to violent gangs for
boundaries and guidance. Sadly, the
exuberance and hubris of adolescent males needs to be trained; and without
life-giving rituals and rites of passage, we create pathological ones. Guns – and gun safety – have a role to play
on this front, too.
So I hope it is clear that I have
enormous respect for those warriors and soldiers who have learned to use
weapons well. They have been some of my
most faithful teachers in the ways of worldly wisdom. And I grieve that some of their most profound
truths have been exploited and used by the NRA for bigoted and fear-based
political gain. It is my prayer that
their common sense – and well-lived experience – can be part of the
conversation as we search for meaningful solutions to our violence saturated
culture - key ingredient will be challenging and delegitimizing the NRA.
I'd say this is just about New York Times ready.
ReplyDeleteThank you, dear brother.
ReplyDelete