Reflections
on Next Steps after the Sandy Hook Massacre
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 sometimes
intolerable.” 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 America and elevating the use of nonviolent conflict
resolution strategies – is a more demanding and long-term mission.
To do anything less, however, suggests
an acceptance of the madness 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, too. This is a time for action. But our action must advance the cause of our
common safety while respecting liberty in search of radical freedom. And by radical I mean not only the right to
do – our personal pursuit of life, liberty and happiness – but also the freedom
from violence, oppression and the tyranny of fear. In this era of staggering polarization, we
have been summoned to seek the common good.
So let me share my observations concerning each of these four challenges
trusting that they will provoke new insights and respectful dialogue in pursuit
of authentic solutions.
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 America. Since the domestic terrorist attack of
December 14, 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School, there have been 1102 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/)
Even New York City Mayor Michael
Bloomberg, no darling of any particular political ideology save bottom-line 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 must be created that links significant
and lasting change with radical freedom.
And that will include challenging the ideology and influence of the NRA and
its mono-minded 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 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, a majority of Americans are ready to
consider the harsh realities of our current state of affairs?
·
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
endured 12, 664 murders in 2011 – 8, 583 involving fire arms. In the UK, with a different culture towards
guns and greater regulation, the murder rate from guns was 550. The mortality rate from weapons in the USA
34.4 per million people; in the UK it is O.13 because in the USA there are 89
guns for every 100 citizens; in the UK it is 6 per 100. In the USA.
(Guardian, January 10, 2013)
Decreasing
our epidemic of gun violence matters and deterrents make a difference. And for the first time in decades the former
conventional wisdom that “guns don’t kill people: people kill people” is being
questioned at every level. Painfully we
are coming to own the fact that while guns don’t kill, people with guns kill in
record numbers. In this rapidly changing
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-like weapons illegal. Her focus would also require a thorough
background check for the purchase of 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 to what is
essentially a top-down political solution.
A second project is that spearheaded by Gabby
Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly, the retired astronaut, and it is picking
up popular momentum. 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 and Giffords
are gun owners who do not want to demonize their opponents, but rather find a
way towards common ground. “I’ve taken a
gun to work,” said Kelly. “And 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… 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 games. Local state governments in
Delaware, Connecticut, Maryland and New York are also moving quickly towards implementing
similar new legislation that look to the laws of Massachusetts as a model.
And the fourth
are the recommendations from the National Rifle Association – the NRA – who
seek to advance a fundamentally 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 every proposal except their own –
and have recently launched an inter-net video designed to degrade President
Obama’s initiatives.
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 directives 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 work for our common freedom and safety includes suggestions from 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 all of these modest proposals. I believe that people of good will and
common sense are eager to rally behind whatever is strategically possible and
celebrate these changes with vigor. At
the same time, there is a need for a parallel citizens’ effort committed to the
promise of the beloved community – a way of living and interacting that is not
constrained by political expediency but grounded in peace – this is the calling
of our prophetic poets and artists.
Poetic/Prophetic
Contex
To acknowledge
the limitation of politics, you see, 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. But 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 whose eyes are
another prize.
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)
To teach the
people how to dream is a hallowed calling shared with pastors and poets, rabbis
and imams as well as organizers, counselors, teachers, parents and all who are
willing to learn to simultaneously embrace the truths of our current political
culture while envisioning a deeper encounter with God’s sacred shalom. The prophetic poet is sensitive to the reality
of our time without being constrained by it.
Like the medieval German mystic, Meister Eckhart, who said, “Reality is
the will of God – but it can always be better,” these advocates honor reality
and invite us towards a better future, too.
They are heirs of an empathetic tradition willing to critique the status
quo while energizing an alternative through compassionate imagination. One masters of the ancient Hebrew texts,
Walter Brueggemann, put it like this:
We need to ask
not whether (an alternative to the status quo) is realistic or practical or
viable, but whether it is imaginable. We need to ask if our consciousness and
imagination have been so assaulted and co-opted by the dominant consciousness
that we have been robbed of the courage or power to think an alternative
thought. Imagination is a danger… that’s why every totalitarian regime is
frightened of the artist. It is the
vocation of the prophetic poet to keep alive the ministry of imagination, to
keep on conjuring and proposing alternative futures to the single one the king
wants to urge as the only thinkable one. And the characteristic way of the
prophet is that of poetry and lyric. (The Prophetic Imagination)
· Think of Alexandr Solzhenitsyn’s prophetic Nobel Peace Prize
pronouncement where he confessed that as his own novels and poetry were shared
with others he discovered the truth of Dostoevsky’s axiom that “Beauty can save
the world;” it was his art that moved the international community to rise up and condemn Soviet oppression after
truth and goodness had been driven underground.
· Think of pop music poet and performer, Paul Simon, who 25 years ago
risked the wrath of the commissars of culture when he learned that South
African musicians had something more beautiful and healing to share with the
world than politically correct ideology – and brought to birth the world music
collaboration we know as “Graceland.”
· Think of the visual artist, Mako Fujimura, who when asked, “Why does
art matter in a post-September 11th world” said:
September 11th taught us that we can use our
imagination either to destroy lives or to save lives. On 9/11 we had on the one
hand militant hijackers who turned their imaginative vengeance into determined
evil acts. On the other hand were firefighters who climbed the falling towers.
We have to realize that before any of these terrorist acts were committed, they
were imagined. We swim in the ecosystem of imagined actions. We are responsible
for how we respond to that power. We do have a choice between saving lives and
destroying lives. If we do not teach our children, and ourselves, that what we
imagine and how we design the world can make a difference, the culture of
cynicism will do that for us. If we do not infuse creativity, if we do not take
the initiative to help our children imagine better neighborhoods and cities,
despair will ruin their imaginative capacities and turn them into destructive
forces.
“The arc of
the moral universe is long,” wrote Theodore Parker in 1850, “but it bends
towards justice.” Artists and prophetic
poets help us see the eagle within the egg and hear the whisper of hope within
the silence.
The Reverend James
E. Atwood, a clergy person from Columbine, CO who was at ground zero in the
aftermath of that attack, understands that ours is 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 truths
greater than ourselves has withered. 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 political leadership chooses to keep us deluded, 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 lose sight of their
higher obligations to radical freedom, they will obscure the truth – especially
if they are overly indebted to their financial benefactors. On the Left and the Right and everywhere
in-between, this happens all too over in American politics. So first the poets of prophetic love must speak
truth to power.
Second, those
charged with the work of advancing the beloved community must regularly
articulate a vision for life that reaches beyond naked self-interest. We cannot blame our people for choosing the
safety of the status quo if powerful and persuasive alternatives are not
clearly articulated. 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.
This history of social and moral change is
clear: it falls to the poets and
organizers – the communities of faith and those not bound by the constraints of
politics – to creatively advance the cause of the beloved community. And I am increasingly convinced that this
must include calling into question the power, influence and actions of the NRA
and its allies. 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 the tragic shooting in Newtown,
the NRA issued a challenge to their supporters in Congress. Not only did they denigrate the effectiveness
of any type of gun control or registration, but they sought to change the
public conversation away from the dangers of easy access to assault-like
weapons and towards other problems.
Their solutions did not call for 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. So rather than explore any
critique of our American culture of violence and the role easy access to
weapons plays in it, the NRA turned to the culture wars of a previous era. In their own words the murder of those at
Sandy Hook Elementary school were victims of Hollywood elites, the creators of
violent video games and an inadequate and poorly funded mental health system. To add insult to injury, on January 16, 2013
the NRA launched an attack on President Obama calling into question his
integrity because he is skeptical about their claim that more guns in schools
creates greater safety for the nation.
Clearly they know how to appeal to their base
and fan the fires of fear for those who mistrust Obama. They are neither afraid to demonize their
opponents nor go on the offensive. In
response to the President’s national safety actions, the NRA issued this clear
reply:
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/#)
I believe in
vigorous political give and take. I also
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 the weapons 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.national journal.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 hard-liners’ 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 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 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 – that neither advance radical
safety in the United States nor the beloved community. How does living in an armed camp with more
security guards and check points reflect our deepest aspirations and
dreams? Even in the Wild West, cowboys
had to check their guns at the saloon door and young hunters were prohibited
from bringing their weapons to school at the start of deer season.
I do not begrudge the NRA their
political effectiveness. They obviously know
how to work the system and are unmistakably effective. But after Sandy Hook I
believe a countervailing voice is being raised that challenges 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 America 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 pla on this front, too. So I hope it is clear that I have
enormous respect for those warriors, soldiers, hunters and law enforcement
people 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. Sadly some of my own
family falls into this group. So it is
my prayer that the collective common sense – and well-lived experience – of
these wise souls become a part of the conversation as we search for meaningful
solutions to our violence saturated culture.
Conclusion
So here’s where I come out in all of
this – and I offer it up as one of many modest proposals to be evaluated by the
whole American community.
·
First,
I have come to own the fact left to myself, I miss and get wrong at least as
much as I get right – and probably a lot more.
I need the wisdom, experience, prayer and honest critique of many other
people to help me towards the truth. In
writing this essay, for example, it was essential for me to check in with a physician,
a counselor, a clergy person and gun owner from time to time. Their wise counsel and correction helped me
claim my blind spots and question my snarky and/or cheap conclusions. I would suggest that what is true for me is
equally true for a public conversation about radical safety in America: we need one another to move forward. We have differing cultures to try and
comprehend together. We often have
different stories, family histories and moral constructs, too. As the poet Juan Ramon Jimenez observes in
“Yo No Soy Yo” – I am not I… I am the shadow walking beside me whom I do not
see.” We need one another to help us
claim our deeper truths.
· Second,
to that end, I sense that in addition to the various legislative initiatives
being championed the time is also right for a series of quiet and safe informal
conversations – call it potluck diplomacy – that bring together people in union
halls, faith communities, public libraries and private homes for shared food
and dialogue. This is one way to live
into the solutions we are seeking – reclaiming a discipline of prefiguative
hope – for it gives shape and form to our prophetic poetry. And as Parker Palmer has observed, not only
do Americans like to eat, but we love to talk.
Open and honest conversations in
a setting of deep hospitality, held as an ongoing program in a congregation,
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.
·
Third, as
should be apparent by now, new alliances of trust must be forged, new
friendships created and new acts of political cooperation encouraged. Here is where building bridges with our
nation’s prophetic poets becomes crucial for those who have been charged with
cultivating the imagination can be true lights in our darkness. Sustainable agriculturalist and poet, Wendell
Berry, spoke of the challenge of this moment in time with penetrating clarity
when he said that we are being called beyond the fear of our stagnant status
quo into a deep and radical freedom. This freedom is greater than political
ideology, more profound than our polarization and more important than we can
imagine because it embraces all that we fear with kindness and trust that God’s
grace is greater than even our enemies.
Berry notes that our current:
Condemnation by category is the lowest form
of hatred, for it is cold-hearted and abstract, lacking even the courage of a
personal hatred. Categorical condemnation is the hatred of the mob. It makes
cowards brave. And there is nothing more fearful than a religious mob, a mob
overflowing with righteousness – as at the crucifixion and before and since.
This can happen only after we have made a categorical refusal to kindness: to
heretics, foreigners, enemies or any other group different from ourselves.
· And
fourth, all of this work – the poetic, the prophetic and the political – is to
secure meaningful legislative changes while offering discovering new alternatives
to our culture of violence. The Obama
recommendations not only need revision, they need the wisdom of all of us. The NRA perspective not only needs to be
delegitimized, it must be corrected.
Laws alone will not help us move beyond our moral impasse nor will
calcified commitments to outdated habits.
For a moment in time, the consequences of our violence have awakened us
from the slumber of ignorance or neglect.
We have been summoned by our grief to make a contribution to the beloved
community. Together we are discerning
that while new laws and procedures might be helpful, much more is needed, too. In another time, another poet from
Massachusetts, James Russell Lowell, who was the first editor of the Atlantic Monthly,
wrote words for a new hymn some know as “Once to Every Man and Nation.” They
first appeared in the Boston Courier on December 11, 1845 but continue to
resound with a truth the cries to be heard nearly 175 years later.
Once to every
man and nation, comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side;
In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side;
New occasions
teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth,
They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.
They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.
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