Political Context
And so begins what I see as a three pronged fight
for rational gun control in the United States:
a) responsible gun owners will begin to speak out against the current
madness; b) politicians searching for middle ground will seek consensus; and c)
people of faith and compassion must 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.”
We’ve got to take a
serious look—I understand everyone’s desire to have whatever they want—but
we’ve got to protect our children, we’ve got to protect our police, we’ve got
to protect our population. Serious action is necessary. Sometimes we talk about
very limited actions on the edges and I just don’t think that’s enough. The
number of people in America killed by firearms is extraordinary compared to
other nations, and I don’t think we’re a bloodthirsty country. We need to look
at everything we can do to safeguard our people. (Washington Post, January 9, 2013)
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.” Even the socially
conservative pollster, Frank Lutz, has discovered that “87% of non-NRA gun owners and 74% of
NRA gun owners support requiring a criminal background check of anyone
purchasing a gun. Further 80% of
non-NRA gun owners and 71% of NRA gun owners support prohibiting people on the
terrorist watch list from purchasing guns.” (Brady Campaign)
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.
And while it is too early
to claim with any certainty that this emerging consensus among people of good
will can be turned into significant legislative change, more and more Americans
are beginning to break free from the propaganda of fear promoted as sacred truth
by the NRA and its allies. The words of
top Republican strategist and pollster, Frank Lutz are illustrative again when
he spoke 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)
Perhaps, 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. (ibid)
·
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 make a difference. In this new gun-wary climate, the
political mojo of the moment has
three broad forms. Senator Diane
Feinstein of California has proposed the most aggressive and comprehensive
legislative changes making 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 is one aspect of a
coordinated effort to keep public support behind this initiative.
A second political initiative has
emerged since the Newtown massacre spearheaded by Gabby Giffords and her
husband Frank Kelly, the retired astronaut.
The goal of their super PAC, 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 framed their new 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)
And the third
political force exploring recommendations for new gun control legislations is
the Federal Task Force being coordinated by Vice-President Joe Biden at the
directive of President Obama. The work
of this panel will be shared with the public by mid-January 2013 and includes input
from Wal-Mart, the film industry and various gun lobbyists including the NRA. The intensity of public outrage is palpable –
and clearly drives political consideration for the first time in decades. But while all of the aforementioned
politicians are committed to the public good – and risk the wrath of NRA
demagogues in the months to come – it will take more than their current
explorations to get legislation passed.
Already the
Obama administration, clearly understanding the political challenges awaiting
them in Congress, is moving towards a lowest common denominator solution. While they genuinely oppose the proliferation
of assault weapons, it appears likely that they will emphasize closing the
loopholes on background checks and other modest limitations on access to multiple
rounds of ammunition. This is a modest
step forward that warrants political and moral support. After all, politics is the art of the
possible and real progress must not be compromised in 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)
So there is
wisdom in modesty – and I believe people of good will should first rally behind
whatever is possible – and celebrate it with vigor. At the same time, however, let us keep our
eyes on a more profound prize – the beloved community – a way of living and interacting
that is not constrained to mere 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 simultaneously woefully incomplete for without a vision, the
people perish. Political realism can
make a contribution to the beloved community, but politicians will never be in
the vanguard of social transformation for this requires visionaries, poets and
artists.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a social realist
guided by the poetic vision of the Hebrew prophets, once put it like this: 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) He 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 tragic everyday fact of life – has been offered
to the pastors and poets, organizers, teachers, parents and citizens of the
United States. 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 poetry 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 squeezed into 15 second sound bytes offered up and
pre-packaged by CNN or Fox News.
Atwood offers
an alternative in his all too timely book, America and Its Guns. First he would have us remember that
often our chosen leaders chose to keep us deluded and chasing shadows rather
than building community. He notes that: When
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. And the truth of the
matter is that 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 on the Left and the Right and everywhere in-between whenever
gun violence is being considered. Faith
communities must speak truth to power in humility.
Second, faith
communities must nourish a vision of community that reaches beyond naked
self-interest. We have been entrusted
with the vocation of seeing the eagle inside the egg – and if we don’t attend
to this work creatively, then we cannot blame the nation for remaining in the
shadows. Rabbi Hillel was right when he
said: If not now, when? If not me, who? If I am not for myself, then who will be for
me? And if I am only for myself, then what am I?”
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 faith communities and those not bound by the constraints of
politics – to advance the cause of the beloved community. And I discern that this will
include challenging the vicious paranoia created by the NRA and its allies
while offering clear and compelling alternatives in a quiet, faithful and often
poetically playful way. To that end, let
me share some considerations.
Combating
the Paranoia of the NRA
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