Yesterday, another school shooting. Over the weekend, a 2-year-old girl shot herself. Both of these break my heart. They also call for a little prophetic truth-telling.
Of course, folks will say, "That's just the way the world is". But I'm not so sure.
For starters, even if "that's the way the world is" today, I'm not willing to resign myself to tomorrow, too. Other than car accidents, more children are killed by guns than anything else. One child/teen dies every three hours. 7 die every day. That's 50 in a week. From gun violence. Over the past 50 years, we've lost three times more children to gun deaths (160,000) than those who've died in war (Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq: 52,820).
It doesn't have to be this way.
Actually, "the world" doesn't work this way. In one year, gun violence accounted for 27 deaths in Australia, 59 in England, 60 in Spain, 160 in Canada, and ... 10,177 in the US.
Know which country has the most guns? The US, topping off at 90 guns for every 100 people. The runner-up is India, with 4 guns for every 100 people. That means we have nearly 300,000,000 guns in the US.
As a Christian, I have a healthy dose of suspicion about violence. Which also means I have a healthy suspicion about guns.
When I was a very young boy, I was given a sling-shot. I went out into the back yard and became the great white hunter. I stalked my prey, a robin. I shot and killed it. The bird never had a chance. And, after that, neither did I. My grandfather took the sling-shot from me, never bought me the BB gun I'd wanted, and began lessons about honoring life and rejecting violence.
The gist of those lessons went something like this: Fear is at the heart of all violence. Love doesn't have room for fear. We're supposed to love others and God's world, not destroy it. In retrospect now, I realize how right he was.
Fear is at the heart of our gun problem. Not guns themselves. They are merely the manifestation of our fear -- our lack of love. Guns are a demonstration of idolatry at our lack of faith in God, our defense of self and fear of the other.
For Christians, guns simply can't make sense. Which is why the gun violence is so heart-wrenching. It doesn't have to be this way.
But, let me be clear, gun control won't work alone. What we need are the fruits of the Spirit -- love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. What we need is to let go of fear. Love one another. Then guns simply don't make sense.
The rationality of guns is predicated upon the idolatrous language of "personal safety". Not upon the language of faithfulness of God's defense and care and provision of God's own.