Category: gun violence

How Long, O God?

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Politics, Government Reform, gun violence, prayer

Oh My God, how can you stand the insanity of gun violence in this country. If you are truly omniscient and know everything then you already know about the headlines I just read detailing four separate mass shootings in four different states this weekend, and my wife told me about another that I haven’t even seen on my news feeds yet. That makes over 470 mass shootings in this country so far in less than 8 months of 2023!! That’s about two every day! It’s so common all this bloodshed doesn’t even make the news most of the time.

I know you want us to love our enemies, Lord, but I have to tell you I am having a hard time with the gun lobby folks who refuse to consider any common sense gun control legislation. They hide their greed behind the second amendment like it is some sacred edict when in fact it was produced over 200 years ago by frightened white men who feared their enslaved persons would rebel like their sisters and brothers did in Haiti a few years earlier.

Why can’t anyone see that we live in a totally different time when all the wrong people can easily get military style assault weapons. And yet we are hamstrung by a law adopted when guns were single shot muzzle loaders. And the only people who could change our antiquated laws are blinded by greed for the campaign contributions for which they have sold their souls. How can they not see the carnage their lust for power is causing?

Please, dear God, break through the denial and ignorance that are killing innocent people at parades, retail stores, and high school football games. Where can anyone go that is safe from an argument or road rage turning into a gun battle? What more can we do to raise this issue above the clamor of the political circus and the genuine tragedies of climate crisis everywhere?

Dear God, we know common sense gun laws work. They have worked here in the past, and they continue to work almost everywhere else in the world. How can we end America’s love affair with fire arms? Are we so frightened that we need deadly weapons to feel secure? If that’s the problem how can we create a just society where there is no need to feel threatened by others? I am in despair, Lord, that such a dream is even possible in our bitterly divided and broken country.

Scripture tells us that with you, Holy One, all things are possible. I want to believe that, God, I really do. Please raise up for us new leaders with the vision and courage to bind up our nation’s wounds and unite us in creating a culture of compassion where fear is no longer the driving force in our lives.

Please call and empower a new generation of visionary leaders who still believe that we can beat our AR-15’s into wind turbines, and turn our disagreements and fear into communities of collaboration. In the name of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, please, oh please hear our prayer. Amen.

Time to Amend the Second Amendment

by Steve Harsh, posted in Government Reform, gun violence

This is a copy of my letter to Jim Jordan who is the Congressional Representative for the district in which I live:

Dear Mr. Jordan, Following the 129th mass shooting in the first 87 days of 2023 in Nashville I saw a quote in the media of your response to suggestions of some gun safety legislation.  You reportedly said, “The second amendment is the second amendment.”  I would argue that such an oversimplified response is totally wrong in multiple ways.  Not only is it cruel and insensitive to the pain communities keep suffering over and over again as innocent children are brutally murdered, it is historically and legally just plain wrong.  

First, the fact that we are talking about an amendment to the U.S. Constitution means this founding document of our democracy can and has been amended multiple times.  The founders had the wisdom to realize changes to the Constitution would be necessary as our experiment in democracy progressed.  And there is even precedent for an amendment, namely the 18th which prohibited the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages, being repealed by another, i.e. the 21st 13 years later.  As important as the Constitution and its amendments, even the Bill of Rights, are, they are not sacrosanct.  

How could they be when they were written and adopted by wealthy oligarchs who owned hundreds of other human beings?  The second amendment, as you know, is one of the ten first amendments collectively known as the Bill of Rights.  Those amendments were adopted and ratified by the states in 1791, just 3 years after the Constitution itself was ratified.  One of the many things I did not learn in my high school history classes was the impact on American history of other events in the world, both near and far.  For example, as the French Revolution was raging in Europe beginning in 1789 the enslaved people in the French colony of Saint-Dominique began a revolt for their freedom.  That revolt ended in 1803 as the only successful uprising of enslaved people in world history, and also won independence from France and established the nation we still know as Haiti.  

That unrest just 700 miles from Southern Florida was of great interest and concern to the plantation owners in the Southern states.  Just as free and enslaved Blacks greatly outnumbered their white masters on Haiti, so too did they in the Southern parts of the U.S.  

Fear of rebellion by the enslaved masses was a constant fear of plantation owners, including the shapers of the Constitution and four of our first five presidents: Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, the latter being the primary author of the Bill of Rights.

So what gets omitted in our history text books is that a primary motivation for the inclusion of the second amendment in the Bill of Rights was a purely racist and capitalistic desire on the part of the enslavers to keep their “property” in enslavement.  

I believe it was Maya Angelou who said, “When you know better, you do better.”  It took from 1619 to 1865 for us to do better, i.e. abolishing the most flagrant form of slavery by the 13th amendment.  While that horrible wrong took an embarrassing 246 years to change and while we still have a long way to go to end the systemic racism upon which slavery was founded, my point is that laws can change if there is the political and moral will to do so.

We are the only “developed” nation in the world whose children are being butchered in schools by weapons of war.  We know how to fix this.  Other countries have dwelt swiftly and successfully with mass shootings, but our uniquely American greed for power and wealth by our politicians and gun manufacturers are more highly valued than 9 year old children.  

This should not be a partisan issue, but it has become one.  And because it has become a political issue instead of a human issue, and because it is Republican members of Congress who are owned by the NRA who are unwilling to even consider common sense solutions to this problem it is time to state the sad truth.  The only ways to stop these horrific killings is to vote Republicans out of office and replace them with people who care more about innocent lives than AR-15’s.  I say that as one who grew up a proud Republican in the 1950’s, but Lincoln and Eisenhower would not recognize what Trumpism has done to their party.  Just as amendments can change, so can political affiliation.  A majority of Americans favor common sense gun safety legislation.  We are tired of thoughts and prayers without action after every mass killing.  Unless Republicans start listening to their constituents instead of the NRA they must and will go the way of the dinosaurs.