I
am on vacation part of the next two weeks so I am rerunning a couple of Musings
today and next week. Here is a Musing that first run in December of 2012. It
was sparked by the shooting at the Clackamas Town Center Shopping Mall. The sad
thing is, that after many, many more mass shootings nothing has been done. 3 ½ years
and still nothing has been done.
Tim
O-H
A couple of weeks ago an NFL player shot his girlfriend and
then himself. An eleven year old boy
used a gun in an attempted carjacking. Just
a couple days ago a 22 year old man entered the Clackamas Town Center Shopping
Mall and gunned down two people and wounded a third. Gang gun violence is at a record pace. Every year it seems there are more and more
stories of men shooting their ex-wives or ex-girlfriends or estranged wives and
girlfriends. Every few months it seems
someone takes a gun to a place of business and starts shooting. I know the saying is guns don’t kill people,
people kill people but I think guns make it a whole lot easier for people to
kill.
I support the right for people to have guns that want
them. I support the right of folks that
feel they need to protect themselves should have the option of owning a
gun. I don’t support concealed weapons
for anyone. I don’t support
semi-automatic weapons for hunting or sport.
I don’t support private arsenals of weapons. I don’t believe anyone needs large capacity
magazines. I think we need to make guns harder to get, and have a very limited
understanding of what guns private citizens can have. I also think that securing guns is
critical. The shooter at Clackamas Town
Center stole the gun from a friend. Was
it locked in a gun safe? Did it have a
trigger lock? Was the firing pin removed
or other mechanical thing done to it to keep it from firing?
I think guns should be as hard to own as possible, with all
kinds of background checks and licensing all of which would need to be renewed
every couple of years. The licensing
would entail gun safety training and require evidence of safe storage for
guns. It would also require proof of
location so that the owner would know where their gun is. I think no one needs more than a small number
of guns. And I think that we should have
gun deposits where people keep their guns for hunting or target shooting or
whatever since they don’t need the gun all the time for these endeavors. I support the no tolerance policies of
schools concerning guns, toy or otherwise.
And I think that gun owners need to bear some responsibility when their
weapons are used for violence or crime.
But above all else, I think we need to take a long and
serious look at our culture, values and society. We somehow have bread a culture that accepts
guns and violence. We have allowed for a
situation to develop where an eleven year old feels confident about taking a
gun and using it. We have given birth to
a society where people feel justified in shooting others when they are wronged
or insulted. We have made it too easy
for people who are experiencing the pain of a broken or estranged relationship
to take the life of another. I suppose
you could blame this on a variety of things but it still comes back to the fact
that we have allowed it to happen.
I don’t have the answer to this social dilemma. I know that something is wrong and needs to
be fixed. I want violence to end and I
want people to find ways to deal with their hurt, pain, loss,
disenfranchisement, and whatever else results in a drive to hurt others that
are healthy and helpful.
In the season of peace let’s pray for peace everywhere. And may we find it soon.
Dear God, I pray for peace today. Peace within our warring world, peace within
our nation, peace among political adversaries, peace within our families and
peace within myself. I pray for those
who have been impacted by recent violent acts.
I pray for those who acted in violence and for those who are
contemplating doing so. And I pray that
as your children we will find a way from violence to peace. Amen.
