I wasn't going to say anything public about the tragedy in Uvalde, TX, or about gun rights/control, but I noticed my friend Bryan Cross had added to a thread about school shootings, and I had a thought worth sharing, I think. In terms of my feelings, I will only say that I intend to intercede for all concerned, appropriately, as is my Christian duty, when death comes for any and all of us. I'm sad in the way that lingers beyond a momentary outpouring of emotion. I am seeing their little faces, and imagining them, when I don't necessarily want to.
Beyond that, my thought is this: we often hear this trite piece of garbage when shootings happen: "We don't have a gun problem; we have a sin problem." Let's actually take this seriously, and then think about it thusly:
If people and the culture at large are less virtuous, it would make sense not to allow bad people (which Christians assert at various times to be all of us) unlimited access to death-dealing weapons on an unprecedented scale.
I have been in and around the politics game long to know what will, and will not fly, with particular people. That's just it, though: If ideology limits your options for solving problems, you remain mired in the problems, and in this case unnecessarily.
And I was confronted in Dr. Cross's old thread with the prospect of essentially a never-ending arms race, not unlike the one among nations with nuclear arms. The race is itself a threat to peace, and a violation of that peace which human beings, by virtue of their dignity, are entitled to possess.
But we can actually choose how we want to live. We're often offered some sort of false choice, between tyranny on the one hand, and senseless violence, on the other.
If guns are tools--and that, they are--for what sorts of things will we use our tools? In light of our weakness and evil, are some of the tools just not worth it? That is, part of a life of flourishing for all people? My answer is yes.
If someone is not overly fond of say, the federal government regulating the use of firearms, fine. But someone very much should. And government at some level is charged with the common good. I don't think being safe at school--for anyone involved--is asking too much.
I'm going to bring up abortion, and the pro-life movement, not to shame anyone of that conviction, (for I would be shaming myself) but to point out that a central contention of the pro-life movement is that the legality and permissiveness of abortion, and laws to that effect, coarsen people, discourse, and the public awareness of the dignity of pre-born children. If reversing such laws is an indispensable part of creating a culture of respect for all life, then the same logic should hold, for the regulation of firearms. This is so, even as I grant that using a firearm is not intrinsically evil, while elective abortion is. Even so, we have seen enough evil with firearms in these particular circumstances that we should change many of the circumstances.
Thanks for reading.
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