More Dangerous than Being Killed

For all of my adult life (at least 50 years), as one who aspires to follow Jesus (often not doing as well as I wish), I have been convinced that killing or injuring someone else is spiritually more dangerous than being killed or injured.

Relinquishing the Grasp of a Joy Thief

Through the day yesterday I saw a large number of posts reacting to the Everytown count of school shootings as false and fake news suggesting that the gun problem is not as big as that, and by implication more gun restrictions are unnecessary or perhaps even counter-indicated. I would repeat that that count is not false, all acknowledge that the events did occur. What is in dispute is whether they all reached the level of being counted as school shootings.

I also saw a number of posts suggesting that everything from taking prayer and paddling out of schools was to blame. We need to keep in mind that this is not a school problem, it is pervasive in our society. We have had mass shootings at concerts, in movie theaters, churches, offices, shopping malls, and almost anywhere large numbers of people gather.

I also received a number of posts reminding us (me?) that those who want to kill will find other ways to do this even if they don’t have access to guns. Certainly true enough. We have had several stabbings recently, but I would doubt anyone could stab 17 people to death in six minutes. The lethality of modern guns makes them particularly problematic. Perhaps the only things more lethal than guns are explosives, as was quite evident in Oklahoma City and Boston. Having said that, explosives are not as easy to deploy as guns. Nevertheless, my contention would be that the methods used are symptoms of a deeply underlying problem of violence and anger that is pervading our whole society, not just those who carry out lethal acts.

I am afraid that arguing that “it is not as bad as the news makes it out to be” dismisses and minimizes the pain for victims and their families and friends. I am hearing from personal friends with no agenda in the gun debate saying that their children are having trouble sleeping and are afraid to leave the house. I would not diminish the importance of all kinds of mass killings (by guns or any other method), but I would point out that though they get high public profile, as they should, far more people are killed (and even more injured) by guns (and yes, other methods too) in quiet obscurity than in these mass killings. Accidents, suicides, and domestic disputes bring daily fatalities in large numbers and go unnoticed unless it is your spouse, your child, your parent, your sibling, your friend, your neighbor who dies. The unique problem with guns in these cases is that their lethality is dramatically more effective than other methods.

Combined with the “those who want to kill will find a way” is almost writing off such events as inevitable if the perpetrators are considered mentally ill. Most folk who suffer and struggle with their mental health are not dangerous. When this is raised with a “we can’t do anything about it” attitude, we feed the social acceptance of such deadly events as to expected and almost normal. It stigmatizes not only those will mental illnesses, but also those who try to help them. Not that treatment insures no violent outbursts, nor that all who need it would get treatment, but the mental illness explanation must be seen as doing better with mental health services, not a path to accepting this violence as inevitable.

Some have, correctly I believe, observed that the problem may not be so much mental illness as anger. We are living in a very angry time. Public debates on all sorts of issues before us all too often degenerate into expressions of anger (sometimes with subtlety), and civility of decorum when discussing disagreements is lost. Brawls in the halls of government are rare, but the words and tactics used express and feed the social propensity toward anger, which is all too evident on social media.

The arguments against even simple, incremental steps because they would not have prevented this or that tragedy paralyzes us from doing anything. The problems of violence and anger do not spring from a single source nor can they be addressed with single, simple solutions. But the refusal to try to make progress with small measures perpetuates the problem.

I have found myself deeply troubled by this issue for some time. I don’t consider myself to be a gun control crusader, but neither am I an advocate for totally unfettered access to firearms. I have written what I consider to be a guide for personal, spiritual self-examen on the place of guns in the heart. http://nstolpepilgrim.blogspot.com/2016/01/guns-in-your-heart.html I also recognize that social media rarely, if ever, changes someone’s mind. With my writing, I have tried to prompt thought rather than articulate positions per se, but I’m sure plenty of my readers (if they persist in reading my lengthy essays) think of me as some sort of partisan. So be it. After responding to some of the things that came my way and disturbed my peace yesterday, I felt compelled to write one last essay to put out there as a way of letting go of this. The priority of my life right now is making every day for my wife, Candy, the best it can be as we journey together with her Alzheimer’s. I need to give her full attention without being either mentally or emotionally distracted by some of these things that I do consider to be important. My spiritual disciplines at this moment must be to relinquish the things that steal my joy. My hope is that by getting these thought out, I can let go of them and refocus on walking hand in hand with Candy and Jesus.