A Come to Jesus about Guns

Enough is enough.

We all need to sit down talk about what’s going on with guns and violence in our country.

I understand that the right to keep and bear arms, against an oppressor or tyrant presumably, is a bedrock principle of this nation.

I understand that we are not Japan, or England, or Germany, or France.

Neither I, nor anyone in my social circle, is in favor of guns.  But I like people and I like to talk.  How else can we learn about and appreciate different perspectives? Recently my mother was on a trip. She became fast friends with a husband and wife pair from Arizona.  This couple lived in a rural area on the border, and had had several scary incidents with illegal immigrants on their property.  

I can see the idea of gun ownership in their case -- for protection in the middle of nowhere. I hate, hate, hate to admit this, because I know that in countries where people do not own guns gun violence is rare.  

But for better or worse, I do understand in their case. I know there are friends of mine who are shaking their heads in disbelief.  That is not to say I want a gun in my house or anything to do with one.  I do NOT.

If I can be understanding, if I can see the grey areas, the complexities, can you, gun advocate?  I’d love to talk. Just two people having a come to Jesus.  Here, I’ll start:

• Do you believe that your individual right to have access to/carry a weapon trumps my child's right to feel safe at school?  Or my right to feel that my family is safe at a mall or other public place?  That it trumps the safety of the whole? 

• Do you believe that the Founding Fathers would want us to sit idly by if they saw mass shootings happening almost monthly? To say nothing of the inner city violence that is a cancer in cities like Chicago?  

• Do you find it at all absurd that we live in a country where we protect children from their pajamas, cribs, formula, food, strollers, high chairs, car seats and cribs via constant recalls, but refuse to ban assault rifles?

• Do you think that having more armed people would solve our safety issue?  If more and more people are armed where does it stop?  What is the endgame?

• You are proud of being an American, as am I.  But the fact that we have over 10,000 gun related homicides – almost 20 times that of most other G8 nations—is shameful.  Are you okay with this?  Is being so different from other countries a good thing when the stats are so undeniably appallingly negative?  Is there anything we can and should learn from these other countries?

• You admit that it is the lunatics, the mentally unstable, who are committing these horrific crimes, not law-abiding gun-owning citizens.  But such crimes are happening more often, which means that more mentally unstable people are getting hold of guns somehow.  How do we change this? 

• Given the increasing frequency of mass shooting committed by mentally ill people, do you think that medical care and treatment should be put forth as an urgent matter of public policy?  How can we figure out which models to follow? 

• You say that people will still manage to be violent.  And that they still might gain access to guns.  Just look at what happened in Norway last year. It's not that these countries are without violence, just without so much of it.  Shouldn't we at least try something different?

• Where should we start?

Please. Let’s just talk, okay?  I’m being civil and courteous.  I’m leaving my sarcasm and bitterness and anger outside.  I’d love it if you would do the same.  Maybe you don’t know anyone like me either.  If you have any questions, I’d be happy to answer. 

I feel numb and raw today, and you probably do, too.  I have no more tears, just an unease.  I feel less safe and less able to protect my children.  I feel beyond sad and shaken when I imagine the empty beds and places at the dinner table that too many families in Newtown are coping with. 

Of course I know random violence and random freak accidents are always a possibility.  Like most parents, I wake up in a cold sweat envisioning all sorts of crazy catastrophes.

But this nightmare was real.

Let’s make sure no one shoots twenty small children, five and six year olds, souls who saw the light of day in 2006, again in our great country. Let’s honor the families by making sure no one loses a child in that way again.

Let’s resolve to do that.  The status quo isn’t working.  It is an abysmal failure. 

Let’s try to come together as human beings trying to solve a problem.  Let the fiscal cliff be a contentious political issue, but not the safety of our children. 

Saving our children from gun violence should be easy.  It is imperative.  We owe them, we owe each other, so much better than this.