At the one week anniversary of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, a community school, the church bells toll across the country, and the media satellite trucks slowly leave Newtown. Where will they go next? Will we as a nation continue to focus our attention on the epidemic of gun violence or has our addiction to violence grown so serious that we cannot even recognize it?
President Obama spoke compassionately and eloquently at the
Interfaith Service last Sunday and again to the Washington Press on
Wednesday.
An impertinent reporter’s question made the evening news. Coverage did not include the president’s words
that in the 5 days following the massacre, people had died all over this land
each day: a police officer gunned down in Memphis leaving four children without
their mother; two killed in Topeka; three people shot inside a hospital in
Alabama; and a 4-year-old victim of a drive-by shooting in Missouri. “Where have you been?” we should ask ourselves. Where have the cameras gone since Newtown?
The memorials have been helpful for a grieving nation. Here
in our town our church held a prayer service open to the public and all sorts
of people, previously strangers to one another, came. The nation has learned
how to bring candles and Teddy Bears to memorials. What else can we do well together?
PBS New Hour shows in silence at the end of broadcasts the
names and pictures, as “they became of available,” of military personnel killed
in Iraq and Afghanistan. This week they showed
in silence the names and pictures of those killed at Sandy Hook Elementary. What would it mean if every week they showed
the names and pictures, as they became available, of those killed by gun
violence in this nation?
Where will the cameras go to help us not to forget, to help
us recognize our own addition to gun violence and to give us the courage to
act?
To South Chicago? To Midwestern smaller cities? To the
mountain states? Everywhere!
I’ve listened this week to stereotypes of “other” parts of
the country. “Rural” to some implies
people who love having guns. “Urban” or “Inner
City” implies “dangerous,” non-white.
And yet the mass shootings at schools have as often been by white males
in suburban or ex-urban settings.
Our family lived for nine years in an inner city area in Connecticut,
our children attending a community school. The school was at that time “legally
condemned” which meant they did not have to provide a safe playground or music,
the arts, physical education, etc. So we
in the neighborhood worked together to provide these things for everyone’s
children. While schools and school
safety has increased in some places since then, the gap between the rich and
the poor has intensified. Do you “move
to a safe place where there are ‘good’ schools”? We’ve learned that gun violence happens
everywhere. And we need good, safe community schools for everyone’s children
wherever they live. President Obama has continued to say, “all
children.”
It will take all of us, President Obama said, mothers and
fathers, sons and daughters, law enforcement officers, mental health workers,
pastors, gun owners, all of us. It will
take courage. What images have we seen? Yes, we are told we see “guns flying
off the shelves” at Walmart. But I’ve also heard of buy-backs going on all
across the country: a city in New Jersey; a small town in Illinois; local
neighborhoods; even churches and stores.
Thousands of guns have willingly been turned in. Will news cameras show us this?
We have to believe that this nation that has 5% of the world’s
population and ½ the guns can change if we want to be an example in the world.
We have to believe that we can cure ourselves from the epidemic of gun violence
that plagues this country. And we can start, as President Obama said, with what
the majority of Americans want, banning the sale of military-style assault weapons
and high-capacity ammunition clips. He
called on Congress to confirm the appointment of a director for the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, something they have refused to do for 6 ears. Or we could go the other direction, buying bullet-proof backpacks for our children, arming teachers. Foolish! The epidemic grows. Fear begets fear.
Guns beget guns.
And ads for semi-automatic weapons to the contrary, guns don’t
make men more manly. The power to shoot
more and faster does not make one stronger or wiser. Men also beget life. It’s not about shooting, but nurturing life. Can we shape communities of compassion and
care, claiming together the blessed power of giving and preserving life, all
life, everywhere? What will we see?
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