Celestial Lands The Religious Crossroads of Politics, Power, and Theology

6 Thoughts on “Shocked that our Nation is Shocked

  1. David, I was shocked–as Gil Scott-Heron once said, “America leads the world in shock”–but I was not surprised.

  2. David, I agree that those who are shocked are not paying attention or are being disingenuous – with the latter being much more likely than the former. And I agree that eliminating mass-shootings requires adaptive change. However, adaptive change of our culture’s attitude toward gun violence is an extremely hard task that will take years of extremely hard effort and it has no guarantee of changing hearts at all. Therefore, it is wrong however to discount in any way technical change with regard to gun control. It is possible, and it will make a marginal difference. When the margin is measured in lives, it matters.

    Doubt about efficacy is not a reason to disparage gun control. What are the negatives of banning semi-automatic weapons and extended clips? There are none, in my view. Thus, any minute change in effectiveness of preventing another tragedy is worthwhile.

    And I think your instincts on the details, like clip size and reloading, are way off. Very few shooters will have had any military training and they certainly will not have practiced reloading their gun after killing people. Even being extremely generous by saying it takes a shooter 5 seconds to reload, those 5 seconds are the best chance to subdue the shooter.

  3. Erik,

    I’ll address the last first, and then move in…

    Ok, without military training at changing clips quickly, what is the solution to not having an extended magazine?

    Two guns. Or three. Or Twelve…

    My point on this is the same as the larger point. I’m all for sensible gun-control… and let’s not pretend that event the tightest, best gun control will fix this problem. Where there is a will, there is a way… and in a nation that has well over 250 million guns currently floating around out there, even a gun-control law that prevented even a single new gun from ever being sold in America ever again would not come close to solving the epidemic of violence we currently face.

    In fact, such a law would just drive the gun-market further underground, and take away even the limited background checks and controls we currently have.

    No technial fix will solve what is esentially a spiritual crisis in our identity as Americans, and how we as human beings value life and relate to violence.

    Yours in Faith,

    Rev. David

  4. I think I want to clarify something, based on a few emails I have gotten. I’m a supporter of Gun Control legislation. Assault weapons should be banned from civilian ownership, and there should be some severe limitations on handgun ownership. Extended magazines for semi-automatic pistols should be illegal…

    All of that should be done… and I do not beleive that is the solution to the trend of mass-shootings our nation faces, and I fear or pretending that it is, and thereby avoid the deeper issues about the sanctity of life and out interconnection with all things.

    Yours in faith,

    Rev. David

  5. My initial reaction to the shootings was anger, disgust and then, once I learned more about the victims of this senseless crime, extreme sadness. There have been far too many of these incidents over the years.

    I’m hoping their deaths won’t be completely in vane and that we can use it as a way to reflect and rethink the way we go about our collective political debate. Based on the reaction of some of our political leaders and punditry I am beginning to question their ability at self reflection however.

  6. Pingback: UU blog responses to the Tucson shootings « uuworld.org : The Interdependent Web

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