(A note upfront: This is an updated version of an article that I wrote in July 2021 after a shooting across the street from St. Columba-Brigid Parish. In the wake of the racist attack on the East Side earlier this month, and now the mass murder of schoolchildren in Uvalde, Texas, we need to address the issue of gun violence once again.)
This past Monday I attended “Let Not Your Hearts Be
Troubled”, the interfaith prayer service remembering and grieving for the ten
Black sisters and brothers who were slain by a young racist using an
assault-style weapon. Then just a few days ago nineteen children and two
teachers were gunned down by a young man using an assault-style weapon. The two
attacks are not outliers. Mass shootings happen in the U.S. with depressing
regularity.
The truth is that unless there are high-profile events like
those two, gun violence and mass shootings have become so much a part of our
culture that they almost don’t even make headlines anymore. In the US this year
there have been over 215 mass shootings, and this is only the 145th
day of the year.
In the wake of this increase in gun violence, there are
groups that are working to help victims and their families with counseling and
support. Many organizations have gathered food to deliver to those who can no
longer shop at Tops on the East Side. There is an outpouring of “thoughts and
prayers” for the families who lost children in Uvalde, Texas. But there still
does not seem to be enough effort at the root of the problem: the preponderance
and easy availability of guns.
This level of gun violence does not appear in other
developed countries – and the one factor that sets the US apart is the number
of guns and the lack of any regulation or registration. Current estimates are
that there are over 400 million guns in the US – more than two times as many
per person as any other country. And only one quarter of one percent of those
guns are registered.
It is perplexing to see that there is no organized effort on
the part of Catholics to oppose the continued deaths and assaults on human
dignity that guns have perpetrated on our country and our Diocese. There is no
Catholic parish that has an organized effort to advocate for gun control, and
it is rare to hear any priest or deacon preach about gun control or the scourge
of guns in our society.
Our US Bishops have repeatedly – at least since 1975 –
called for reasonable regulations and controls for guns, especially handguns,
and for a ban on assault weapons. Just a few years ago, after another tragic
shooting, the Bishops sent testimony to the US Congress to push for better gun
controls with a specific goal to build a culture of life and confront the
culture of violence. Congress took no action for tighter controls.
After another mass shooting two years ago, the Bishops said
that these shootings “…are an epidemic against life that we must, in justice,
face.” We need action and advocacy from the parish level to push Congress for
much tighter gun regulations, banning of assault weapons, and serious reduction
in the number of guns in our society.
As I was driving past our parish school yesterday, I was
reminded of Martin Luther King’s comment about the parable of the Good
Samaritan. The priest and the Levite, King said, wondered, “If I help that man
in the road, what will happen to me?”. The Good Samaritan, on the other
hand, thought, “If I don’t help that man in the road, what will happen to him?”
I watched those kids leaving school and I wondered, “If we don’t do something
to control guns, what will happen to them?”
Deacon Don Weigel can be contacted at deacondon@gmail.com.
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