The kingdom suffers violence, and the
violent take it by force. Jesus
For the past few weeks I have been in beautiful downtown
Salt Lake City for our church’s national convention. We meet every three years
to see where we are, look to where we’re headed, and discerning what we need to
do to get there.
I have been impressed with a number of things about both the
convention, which was being held at the Salt Palace Convention Center, and the
city. Our motel was only four blocks from the Palace, but the blocks here are
humungous. Apparently they are each an acre as the city founders wanted
everyone to have space for a garden.
The streets are also very wide as the city planners, led by
Brigham Young, did not want drivers to be tempted to curse while turning or
maneuvering their horse drawn wagons. The best part of all this was that I
really got to put my new fitness trainer to work counting steps and stairs as I
chose to walk rather than availing myself of the shuttle. There were a few days
in which that seemed less than wise as temperatures hit triple digits, but I
survived and felt pretty good in the process.
One of the non-convention events I participated in was a
march against gun-violence. There were about 1,500 to 2,000 people gathered for
the march; we were led by the bishop of Utah, Scott Hayashi (who was nearly
killed as a young man when he was shot by a robber while working the counter at
a convenience store), and marched from the Salt Palace to Pioneer Park and
back.
The point of the march was not to promote the end of gun
ownership, but to encourage folks to seek solutions to the epidemic of gun
violence. Simple laws requiring universal back-ground checks, cooling-off
periods, gun registrations, and the like have been shown to be effective in
reducing gun-violence in states that enact those laws. They don’t eliminate gun
violence, but they do reduce the number of deaths and injuries.
If all life matters, and I believe it does, then doesn’t it
make sense to work together to address the problems directly and find
solutions?
I have never been shot, but I have been shot at. I stood on
the fire escape of an old flea-bag motel in Spokane – I was a cop back then –
and watched the muzzle blast of a handgun fired through the window while the
bullet went whizzing past me. The gunman was a fellow with mental health
problems; he then turned the gun on himself, ending the standoff.
Winston Churchill once confessed that there is nothing as
exhilarating as being shot at and missed, and I agree.
Another time I stepped into the back yard of a home where a counselor
was asking for help with a troubled client. As I passed through a low opening
in the hedge surrounding the yard, I found myself standing twenty feet from a
young man holding a 30-30 lever action rifle. If he had wanted to, he could
easily have taken me out. Instead, he chose to end his own life right then and
there (and I am still haunted by the memories of that most tragic event).
No one believes laws will prevent firearms from getting into
the hands of criminals, but criminals aren’t the only people using guns in acts
of violence. Of the 30,000 gun-related deaths each year, about a third are
homicides, while two thirds are suicides (with a smattering of accidents and
unintentional fatalities recorded each year). That coincided with my
experience.
I know that gun ownership does save lives occasionally. I
saw a report just the other day of a former CNN reporter and her husband being robbed
at gun-point in their motel room. The couple were armed, a gun-fight broke out
in which the robber was killed. The husband suffered a gun-shot wound in the
melee, but he (and his wife) survived.
Jesus recognized the human propensity to solve problems with
violence and power. Human history shows us just how ineffective that route can
be to bringing about peace.
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