GUNS, RACISM, GOVERNMENT, AND RELIGION

WHEN IDEOLOGIC BELIEF IS CONFRONTED BY FAITH

 

 CHARLESTON, 2015

The violence done in this nation is distressing.  I am writing this post in the wake of the recent violence done at Mother Church Immanuel, AME, in Charleston, South Carolina.  My heart is sickened over the senseless killing of nine faithful members of that congregation in Bible study by a young ideologue who could not see the human beings in front of him because of their skin color. 

I am listening in amazement to the amazement expressed by various members of the news media in response to family members of the victims repeatedly standing in a court room telling the young man who took the lives of their loved one's that he was forgiven by them.  I am not so much amazed by their comments as I am hopeful because of them.  They obviously are true followers of Jesus.  They understand that the only true defense against such evil, in the form of ideological racism, is the power of forgiveness.   They get it and may they be sustained by it. 

I too feel sorry for the young ideologue who committed such evil.  He is as much a victim of his beliefs as those he killed.  As yet, he does not appear to understand that it is he and his ideological beliefs [See post of Belief I & II] that have been defeated in the face of faith expressed by members of the Immanuel congregation.  [ See post of Faith I & II]. 

Racism is an outcropping of the differentiating paradigm of religion [See post on Religion] where such individuals have not moved beyond seeking differences as a means of defining their own identity. They have abandoned humanity's original religious impulse, "We need each other."  Of course this isn't the first time we have seen such violence committed by one individual. and I fear it will not be the last. 

 

NICKEL MINES, 2006

 

This incident brought to mind another incident where an individual walked into a school room of Amish children and opened fire, killing five students in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania in 2006.  There too, forgiveness was the response of that faith community to the evil visited upon them.  In fact, if memory serves me, they helped the perpetrator's wife and children in the aftermath of that event. In that case, the violence appears to have stemmed from the perpetrator's mental issues.  This does not appear to be the case in Charleston, where racial hatred appears to be the motive, at this time. 

 

SANDY HOOK, 2012

Sandy Hook should have been the turning point with regard to gun violence, and violence in the United States, but it wasn't.   As much as there appeared to be a public outcry against gun violence and consensus to implements some form of gun control in this country,  the gun industry, their lobbyists, and their money held sway. 

Sandy Hook struck close to home for me because my wife, at the time, was a High School teacher and my daughter and Elementary School counselor. At the time of Sandy Hook, I wrote a letter that I never sent to the one and only senator from my state I thought might actually read it or, at least, thought one of his staff might have.  [Undoubtedly, no one in Washington is going to read one of my lengthy letters, but I can't help making sure I explain my reasons for writing.]  That senator is no longer a senator and currently I have no doubt that sending it to my state's current congressional delegation would end falling on deaf ears. They are in the gun rights corner, lock, stock and barrel. So here is my original, unedited and unsent letter:

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Dear Senator... ,

As I write you, I have in front of me one of our nation’s most sacred documents, “The Constitution of the United States,” whose preface is both a pledge and promise to the American People and serves as the premise upon which its articles and amendments are based:

“We, the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessing of Liberty to ourselves and our Prosperity, do ordain and establish the CONSTITUTION for the United States of America.”

As a republic, citizens like me imbue elected officials like you not only with the power to regulate but to be public guarantors of the assurances made in the preface, on our behalf.  There is little question in the in my mind that gun violence must be addressed.  It is also apparent that doing so will be a contentious undertaking and will demand a committed will by all federal, state, and locally elected officials. 

THE ISSUES

 CONTROL or REGULATION

The issue of gun violence is complicated by the rhetoric surrounding it. This is not about “Gun Control” or the government taking a gun from someone’s “cold dead hands.” It’s about elected officials taking their constitutional responsibilities seriously, to provide reasonable regulation in order to keep the promise of domestic tranquility and the common defense. 

I maintain most gun owners are decent, law-abiding citizens who own guns for personal protection and recreation and who use them responsibly and safely.  I believe reasonable gun owners would favor some form of regulation to ensure public safety, a free state, and their right to responsible ownership.

Those opposed to gun regulation have attached it to the Second Amendment and “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” without consideration of the preceding amendment and “the right of the people to peaceably assemble;” such as, the right to assemble with members of congress in a public forum, go to a movie theater, gather at a temple or church, or to attend an elementary school without having to fear gun violence occurring in such places.    

Somehow opponents to regulation have managed to occlude the importance of the Constitution’s Preface and the First Amendment by making the Second Amendment the premier rights issue of our time.  It is not.  The Second Amendment is a right premised on the preface, preceded by the right to peaceful assembly, and predicated on a well-regulated militia protecting a free state. The fact is mass killing through the use and availability of assault guns deprives and threatens to deprive citizens the promise of tranquility, the right to peaceful assembly, and from living in a state free from the tyranny of one person with the capacity to inflict massive casualties.

Unfortunately, the anti-regulation camp would interpret the promise of defense as an individual responsibility to fend for oneself and would reframe “We, the people” into “Me, the person.”  In addition they would to reframe the responsibility of elected officials to ensure tranquility and defense of a free state as infringement.  Such opponents of regulation appear romantic in their entertainment of “old west” vigilantism by arming teachers and schools personal with guns to shoot someone suspected of or engaging in gun violence as the most effective means of protection. 

The opposition to regulation fails to realize that permitting guns in schools and other public institutions ultimately will result in increased regulation by needing to define who would bear such responsibility, under what circumstance could guns be used, what type of weaponry, and how it would be stored in a facility with public access, not to mention the litigation and backlash that would ensue should an innocent student or bystander be killed as a result of poor judgment or a knee jerk response by a school official or public employee.

In the long run, it would be more efficient if there existed a clear definition in law identifying the type of weapons capable of inflicting massive lethal casualties, banning them and their ammunition from public sale, enforcing ownership registration, and taking steps to stop gun proliferation by closing all loopholes including banning the private sale of weapons without background checks and registration.  While this is complex, it is far less complex than the legal battles that will inevitably ensue if regulation is left vague, questionable, and results in countless innocent lives being lost.

This issue is about protecting the public from gun violence due to the insufficient regulation that has allowed the proliferation of automatic assault weaponry.   Every individual has right to defend themselves as a last resort, but the government has a responsibility to protect to the public through the rule of law in order to reduce the need of individuals to have to fend for themselves.

 MENTAL HEALTH

While there seems to be a trend in recent  mass shootings of perpetrators having a mental condition, it is clear that most  who perpetrate gun violence, apart from mass killings, would not fall into that category; that they are angry people, thoughtless people, or people with a reasoned, personal agenda to do harm to others.   While I agree mental health needs to be addressed, I see this as secondary to the issue of the availability and proliferation of automatic guns and ammunition, whose purpose is to kill multiple victims.  

Targeting those with mental disorders as the problem is misleading and serves as a dodge to the issue of gun regulation.  As a person who has worked in the mental health field all my life, I believe we can do more to help those with mental illnesses.  Having said that, I also know it is easier to regulate things than it is to regulate people.  The issue of mental health needs to be handled very carefully.  The reality is we’re all diagnosable when it comes to mental health. 

It is difficult to determine who would commit such atrocious acts even if they are in the mental health system, a system which for the most part does not exist in any functional or real sense.    It is always easier to look back at such tragedies and find the ever-present link between atrocity and derangement, especially when it involves a lone perpetrator. Most people with mental disorders and illnesses are not dangerous to others.  Most are more likely to be victimized by others than victimize others. 

Sadly, when dysfunction arises in our nation there is a tendency to target vulnerable populations as the problem; in this case, those with mental illnesses. We sincerely need a mental health system that is both compassionate and passionate in its endeavors to safely restore those with mental illnesses to the community rather than store them away.  We need a system that has both the ability to report clientele who pose a real and present threat to others and one that will help them.  We need a mental health system that takes seriously the rights of persons with a mental diagnosis; protecting them from being criminalized by association, protecting them from stigmatization, and from being unjustly stripped of their rights because of illness.

PERSONAL NOTE

As the husband of high school teacher and the father of an elementary school counselor, I can attest that my wife and daughter did not enter the field of education with the idea of having to use a gun as part of their jobs.  The responsibility of teaching and counseling the young is what they love to do and what they do best.  Protecting their students by removing them from harm should be their first objective should such a situation arise. Attempting to take out an assailant could result in not only their deaths, but the deaths of countless students should they fail in that endeavor. 

Any requirement or permissiveness on the part of federal or state elected officials to promote legislation that fosters the presence of guns in a school is a dereliction of their oaths and duty to defend and protect the constitution and people of the United States.   As an elected official I implore you to support and vote for reasonable regulation of automatic guns, their ammunition, and proliferation.

Sincerely,

 

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GUNS

What made me think of this letter was a news segment on TV in regard to South Carolina's gun law which permits guns to be carried into public building, less than 24 hours after the incident.  A lawyer for a gun rights advocacy group strongly intimated that had the pastors of Immanuel permitted guns in their church, this could have been avoided. 

Hmmm...    Let's just think about that for a moment. 

If I recall, even in old westerns people entering churches hung their gun in the cloak room.  That might be movie fiction more than fact, but it gets the point.

At any rate his comment prompted me to recall the letter I had written after Sandy Hook about the persistent 2nd amendment argument that inevitably surfaces after such incidents.  

The fact that congress refuses to address this issue at all is sending a message to such ideologues as this young man with the implied message, "It's okay to take matters into your own hands, because you have a fundamental right to protect what you see is your way of life."  Grant it, no member of congress would condone what this young man did, but by not addressing the means by which he carried it out, conveys a misrepresentation of our nation's Constitution and its Bill of Rights.

FLAGS

I was listening to the news the other day and heard a black man being interviewed explain that he didn't think the issue of the Confederate flag flying on the state capitol grounds merited the attention it was getting - after all, he surmised, it's just a symbol and people of South Carolina need to make a decision about it.  Obviously this person was well educated and was, in my opinion, trying not to ruffle the feathers of those southern conservatives who have an emotional attachment to the flag as a symbol of their past. 

Flags are not "just" symbols.  They are a display of the ideologies attached to them.  The young ideologue who killed nine black individuals in a church was attached to this symbol and the ideologies he and others believe it stands for. 

I would agree that the people of South Carolina need to make a decision about the display of  the confederate flag, a symbol that is now associated to the present mayhem caused by one of  it worshipers.  I have addressed the phenomena  of  flag worship in the posts that I have referenced above and see no need to go into it here, but I am not one to dismiss the power and influence of symbol in eliciting the type emotional response demonstrated in this tragedy.  

As I am writing this, the South Carolina state senate is debating whether to remove the Confederate Flag from the capitol grounds.  It looks very promising that they will.

 

RACISM

Racism is a virus that is always present, but for the past couple of decades, there has been a relaxing of the tension between the races as a whole and it seemed to me that while there remains much work to be done to ensure equal opportunity and fair playing level for all races and ethnic groups, there was a sense of slowly moving forward, of making progress. When this nation elected its first Black president, many of us hoped we had crossed the median of the bridge to a more unified nation, where race and color no longer mattered.

Obviously, that bridge is far from being crossed. 

Instead of coming together, as was hoped in the election of our first Black president,  political opposition to President Obama has been tinged with racism from the start.  Everything from his name to his birth has been questioned under the guise of concern about his loyalty to this country.  The opposition never addressed his race outright, but in questioning his name, his parentage, his birthplace, and attacking and attempting to block everything our president has attempted to do for the people of this country smacks of racism.  In a sense, because of their actions, whether one is white, black, yellow, or brown, we've all suffered the effects of  their racism.  Our president won't say it because he would be accused of playing the race card, but his opposition has played it without naming it as such.  They may fool themselves and some of their constituents, but they have not fooled the vast majority of us who re-elected President Obama to a second term.

Like any viral illness, racism takes a long time to heal and there was real healing happening in United States  and around the world; that is, until social conservatives gained power and attempted to reverse the course of history under the guise of concluding that the wounds of racism were healed enough to no longer require the social prostheses that propped up and prompted equal opportunity and a fair field as a means of fending off victimization for people of color.

In this country, social conservatives saw such social prosthetic devices as unfair advantage to their advantaged lives. 

Who would think it fair or equal to remove a crutch from someone with wounded leg or tell a person who is reliant on a wheel chair to walk without it because they have legs and they're just not using them?

I live in hope that there will be a time when such devices will not be necessary.

I live in hope, that there will come a time when those who need such devices will cast them aside and walk freely. 

But that time is not now. 

Racism has crippling effect on all societies where it remains unchecked. When any part of our society is not permitted to keep pace with progress, we all slow up.

GOVERNMENT

Racism is enculturated and systemized and acts very much like the social virus it is.  To address this issue requires more than social prosthetics, it requires the medication of education and vaccines that are cultured on our common human heritage and our shared humanity.  We must inoculate our systems against prejudice and apathy.  Recovery is never reached simply because something or someone looks better on the surface. 

Viral racism has resurfaced because it has never gone away. 

It has not been effectively treated. 

Our nation has not been allowed to put this issue to rest.

Apathy and ennui has trickled down onto the streets of our society from the halls of congress because our congressional leaders appear more focused on blocking progress than addressing the needs of the day. 

They have not addressed gun violence.

They have not, as yet, addressed the increasing rise of racial tension created by the mindless killing black individuals by a few knee-jerk police officers who appear to have a mindset of "shoot first and ask questions later" in response to the most petty situations involving black individuals.

Will they remain silent in the face of this event, also? 

Will they consign what is an increasing occurrence to the "Lone wolf" excuse, or enmesh it as a problem of mental health that they have yet to address? 

We have elected people to congress who appear better at fear-mongering in order to play off the fears of their constituencies as their means to stay in office than they are at honing the craft of statesmanship.

For all practical purposes it appears that the majority of  our elected representatives are better at playing some sort of "Block and Dodge the Issue" video game that sends the messages, "You're on your own.  Every person for themselves" than doing anything substantive to rebuild our nation that is in a state of increasing deterioration.

That may not be how they see themselves in congress, but that is how congress looks like from the streets of America. 

No message sends a message. 

No action causes actions.

In order to preserve and protect requires clear messages and collaborative actions on the part of federal and state leaders.

If we, as a nation, do not progress in our social agenda, we will certainly regress. 

We look to our elected congressional leaders to set the pace and send the right messages to ensure the growth, safety, and well-being of our nation. What we have experienced from the past several congresses is any but that.

In spite of all this, I live in hope because I see people of every race, color, and creed coming together at times like these to be present for each other - perhaps the greatest medicine of all. 

In addition, we are fortunate in this country to have local and civic leaders who take these issues very seriously, like the mayors of our major cities who have to deal with the streets of society they oversee.  They get it!

Black lives matter - All lives matter - We need each other. 

RELIGION

Most of what I have to say about religion and violence I have already said in my post "Religion."  What I would add here is that Immanuel AME Church, like the Amish community at Nickel Mines demonstrate why we need theistic religion.

Religion is the only long-standing human innovation that has allowed ourselves, over the centuries, to objectively examine who we are, that has allowed ourselves to forgive and move on.  [See my post on Forgiveness]

Forgiveness is not natural in the animal kingdom.  Humans came to forgiveness because we are the aware creatures who have survived and thrived against all odds.  Humans, long ago, came to understand that we are our own worst enemies.  No other animal species is capable of killing us off (unless it be some one-cell virus or bacteria) better than we can kill ourselves off.  Vengeance and violence go hand in hand and it was killing us. Theistic religion gets this better than any other human institution. The long standing question that remains pertinent in every age is, "When do we let the past remain in the past?  When do we forgive?"  

The young, 21 year old, ideologue who killed nine human beings in a Bible study did so because he wanted to restart an old war that is in the past.  He killed them because of the color of their skin.  That's it.  His hatred of them was fueled by a fear he didn't understand, which tuned out the love he faced in that Bible study group.  He did not recognize that the open door of that church was its open heart; the very heart of God.

I was neither amazed or surprised by the forgiveness shown this young ideologue by the family members of those he killed.  I am grateful for that Love, their love, the love that hatred and fear cannot kill. 


Until next time, stay faithful.