Of Fear and Firearms

We wake up in a fog, knowing something’s terribly wrong.  We feel empty as a drum, and the lump in our throat hasn’t gone away.  We’re feeling the collective grief enveloping this country and the world after the senseless killings at Sandy Hook Elementary. 

This is another day to pause and send powerful, loving thoughts to the families experiencing unthinkable loss.  A day for prayers and reflection, a day for getting our hearts back to some version of peace.  A day for saying out loud how much we mean to one another.  A day for saying I love you.  A lot.

And after that, it will be time to give some serious thought to ending our culture’s neurotic love affair with firearms.  Time to dispel the myth that guns are the answer—to whatever the question might be.  I’m not talking about messing with your second amendment rights, not suggesting you turn in your hunting rifle, Bubba.  But no one, NO ONE, outside the military and law enforcement, needs an assortment of assault weapons.  And high-capacity gun clips— rapid fire for killing masses of people— need to go. Period.

                            Advice for budding activists.  Image from Asheville Yoga.

Did you know 40% of all guns in this country are purchased online without background checks?   There’s room in that information for some life-saving legislation.   Rep. Carolyn McCarthy of NY has been a passionate, hard-working advocate.   I don’t know what percentage of citizen weapons are bought at gun shows, but any—without background checks—would be too many.

 According to Jeff Goldberg on Andrea Mitchell’s show yesterday, there are between 280 million and 300 million guns in the United States.  Those are the ones that can be counted!   Apparently we are one terribly frightened country.  I believe most everything that brings disharmony, personally and for our society, can be traced to fear. (The opposite of love is not hate, but fear—think about it.)  Let’s explore the fear together, in a reasonable way.  Let’s share the intention of doing something about the firearms problem in the days ahead,  the same way we are sharing the grief of what happened in  Newtown, Connecticut yesterday.

Horrific as the deaths of the innocents in Newtown are, so are the deaths of children—and human beings of all ages, killed or maimed by gunfire —on the streets of Chicago in the past year.  And in Aurora, OK.  At Virginia Tech.  In an Amish school, a Temple in Wisconsin, a Unitarian Fellowship, a theater filled with innocent movie-goers.  And on and on and on.

To end this post with a tiny flicker of hope:  Seven NFL players have given up their handguns in the wake of a fellow athlete’s death.  They decided they no longer want to own a gun.  They also might have realized they didn’t need  a gun either.  Any citizen is free to re-think carrying a handgun.  Just as we have a “right to carry” we have the right not to arm ourselves.   We can opt out of fearful thinking and become a truly free human being.  

We haven't begun to explore—as a culture— the depth of personal freedom and peace that could come from letting go of fear.  What a wonderful world it would be.  Will be.