Reinterpreting the Second Amendment

 

The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, part of the Bill of Rights, reads:

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

The mass shooter who took the lives of so many in Uvalde, Texas, like most other mass shooters and other perpetrators of gun violence in the United States, was not part of any sort of well regulated Militia. Members of well regulated Militias generally do not kill innocent people, especially with military style guns designed primarily for use by well regulated Militias such as the United States Armed Forces, including the National Guard, and Law Enforcement.

I favor common sense gun safety legislation, including limiting sale and ownership of most guns, other than those used for hunting, to current members and retired and honorably discharged members of the United States Armed Forces and Law Enforcement agencies. Let anyone who wants to purchase a gun, other than a gun used primarily for hunting, present proof of service or former service in the Military or in Law Enforcement.

Prayer in Response to the El Paso and Dayton Shootings

God of Compassion and mercy,

we are nearly speechless in the wake of two mass shootings in twenty-four hours.

While we pray for El Paso,

            where twenty were killed and over two dozen wounded,

and Dayton, in our own state of Ohio,

            where nine were killed and more than another two dozen wounded,

it seems like holding those communities in our thoughts and prayers demands too little from us.

Help us to search our own hearts and souls,

and to reflect on our culture’s addiction to guns and gun violence,

and to dedicate ourselves to bringing an end to this senseless carnage.

Amen.

I wrote this Prayer Sunday morning, August 5, 2019 for use as one of the petitions in the Prayers of the People at the Richmond United Presbyterian Church, Richmond, Ohio, where I serve as Interim Pastor.

And A Little Child Shall Lead Them

⁶ The wolf shall live with the lamb,
   the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
   and a little child shall lead them. (Isaiah 11:6)

Isaiah 11:6 has long been one of my favorite passages of Scripture. Whenever I hear it, and I usually hear it read in worship a few weeks before Christmas on the Second Sunday of Advent in Year A of the Revised Common Lectionary cycle, it evokes images of Edward Hick’s iconic Peaceable Kingdom and leaves me feeling warm and … well, peaceful.

Until recently, the most powerful images for me from Isaiah’s vision have been the ravenous wolf cohabitating with the domesticated lamb, the wild leopard reclining with the tame kid, and the calf and lion and the fatling coexisting in harmony. That changed on February 14th, 2018, when students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, located in Parkland, Florida, after seventeen of their colleagues were gunned down by a former student firing an AR-15, decided they were no longer going to accept politician’s thoughts and prayers. They started demanding common sense gun safety legislation instead.

Led by students like David Hogg, Emma Gonzalez and others at Marjory Stoneman Douglas and other schools across the nation, students at 10:00 AM on March 14th stood in class or walked out of class for seventeen minutes, one minute for each victim in the Parkland shooting, in protest. They were protesting to demand that our political leaders offer legislation rather than mere moments of silence, prayers, and thoughts.

What makes the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas different from students in other schools where mass shooting have occurred over the past two decades is that they can’t remember a day when school shootings were not part of their lives. All the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas, and every high school in America today, were born after the April 20, 1999 Columbine High School massacre when 12 students and one teacher were murdered and another 21 were injured.

Many older adults, like me, have almost lost count of the death and carnage from mass shootings since Columbine. As disastrous as Columbine and Parkland were, they have become blurred in my memory with other catastrophic events like the assassination of JFK and Martin Luther King, Jr., the debacle of the Vietnam War, Watergate, and many other catastrophic events in my lifetime. 

Not so with high school students today. Their psychological and spiritual scars, and in some cases physical scars, left from mass shootings, serve as constant reminders that the politicians of my generation and the generation between me and students young enough to be my grandchildren have done absolutely nothing to end the culture of gun violence in our nation by limiting access to weapons designed not for hunting or self-defense but mass killing.

I applaud the students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and other students from across the country who today take to the streets in Washington, DC and in large cities and small towns across the country to demand  that their lives and safety become a priority, and that we end gun violence in our schools and communities. Thoughts and prayers are not enough to honor the victims of gun violence. What we need now is action.

For too long, change has been twarted by cowards in the House and Senate, by the NRA Washington gun lobby, and now by the Trump Administration, who refuse to take common-sense steps that will save lives.

To the impotent politicians of my generation and younger who have so far been able to offer only thought and prayers, I say move out of the way and let the younger generation, a generation who are no longer innocent children but battle scarred adults, many of whom are already or soon will be registered voters, lead us into a more peaceable kingdom.


(The original March 14th post was revised and updated in light of the March 24 MARCH FOR OUR LIVES event in Washington, DC and similar events across the country. I read a slightly different version of the above at the Wheeling, West Virginia MARCH FOR OUR LIVES rally at Wheeling Heritage Port.)

Prayer in Response to Marshall Co. KY Shooting

God of peace and wholeness,

our nation suffered yet another school shooting this past week.

Two were killed and seventeen wounded in Marshall County, Kentucky.

We pray not only for the families and friends of those killed,

and for the physical, psychological, and spiritual wellbeing of those injured,

but also for ourselves.

Give us the resolve to embrace common sense gun safety

and bring an end to our unfettered culture of gun violence.

May we live to see the day when students and teachers not only feel safe,

but are safe in their schools,

and such senseless violence is but a distant memory.

Lord, in your mercy . . . 

End The Culture of Gun Violence

            Yes, I am advocate for common sense gun safety legislation. I think the Assault Weapons Ban should be reinstated. But that is not what this post is about. This post is about our culture of gun violence. There is simply too much gun violence depicted and glorified in movies, on television, and in video games and graphic novels.

            Because of the negative effects of cigarettes you almost never see a character in a modern film or television shown smoking. Public establishments have banned smoking and most smokers are now relegated to smoking only in their own homes, in designated smoking areas, or in dispersed outdoor settings. It is time we, as a culture, move the same direction with regard to the depiction of gun violence.

            I am old enough to remember watching The Andy Griffith Show. Sheriff Andy hardly ever carried a gun, maybe in only one or two episodes. Andy’s deputy, Barney Fife, carried a gun but he carried only one bullet, in his pocket, not in the gun itself. I think neither Andy or Barney was ever depicted firing their service weapons. They were certainly never depicted shooting and killing anyone.

            My favorite television show is now The Big Bang Theory. I think I have seen every episode of The Big Bang Theory and I cannot recall ever seeing a gun except in the holster of a police officer investigating a theft and an episode where the Leonard and Penny characters went to a shooting range and Leonard shot himself in the foot.  Never, ever, has anyone ever been depicted firing a gun at another person or a person being shot, let alone killed, yet this is one of the most highly rated shows on television.

            Various media, however, from motion pictures to television shows and video games to graphic novels glorify gun violence by using the portrayal of gun violence, including blood, guts and brains being splattered about, accompanied by car crashes and various explosions, to entertain and titillate us. But they also desensitize us to gun violence, making it seem all too commonplace. The Military uses similar media images to desensitize combatants and turn them into socially sanctioned regulated, killing machines. That should give us pause.

            Gun violence is depicted in the media because it sells. If people no longer watched media or purchased media depicting gun violence then such images in the media would almost disappear. I call upon all those who claim that Black Lives Matter, who believe people praying in a church should not be shot and killed, who think children should be safe not only in their schools but in the playground and at home, who know that Gay, Lesbian and Transgendered citizens have the right to safely party at a nightclub, and affirm that Police Officers and other first responders and public servants should be free from fear of dying on the job, to stop watching television shows, stop attending and renting movies, and stop purchasing video games and graphic novels that depict and seem to glorify and normalize gun violence.

            We can not legislate an end the depiction and glorification of gun violence in the media but we can send it to the gutter where it belongs. We can, as a culture, if we choose, make it culturally anathema. It is time. It is past time.


Here is a link to my Original POEM OF PROTEST written in response to the mass shooting in Orlando. http://summittoshore.blogspot.com/2016/06/a-poem-of-protest.html

A Poem of Protest

Twenty. Fifty. Forty-nine.

Does the number of dead really matter

Or help make sense

When we are numb from this nonsense?

Who will stop easy access to these killing machines

When the gun lobby financed members of congress

Would probably rather see their constituents,

Neighbors, friends and family members

Fall to such violence

Rather than risk their NRA Approval Ratings falling

Due to their passing an assault weapons ban?

Who will stop easy access to these killing machines?

Who will stand up to the Koch brothers, Rove, and the NRA?

The ACLU, NAACP, SPLC, or PTA?

When life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness

Are being gunned down by AR-15 armed maniacs

It is not time for a moment of silence

But rather common sense gun safety legislation.

                                                                   John Edward Harris

Here is the link to my essay "End The Culture of Gun Vioence."

A Prayer for Newtown

This was the first petition in the Prayers of the People at North Church Queens this past Sunday, December 16, 2012.  I wrote it Sunday morning, just before worship.

God of comfort and consolation,

     our hearts are heavy this morning,

     as are the hearts of our nation and the world.

As Rachel weeps for her children in Ramah,

we bitterly weep and wail for the twenty children

of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut,

            and also for the six teachers and school administrators there

tragically and senselessly gunned down this past Friday.

As we raise our lamentations to you,

we also pray that you will comfort and console the Newtown community,

            the parents, family and friends of those slain,

            the first responders who faced an unimaginable and unspeakable scene,

            and all those seeking to make sense of the senseless.

Never let our prayers serve as an excuse for inaction,

            so motivate and empower us as individuals and as a nation

            to address our culture of gun violence,

violence in the media,

and violent video games,

            which desensitize us and our youth to absurd and inexcusable violence.