GUNS DON’T MAKE SECURITY, PEOPLE DO

I and people I know have been victims of crime. I’ve had my house and car broken into; I’ve had people make terroristic threats against me.  Neighbors and members of congregations I’ve served have been murdered.  Too many women I know have been raped and molested.  This hasn’t happened just in inner cities where I’ve served, but also in my hometown of Austin, Minnesota.  I am not naïve about the presence of crime in our society, and in the hard choices we have to make to combat it.
I also have been involved in community anti-crime efforts in neighborhoods in Chicago, the Bronx, Philadelphia and Minneapolis.  In an ideal world, we would not need armed police who have the right to use deadly force when warranted.  We would all live in peace.  But we don’t live in an ideal world, and until we do, we will need to have armed police forces.  Nor am I naïve about how the police have too often abused the office they hold, through brutality, profiling, or in the case of the urban communities I’ve served, a kind of neglect.
I’ve had the opportunity to be involved in different community policing efforts, some of which were more effective than others.  The most important thing that has worked—which has been validated in various studies—is the strength of the neighborhood.  This includes strong community institutions, decent city services, and neighbors knowing each other and caring about each other.  While the number of police that serve a community is important, it’s even more important how they serve a community.  Do they see themselves as an occupying force, where they don’t know who is friend or foe, or do they see the community as an ally?  If you talk to any police leaders, they will emphasize over and over how important community involvement is.  (One of the negative results of our broken immigration system is that immigrants tend to report crimes and testify at a much lower rate than the general population.)
I write this as background because I want to challenge the narrative in this country that guns and firepower are what makes us safe.  That narrative has some basis in fact: we didn’t defeat the Nazis with good words, but with incredible firepower, and at great sacrifice.  But firepower alone just won’t win any war—in Viet Nam, we dropped more bombs on that tiny country than all the armies did everywhere in World War II.  We propped up a corrupt and violent regime in the south of Vet Nam that did not have the support of the people.
I don’t think the problem of gun violence in our country is just too many guns or guns in the hands of the wrong people, although that is true. The problem is deeper: we have a faith in guns that has become a key part of a national narrative, a narrative that has incredible political and social power to thwart change. Look at how much of our story we tell about ourselves revolves around arms:  the Minutemen, the cowboy, the Calvary riding in to save the day, the sheriff in the “wild west”, Rambo and Dirty Harry.  On Veteran’s Day and Memorial Day and at the Super Bowl and World Series, politicians and actors and regular citizens thank the troops “for keeping us free”.   This despite the fact that our military invasions of Vietnam and Iraq and other places have not made us freer in any sense.
This story of the gun has gotten louder since the Newtown school shootings.  The Guns Across America rallies, the NRA President and members of Congress have hit the same notes:  individuals need guns for protection, individuals have a right to purchase and own any gun they like, and that government, especially Obama, is “trying to take away our guns”.  There’s one more claim that I want to focus on. That is the one that says we need individuals to have guns because that’s the only defense we have against a tyrannical government, and that the 2^nd amendment is there to protect us against government tyranny.
That might have made sense in the early days of the nation, with a population that was scattered far and wide from any effective police power.  And it made sense in terms of what we had experienced under England’s power.  But does it make sense today? I don’t think so, for a number of reasons.
The first is that—going back to my point about community policing—guns alone do not provide for security, neither against one’s own government nor against foreign enemies.  You need a sense of national unity and purpose, and a government that is able to enforce the law and organize a response.  Saddam Hussein gave guns to his people, but that hardly prevented his tyranny.  And to the idea that we don’t really need a national government, as long as the people are armed?  Look at Somalia.
Another is that part of living in civilization, despite its shortcomings, is that we have to give up some individual rights, in order to have peace and order.  We can’t have “the people” deciding guilt and innocence (remember lynching?); we need a court system. Giving up most use of lethal force to a regulated police force is necessary to have any sense of security.  On top of that, our democratic system is based on the consent of the governed. If we lose that, guns are not going to save us.  If we can’t accept our government as legitimate when our candidate or party doesn’t win the election, we’re playing with fire.
I think that is what is really at stake here.  People’s discontent with their government is nothing new.  But it has been fanned by well-funded and astute groups into a belief that the federal government is the enemy. A real enemy, not a metaphor to win elections.
When I was 19, I had a summer job working for the county.  1972. We drove every county road and every town and city street inventorying abandoned autos.  We would tag and photograph them, plot them on a map and talk to the owners about a free program to haul them away.  We met some folks that weren’t too happy with us (you don’t mess with a man’s horse, even if it’s a metal one with 280 horses). 
One afternoon, two men snuck up on our car as we were having lunch under a little grove of trees off a dirt road.  It was clear that they had guns somewhere on them, but thankfully they didn’t pull them.  I remember one saying, “We were planning to give you what you were looking for.  If you were looking for help, we’d give you help.  If you were looking for trouble, we’d give you that.”  Colorful guys.
As we talked with them, the conversation got more colorful.  One of them told me that he kept his most of guns hidden, and that he stayed away from the county courthouse, because they had installed machine gun placements in the basement windows to fire on the citizens of the county after they took their guns away from them.  “I have proof”, he said.  “They are coming to get us, but we’ll be ready.”
Those people were considered loonies in those days.  Real kooks.  Now people on talk radio, on Fox News and even in Congress spout those kind of ideas. That’s a real danger to our republic.
I would like the people who claim no control of guns is permitted under the 2^nd amendment to answer this question: If the 2^nd Amendment confers an absolute right to individuals to possess any firearm, then why is it illegal for people to own rocket propelled grenade launchers or flamethrowers?  Those are arms used in the defense of the country.  As are tanks, bombers and the like.  Because we know that in a civilized country, we need to have limits on individual rights when they negatively affect the community.  The same way the first amendment right of free speech does not include terroristic threats or slander, and the first amendment right of freedom of religion does not include human sacrifice, although some religions have practice that.  I’m glad that the first amendment is written in absolute terms—“Congress shall make no law…”  It puts the burden on restricting those rights, and restricting rights should not be taken lightly.  But no one could reasonably claim that the first amendment protects child sacrifice or lying under oath.  Nor should the second amendment be used as a club to stop any kind of control for the good of the public.
I usually sign off by writing “Be Justice.  Be Beauty.” or a variation on that theme. I don’t mean this absolutely, because we need to be constantly vigilant with our trust, but tonight, as we remember Dr. King, and hope for real change in our politics, I encourage us to
Trust Justice.  Trust Beauty.
Patrick