The Right to Have Rights: Isn’t There A Right to Live?
When hope is hopeless, and there is no one to help, crying in faith to God is consequential. (Psalms 34.6)
Americans across the country feel hopeless and are crying out in pain as the nation’s epidemic of gun violence claims more innocent lives literally every day. Dramatic new statistics show that gun violence has reached crisis levels in the United States. Here are some mindboggling numbers:
433,900,000- Guns are owned by American civilians. This means that there are more guns that people in this country.
16,400,000 - Guns were purchased in 2020 alone.
4,600,000 - American children live in homes with at least one gun that is loaded and unlocked.
3,000,000 - American children witness gun violence every year.
85,500+ or 95% – US public schools drill students on lockdown procedures.
71,600- Federally licensed gun dealers operate in the U.S.
19,000 - Children and teens are killed or wounded annually by guns, making firearms the leading cause of death for children.
4,994 – As of February 2024, almost 5,000 people had died from gun violence in the U.S., according to the Gun Violence Archive. This translates into about 108 deaths every day.
49 – Mass shootings during the 2023 July 4th weekend in which 15 people were killed and 94 injured across 13 states and Washington, DC.
If these numbers aren’t terrible enough, Americans now own 19.8 million military-style AR-15 assault rifles. Put into context, this represents 20 percent of all firearms purchased in the country. AR-15s were once banned for their lethality, but now they are the weapon of choice for mass murderers because they kill people quickly, in large numbers and with a lot of carnage.
In 14 minutes, the shooter at the Covenant School in Nashville fired 152 rounds with an AR-15 rifle and 9 mm pistol caliber carbine in 2023, killing three young children and three adults. It took even less time for a gunman in Lewiston, Maine kill five of his neighbors because one complained that the noise from firing his AR-15 in the yard kept the neighbor’s baby awake. The man used an AR-10 rifle, even more powerful than the AR-15 and was able to bolster his shooting capacity by taping two 20-round magazines together, a tactic known as “jungle style.”
And let’s not forget that AR-15s have been used in at least 10 of the 17 deadliest mass shootings in America. These mass murders include shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut; the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida; the Las Vegas slaughter; the Stone Douglas High School in Florida; and the First Baptist Church and the Robb Elementary School in Texas;and two mass shootings at a bowling alley and bar in Lewiston, Maine that killed 18 people in a matter of minutes.
Clearly, the horror of thousands of innocent people being gunned down in church, schools, stores, banks, movie theaters, gas stations, and other public places should so inflame people of conscience that they have to speak out and work for meaningful change. But the human tendency to turn away from mass suffering is well documented. As the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin is reputed to have said, “The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of a million is a statistic.” Thus, it is not uncommon for good and decent people to stay quiet about gun violence while offering “thoughts and prayers.”
Further complicating the situation is the gun culture in the United States and the Second Amendment guarantees of an individual right to bear arms. Especially among white evangelicals who have a high rate of gun ownership (58 percent of Republicans and 54 percent of white evangelical Protestants according to a June 2022 survey), the right to self-defense is intrinsic to human life and thus, Christians have the right to own, carry, and if need be, shoot a gun. Some go so far as to say that the Second Amendment is the foundation for all the other freedoms in America. Then, there are the tried-and-true arguments that “guns don’t’ kill people; people kill people,” crime goes down when “good guys” have guns, criminals don’t obey gun control laws, and background checks aren’t effective – all with supporting statistics.
The problem is that advocates for gun policy reform also have strong arguments and the facts and figures to back up their positions. Thus, the stalemate over responsible gun policy continues and so do the needless deaths of many Americans.
It is time for people of faith to look into their hearts. Yes, there is the Second Amendment right to bear arms, but all Constitutional rights have limits and the right to own a gun is no exception. Those who strongly fight for the right to life should also defend the right for children to come home from school at night, for people to be able to worship or go to the bank or to shop at Walmart without fear of being shot. In other words, the right to live.
It is time for Christians to act as Christians, not as slayers of evil or armed guards for their family members, but as followers of the Lord. Jesus never used violence against people, whether to defend himself or to defend the innocent, and he taught his followers to live the same way. (Matt 5) (Luke 6).