One Politician’s Public Conversion on Guns
In Maine, we saw a religious act of confession and a commitment to reverse course.
It was another mass shooting – this time in Lewiston, Maine, where 18 people were gunned down and many more injured in a bowling alley and a bar.
But there was one difference this time.
I watched the press conference where the law enforcement officials and politicians said the usual things about the tragedy, everybody’s deep pain and all of our thoughts and prayers.
Until one politician stood up. Representative Jared Golden from Maine’s Second Congressional District, where the slaughter occurred, took responsibility for what happened. It was a religious moment, where a political leader confessed his failure to support bans on military-style weapons in civilian society and asked for forgiveness.
And given the true nature of biblical repentance, Congressman Golden didn’t just say he was sorry, but pledged on the spot to spend the rest of his time in the Congress acting to ban assault weapons designed only to kill people, completely apart from the hunting that many people in Maine love to do.
Repentance is always a great reversal of one’s life and behavior, and that’s what this politician has committed himself to.
“I have opposed efforts to ban deadly weapons of war, like the assault weapon used to carry out this crime,” Golden said soberly at the press conference. “The time has come for me to take responsibility for this failure, which is why I now call on the United States Congress to ban assault rifles like the one used by the sick perpetrator of this mass killing in my home town of Lewiston, Maine.”
Taking responsibility and reversing course is what all defenders of assault weapons now need to do, including most Republicans who take no responsibility for these mass shootings. This is indeed a religious issue and not just a political one and those who take no responsibility must be called to repent by our communities’ faith congregations.
The new House Speaker Mike Johnson said this was not about guns; it was about “the human heart.”
This self-affirming evangelical must be called out for his bad theology.
Human hearts with all their flaws are everywhere all around the world, as is mental illness, which was a clear cause in this latest mass murder.
Access to these destructive guns is the problem. As the facts around the world, including in the United States, clearly show: preventing access to these weapons of mass destruction literally saves lives. To deny that is to commit another sin by lying. A new study reported in the New York Times shows that stricter gun laws in many states have reduced gun violence, while the loosening of access to guns-which many states are now doing – increases gun deaths. Here are the facts: read them; share them.
America has an addiction to guns. And when guns are more important than lives and their worship takes precedence over God — that is idolatry. The politicians who support such weapon must be named as complicit in violence and be held responsible by all of us at the ballot box.
I was surprised to see author Steven King comment on this issue in The New York Times. I didn’t realize he lived in Maine. Here is what he said:
There is no solution to the gun problem and little more to write, because Americans are addicted to firearms.
Every mass shooting is a gut punch; with every one, unimaginative people say, “I never thought it could happen here,” but such things can and will happen anywhere and everywhere in this locked-and-loaded country. The guns are available, and the targets are soft.
When rapid-fire guns are difficult to get, things improve, but I see no such improvement in the future. Americans love guns and appear willing to pay the price in blood.
But for the first time in any post mass shooting press conference I can remember, we saw a religious act of confession for failure, a humble ask for forgiveness, and a commitment to reverse course and go in a new direction.
Congressman Golden’s act of repentance is now a model for all of us, especially political leaders. There is a long tradition of pastors and preachers calling for repentance in their societies. That needs to be prophetically recovered now, clearly saying that weapons of war set loose in our country without restrictions have become the greatest killer of our children.
Pulitzer-prize winning historian and Catholic commentator Garry Wills said after the Sandy Hook massacre that guns have become gods in America, and he names the false gun god as Moloch, who required the sacrifice of children.
Says Wills, “We guarantee that crazed man after crazed man will have a flood of killing power readily supplied to him. We have to make that offering out of devotion to our Moloch, our god. The gun is our Moloch. We sacrifice our children to him daily.”
As long as this is just a political issue, it will be only decided by money and power. It must finally become a religious issue and, in Lewiston, we perhaps saw a new beginning.
Assault weapons should be banned. Realistic politics says this will not happen in our current cultural and political divide. Indeed, if such a ban was instituted, I fear it would provoke violent reaction including use of these weapons.
Since civilian proponents of assault weapons say they are nonviolent civic-minded people (only criminals use guns to murder), a national firearms law that requires registration of all such guns and their owners. Stringent, enforced requirements. We do this with another potentially deadly instrument, that being motor vehicles. Higher level licenses and security clearances for passenger buses and aircraft. After all, the Fist Amendment gives us the freedom of assembly. Most people assemble using licensed motor vehicles operated by licensed drivers.