The Commonwealth of NRA (or Marcellus, Comcast, etc.)

This past week Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett signed into law House Bill #80 (The Firearms Preemption Legislation bill) which was back by the National Rifle Association (NRA), who called it the “strongest firearms preemption statute in the country.” Essentially the law allows pro-gun organizations like the NRA to sue local municipalities that pass laws which the NRA deems obstructing the gun ownership and use rights of local citizens. In reality the law was more symbol than substance, as local municipalities like Philadelphia, which have passed laws limiting the number of handguns and individual could purchase at any one time, have been blocked by the State government from enacting those laws, since the state maintains jurisdiction over all firearms legislation in the Commonwealth. However, the symbolism of this law should not be overlooked, for in signing this bill, the State Legislature and Governor Corbett have given the pro-gun lobby the right to punish and harass whoever they want with the state’s blessing. As one of the most powerful and wealthy lobbying groups in the country, it essentially communicates that these lobby groups run the state, not the citizens who live there and vote.

In this blog I have long and often bemoaned the undue influence corporate and special interest lobbying groups hold over the democratic process in this country, be it guns, insurance companies, weapons manufacturers, or just wealthy donors. However, HB 80 takes this practice to a new level in that it puts it out there publicly, essentially saying no matter what citizens want in their local community or their state in regards to gun legislation, the NRA gets its way. This week the NRA is the culprit, next week it might be the gas companies who get huge tax breaks mining the Marcellus Shale region or Comcast that wants to control the airwaves and the Internet, or some other special interest group with undue influence. With regard to HB 80 what is sad is that while polls consistently show overwhelming support for tighter restrictions on the purchase and use of firearms, the House members voted over 2-1 in favor of the bill. So one can legitimately wonder who is being represented. Parenthetically, I want to commend my own representative, Rep. William Adolph, a Republican leader in the House, for voting “Nay”; there are some people with courage, but not enough.

As this bill was working its way through the Pennsylvania legislature, I was also taking note of the huge protests taking place on the other side of the world in Hong Kong. Thousands of young people in the city have taken to the streets to protest the process by which candidates for elective office are chosen in that supposedly democratic protectorate. A local election commission receives petitions for those wanting to run, and then decides on the candidates who will be put on the ballot; but here’s the catch: because of Hong Kong’s inclusion in China, those candidates must be approved by the national government in Beijing (which by the way is very non-democratic). That is why the students have taken to the streets; they want a real vote, not a slate of candidates predetermined and vetted by the powers that be. When pressed as to why he objected to the protestors’ demand, the mayor of Hong Kong said that open democracy would mean that people “who earn less the $1800/month” (about 50% of the population) might vote for candidates and policies that would cut into the power and influence of the wealthiest and powerful people in Hong Kong. (Hmmm – sound familiar?)

While our political leaders tout the values of democracy, even to the point of wanting to export that system to developing countries, they cave in or even worse, actively promote a system where the vast majority of people are ignored in favor of those with deep pockets. On Tuesday, I will go to the polls and vote, but I must say as time goes on I feel my vote matters less and less, unless and until we elect representatives who have the courage and conviction to actually believe in democracy, and listen to the people they are supposed to represent.

Talking Points in Response to the NRA

Last week Wayne LaPierre, vice president of the NRA, spoke out in response to the horrible shootings in Newtown, CT, and for the first time, the public has responded with a critical eye to some of the logic La Pierre  and his ilk have used in his response to the terrible tragedy. Let us be clear on a couple of things as we reflect on LaPierre’s words. First of all, we need to realize that he was not posturing; he truly believes what he said. Second, we need to realize that the NRA, the Gun Owners of the America and the gun industry will respond with all the resources at their disposal to confuse and distort the issues around guns; and those resources are sizable. Already they are hitting the airways with proposals designed to confuse rather than clarify the issue. So in this blog I want to provide a few talking points as we write our legislators and talk with our co-workers and friends about these important issues, and I will do so by taking the vary statements La Pierre used in his press conference.

First, La Pierre stated that there are already 20,000 gun laws on the books, so why do we need more. Now I am not sure where he came up with that number but there is no question there are a lot of laws because gun legislation is largely handled at the state level, and so there are 50 sets of laws. Congress and federal government have limited control of gun practices. What is needed is a comprehensive framework from the federal level to guide states. However, that is a long way off given the current polarity in the Congress . What Congress can do is ban assault weapons, coordinate a national database of people who should not be allowed to buy guns, and provide funding for enforcement through the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Narcotics (commonly referred to as ATF). The Congress also can provide funding for the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to do research on the effects and causes of gun violence.  Now while there are many laws, the NRA has actually been actively and successfully working to weaken existing laws and to pass laws allowing for individuals to carry concealed weapons in public. (Think George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin). So some of these many laws have actually made guns more readily available rather than restricted. LaPierre conveniently forgot to mention that fact.

This leads to La Pierre next point that we just need to enforce existing laws, not pass new ones. That would be great place to start except the NRA has strongly pushed that the ATF be given reduced resources so that ATF does not have the people power to adequately monitor gun shops and other sources providing guns. The NRA have also sought to undermine the national database by having supporters in positions of influence at the state level not send in the information the database requires and because ATF is underfunded they can’t go after them. The NRA also pushed through legislation that de-funded gun-related studies of the CDC because those studies showed that the presence of a gun in a home actually increased the likelihood of gun-related injuries or deaths rather than decrease them. These goes against the bumper sticker logic of the NRA that guns somehow make us safer. The research just does not back that up claim.

La Pierre’s most outrageous proposal was to put arm guards in every school. Yesterday the NRA president David Keene  altered that proposal by saying school personnel should be able to have a range of options for protecting themselves – arming teachers, principals, having police officers, private security, etc. The logic of this proposal expressed by La Pierre is that the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is to have a good guy with a gun. This is the “wild west “ logic that the NRA has used for years, and is reflected endlessly in our movies, television, video games and media. This logic is like trying to plug the dam after the water has broken through. The goal should be to reduce the overall presence of guns, keep them away from children, felons, people with emotional problems and so on.  Just yesterday three Clementon, NJ police officers were shot in the police station by an assailant. Trained guards do not prevent violence, that logic is too late. As the CDC study referenced above pointed out the presence of guns themselves present a threat; do we want these sorts of readily available in a school? I don’t think so.

La Pierre also criticized the entertainment and video game industry for promoting violence. For LaPierre, a representative of the firearms industry, to make such a statement would be laughable if it were not so tragically hypocritical. Like many other manufacturers and retailers, the firearms industry uses product placement in movies and games as a way of advertising their product. Just this week the NY Times reported that the website for video game Medal of Honor Warfighter was directly linked to the gun manufacturers whose weapons are featured in thegame. This is not an anomaly but standard practice for gun manufacturers to get their product out there.

Finally, the media keeps reporting that the public is evenly divided on the issue of gun control. That assertion is based on an ongoing Pew Research Study that asks the following question: What do you think is more important – to protect the right of Americans to own guns, OR to control gun ownership? In answer to this question the public is evenly divided. However, anyone who does research knows, the question you ask skews the results you get. The question asked by PEW set up a false dichotomy between allowing Americans to own guns and gun control. In Pennsylvania, a heavily pro-gun state, when more specific questions were asked a widely different result was received. When asked if that state ought to limit the sale of handguns to one gun per month per person, nearly 70% of people voted in the affirmative.  When asked if persons should be required to report a gun that was lost or stolen there was a similar result. These laws are focused on straw purchasing, the major source of most guns used in crime. So in many ways the public is overwhelmingly in favor of common sense legislation which addresses parts of the problem without restricting others’ right to legally own a gun.

Hopefully these talking points can help you in talking with others about the tragic events in Newtown and elsewhere. For the first time our nation’s leaders are at least talking about the issue. We need to seize this moment to bring pressure to bear for legislators at all levels of government to take action that will make the likelihood of another Newtown, Columbine, Aurora or (fill in the blank) happening again. Groups like Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the Violence Policy Center and Ceasefire PA are great sources of the latest actions and information available. We can’t just sit on this one; we need to let our voices be heard.

The Dark Night/Knight Rises: Aurora, Guns and American Culture

Columbine, Virginia Tech, Fort Hood, Tucson, now Aurora. Add to this the dozens of school shootings in the last few years, and the shootings that take place almost daily in numerous urban communities. Have we lost our minds as a culture? What happened in Aurora is a tragedy of huge proportions, but our failure to act to these and previous shootings, speaks to a deeper sickness at the heart of our culture.

What happened Thursday night/Friday morning in the Aurora, CO movie theater is lunacy. This goes way beyond Second Amendment Rights. How does a 24 year old neuroscience PhD student legally buy an assault rifle, a 12 gauge shot gun and two Glock pistols? What justification is there for a young man with no military or police training to obtain weapons whose only purpose is to fight in war? What keeps our legislators from passing common sense gun laws that would require someone buying military-style weapons to undergo an extensive background checks and provide a justification for purchasing such high-powered weapons? We make truck drivers and bus drivers pass a more rigorous test, why not those purchasing high powered weapons?

In spite of incidents like Aurora the mainstream media consistently reports that there is no political will to change anything. The Republicans have been filling their coffers for years with National Rifle Association (NRA) money, and Democrats decided after losing the 2000 presidential race that guns were a non-issue. Despite the rhetoric on the right, the Obama administration have done more for the gun lobby than his card-carrying predecessor. So while the Republicans court the gun lobby, the Democrats spinelessly sit on their hands. (See article "For Democrats, Guns Are Bad Politics")

The media line that there isn’t political will in the country for gun control is an oversimplification. Consistently, polls show that when asked, a significant majority of people in the U.S. prefer some sort of gun control, but it’s not a critical issue for most of them, one on which their vote might hinge. However, for ardent gun-enthusiasts, often whipped up by NRA propaganda, “gun rights” as they call them, are such an issue. They often utilize the slippery slope argument – that banning or limiting assault rifles will eventually lead to the abrogation of the right to own any weapon. Moreover, the NRA spends a ton of money, almost more than any other political interest group, to keep legislators at federal and state levels from acting on any proposed gun control legislation. Thus, politicians get pressure and money from the pro-gun lobby, and little push back from those who think we need common sense gun legislation.

However, there is more that goes unnoticed and unspoken. The shooter, James Holmes, obviously dressed up to look like Batman – dark suit, gas mask, bullet proof vest. Reports further indicated that a few years ago he also had a fascination with the Joker character in the previous Batman movies. We like to kid ourselves that the violence that regularly fills our movie, TV and computer screens has no effect on us. It is only when someone goes a little over the edge that we notice the violence that permeates popular culture. James Holmes simply allowed the violence to go too far – but all of us support it, pay for it, and imbibe it.

Despite all the rhetoric about how liberal Hollywood is, the gun industry and the movie industry work hand in hand to assure there is adequate “product placement” in their movies. During the era when Clint Eastwood was creating the “Dirty Harry” movies, sales of the 44 Magnum that he used in those films went through the roof. In fact while officials at Glock won’t publicly admit this, what happened the other night was a boon for their business. Gabrielle Giffords was also shot with a Glock and following her shooting in Tuscon 18 months ago Glock experienced a spike in sales. Let’s not kid ourselves-shootings like Aurora and movies like “The Dark Night Rises” are good for the gun business -  and the gun executives are counting the money as we speak.

While we can shake our heads and wring our hands at what happened the other night, what is needed is a significant change in our culture’s relationship to guns. There have been too many incidents and too many victims for anyone reasonably to call it an “isolated incident.” Now, the NRA will respond with their favorite line: “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” True enough, but people with guns kill more people than those who don’t. On my recent visit to Scotland I talked with folks about the fact that they don’t have gun violence. Guns are not widespread; even most Scottish policemen don’t carry guns. Now they have violence, but the number of fatal victims is far less. Why? Simply because their culture is not captive to guns like ours.

People of conscience can no longer fail to act. It starts with looking within and examining our own fascination with violence. How captive are we to shows like “24”, “Boardwalk Empire” or Batman that ooze with excessive and gratuitous violence? Moreover, what kind of pressure can we put on our state and national legislators to take action to at least limit the kinds of weapons people can buy and the frequency with which they buy them? We can demand that our legislators repeal the Tiahrt Amendment, and conceal and carry laws, while renewing the assault weapons ban. We can demand that our state legislators pass “one gun a month laws” and requirements to report lost or stolen guns (these laws would cut down on the illegal gun trade, the former would limit the legal gun trade.).

These acts are no slippery slope but rather simple steps backing us off the lunacy cliff we as a culture have placed ourselves. Aurora, Tucson, Virginia Tech, Columbine – these will happen again until we, people of conscience, take concerted action. Twelve people have died and hundreds are mourning, but we all are crazy if we fail to act to bring some common sense into the way we as a culture sell, monitor and control the guns that are large.

A Lament for My Republican Friends

In recent weeks, I have had this recurring thought: “Boy, sometimes it must suck to be a Republican.” No one reading this blog on even a sporadic basis would mistake me for a Republican, but some of my friends and perhaps half of my family are. I grew up with parents who were and still are staunch and lifelong Republicans. I can honestly say some of my best friends are Republicans. And in a strange way I feel for them these days.

So what has led to this unconventional political empathy?

Well, the ink hadn’t dried on the Supreme Court’s decision upholding the constitutionality of The Affordable Health Care Act, and Republicans were eviscerating their (now former) hero Justice Roberts for voting with the majority, and proclaiming that one of their main arguing points in the upcoming elections will be dismantling what they derisively call “Obamacare.” I had just returned from Scotland, where everyone has access to free health care (and I might add free college tuition), and thought “how can you be against providing for basic health needs?" They claim we would have to pay a “tax” (their term), and yet if you read the fine print according the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, only 1.2% of the wealthiest Americans would pay the extra fee. So how can people live telling this lie, so that they can’t be against investing in people’s health? What kind of twisted logic does one have to live with in that state?

Republicans say they are for balanced budgets in state and federal governments (which sounds reasonable), but in such an unbalanced way. For example, the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania legislature just passed this year’s budget, and two numbers jumped out at me. The first was $150 million cut from the budget eliminating the “General Assistance Program”, a minimal cash assistance program for the poorest of the poor. The second number was $300 million in tax cuts for the businesses of the state, especially the  cash-rich gas companies drilling in the Marcellus Shelf region. $150 million taken from the poor, while $300 for the corporations – couldn’t we have balanced that out a bit to keep the minimal stipend for the poor and only give the corporations $150 million in tax breaks? Of course then we would have to look at other cuts in public education, health care (there it is again) and basic social services.

Then there is poor Mitt Romney, who says he left Bain Capital in 1999, and yet all the documents say he was in charge until 2002. Apparently in those three years Bain made some decisions that shipped a lot of jobs overseas, which doesn’t look for a guy who says he is an expert at creating jobs. However, I don’t really think it matters because whether he left in 1999 or 2002, I think it’s clear that Romney made his millions making decisions that made lots of money for investors, often at the cost of workers either here or overseas. While the media focuses on the back and forth between Pres. Obama and Candidate Romney on who is the bigger liar, the point is that it was high financiers like Romney and his friends who drove the economy to its current state of collapse, and whether its Goldman Sachs or Morgan Chase or Barclays, the pattern is the same, the leaders made those decisions knowing (1) they would or could hurt the regular investor, while (2) making themselves a whole lot of cash. I must say these guys are really adept at trying to cloud the issue, but the “bottom line” (their favorite phrase) is that they knowingly invested in ways that would benefit themselves, regardless of the cost to others. Those are Mitt’s people, that’s what they do, and he has profited by it, regardless of when he left Bain.

Then there are the other Republican positions on issues that cause me to shake my head, like being against allowing kids brought to this country at a young age and who grew up here to have a pathway to citizenship by way of the Dream Act. Or denying gay couples the right to get married legally. Or dismantling public school systems by defunding them and then blaming the teachers for doing a lackluster job, when in fact time and again it has been shown when schools have adequate resources, up to date materials, and small class sizes the overwhelming majority of kids can succeed. Then there is the fact that Republicans are in the pocket of the National Rifle Association, who oppose any and all gun buying restrictions, when other developed nations who have such restrictions are much safer from gun-related violence, and their hunters still get to go out and shoot. All of these Republican positions seem either ludicrous or just plain inhumane.

Now I know there are arguments for all of these and other Republican positions. However when I explore their views I find they are either logically inconsistent or just plain mean-spirited. My Republican friends and family members are very intelligent, kind and generous people, which is why I feel for them. Now I am sure they must wonder how I can support Obama, which I will say I am lukewarm at best, but only because he has not lived up to his promise. I would have had him go much further on these and other issues than he has gone. And I think the Democrats on the whole have been spineless at times. So feel for me if you will, but my heart goes out to Republicans. How do some of them live with themselves? How transparently greedy and callous does one have to be before he or she looks in the mirror and wonders what you have become?

That’s why I wonder how it must feel to be a Republican; if I were one of them, I would get rid of the mirror, because I wouldn’t want to face myself.

Hunger Games: Trayvon Martin, Racism and Gun Violence

The tragic shooting of 17 year old Trayvon Martin has reached all corners of the nation, and has jolted us back to the realities of racism and violence in our country. Were we to use the words “racism” and “violence” in the same sentence 50 years ago, most likely we would be talking about some Bull Connor-type police officer using clubs and hoses on Civil Rights marchers somewhere in the South, or we would be thinking of race-related violence in one of thousands of communities across the nation, north and south.  By contrast in 2012 this event has inspired “Hoodie Marches” comprised of people of all races and cultures across the nation. Thus, it is worth noting that in the past 50 years such events have gone from being supported by the social and political structures to being the source of moral outrage all the way to the U.S. Congress. Having said that, it is equally important to note that this event points to the persistence of some troubling realities still at the core of our culture.

One of my earliest teachers on racism, James Tillman, pointed out that racial prejudice is based in fear: fear of the “other” and fear of loss of control. Fear coupled with the power to act out that fear against another is often the source of overtly racial acts as was seen in this incident. George Zimmerman, the 28 year old neighborhood watch worker saw Martin on the outskirts of his gated community assumed that Martin, walking home from a corner store, was a threat to him and fired in what he called “self-defense”, when in fact the only thing Martin was “armed” with was the box of Skittles. What is more troubling that in reporting this case, the local police of Sanford, FL covered up the fact that Zimmerman had been ordered by the 911 contact to cease chasing the young man whom he thought was a threat to his community. They didn’t want to become embroiled in the controversy this now has become, forcing the Sanford police captain to temporarily resign.

So why did Zimmerman see Trayvon Martin as a threat? As recorded on the 911 call, apparently it was that he was a young black male wearing a hooded sweatshirt. The image of hooded black males has been drilled into our subconscious as something to be feared, something dangerous, something to defend oneself against. Conrad Moore, another one of my racism teachers, has helped me see that racism is not just about the words we say or the overt behaviors we exhibit, but also the deeply embedded images in our psyches that have been drilled into us by caring parents, popular media, and our educational system. While we may not have shot someone in self-defense, who among us has not at least inwardly flinched when walking down a street or driving in our car, and seen a dark skinned male in a hooded sweatshirt or a dew rag or baggy pants? The reaction is involuntary, and as such is a reminder that despite our rhetoric and professed commitment to racial justice, we carry those images deep inside of us.

However, there is another troubling aspect to this incident that coupled with the unconscious racism made it deadly: the fact that Zimmerman was armed with a gun. Florida law allows an individual to carry a gun in public, and used it in a public setting when they believe they are acting in self-defense.  This law backed by the National Rifle Association was passed in 2005, and allows a person to “stand and fight” rather than simply flee a potentially dangerous confrontation. In essence it allows for the kind of vigilantism exhibited by para-military groups, self-appointed border patrols, and neighborhood watch volunteers like George Zimmerman. In an effort to be balanced I went to the websites of both the NRA and The Gun Owners of America (GOA) to see if they had any public comment on the Trayvon Martin shooting, but there was no comment that I could find. However, if George Zimmerman goes to trial claiming “self-defense,” no doubt the NRA will be right backing him and his right to carry the firearm he did.

This “stand and fight” kind of law, like the silent racism impacting Zimmerman’s actions is also based on fear: fear of being attacked, and fear of the other. That same fear drives young men and women in urban communities to buy illegal guns to protect themselves, their families and their turf; it’s the same fear that drives a young man in Charlton, Ohio to go into a school and shoot up his classmates. And fear coupled with the power to inflict harm on another as we see in the Trayvon Martin case can be deadly.

While it may seem overreaching to claim that all of us are indicted in the Trayvon Martin case, it does seem plausible that this incident should cause us to question the underlying fear that contributes to racial profiling and unnecessary violence. Ironically, as this case goes forward, the movie “Hunger Games” hits the screen, a story of a world where the powers-that-be set children against one another in a violent battle to the death. When one turns on the nightly news to hear school shooting, community violence or tragic cases like Trayvon Martin, Hunger Games does not seem so much just a story. What kind of world have we created and are we creating where young people driven by fear and desire to survive engage in such a battle to the death? Is it all that big a jump to suggest that George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin were caught in their own kind of Hunger game? I wonder.

As long as the stereotypes we carry around in our psyches are left unchallenged, we will be driven by fear. As long as the media and the structures of society divide us along race and class, and set young people against one another in a battle against their own fears, we will be corralled by that fear. As long as we pass legislation that allows people on the street to use firearms against another because they perceive them as a threat, we will have senseless killings. While Trayvon Martin’s death is tragedy in and of itself, it is also a tragic reminder that we as a society and culture have sick fears in our psyches that will continue to lead to senseless deaths, growing fears, and embedded racial strife.

Why Legal Gun Owners Ought to Support Gun Violence Prevention

It has been just over a year since I, along with eleven others, were arrested for our direct action against Colisimo’s Gun Shop. We had focused on Colisimo’s because ATF statistics had indicated that his shop was a major source of illegal guns used in crimes. As it turned out Mr. Colisimo profited greatly from the straw purchasing process that gets illegal guns in to the hands of street criminals, causing harm and fear to many law-abiding citizens in urban neighborhoods. In September the US Attorney agreed with us and shut Mr. Colisimo down. The work of Heeding God’s Call continues as we are now looking to take similar actions against gun sellers in the Philadelphia area and even beyond.

One of the stranger experiences for me over this past year has been the number of legal gun owners who have accused us of wanting to take away their Second Amendment rights to bear arms. Some of these folks have responded to my blogs anonymously or written me private emails with their objections. Putting aside the argument whether that is what the founding fathers actually intended (for now the Supreme Court in its twisted logic seems to believe they did), our issue is not with legal gun owners, but rather with a huge loophole in the gun selling process that allows for legally sold guns to quickly and without retribution get into the hands of people who use those guns in crime. We want common sense laws that say if a person has a gun lost or stolen, they should have to report it to the police. We want to limit the sale of handguns to one per month. That is it.

What I don’t understand is why legal gun owners would oppose such common sense laws. The argument they give, and their NRA sponsors feed them, is the “slippery slope” argument. If we limit handguns, pretty soon, we will want to take their hunting rifles and collector guns as well. Now I will admit, I want to take AK-47’s and other assault rifles off the open market, but I am not out to take away anyone’s right to own a gun. The fallacy of the slippery slope argument is that if there is a slope it’s going the way of gun owners not against them. In the last year Pres. Obama has authorized the carrying of concealed weapons in National Parks and on Amtrak trains - laws that had been in force since the Reagan era. See an MSNBC report from on these developments here.

The fact is all these illegal guns put gun owners in a bad light. Every time there is a shooting, it emphasizes again the lethal nature of our culture. Every time a cop is gunned down, a campus is shot up, or an army base terrorized (as has happened far too often in the past few years), it sends the message that people with guns are a menace to society. Now I don’t necessarily believe that, but I do know that having guns around makes everyone more vulnerable, and people with guns more dangerous. So if I was a legal gun owner, I would want to make sure that people who do such things would be prevented for taking such actions.

Even using the pro-gun argument that handguns provide security, wouldn’t it make sense to keep guns out of the hands of those who should not have them? If a gun is “stolen” or “lost” (the strawbuyer’s thinly veiled excuse for not having a gun they bought and sold to another), shouldn’t it be reported for the safety of all involved? If the pro-gun lobby is so concerned about safety, why not support efforts to keep us all safe?

Now for many I realize the issue is not just safety but also the “freedom” to own and purchase a gun. However freedom comes with responsibility, and while I trust that most gun owners are responsible, to pass common sense laws for the benefit of a whole community is also part of that responsibility. Responsible gun owners don’t keep loaded guns lying around their homes, so why do we allow illegal loaded guns in our communities? Responsible gun owners keep guns out of the hands of those not mature enough or stable enough to use them, so why do we have laws that allow such people to have guns in our neighborhoods?

Now I realize is that this issue will never be won by logic alone. For gun owners to rail against a group trying to stop gun shops that participate in straw purchasing defies logic. For gun owners to object to laws that will not limit them, but make it more difficult for illegal guns to get on the street, defies logic. When the slippery slope argument is used or when the NRA says that such laws will limit freedom, they aren’t spouting rational arguments, they are appealing to gun owners' fears that someone will take their gun away; for many gun owners the issue isn’t about logic but stirred up emotions. Furthermore, as I have said elsewhere in this blog, there is something deeply embedded in American culture that make the right to own guns as patriotic as mom and apple pie.

I am reminded of the Bob Dylan song “Blowing in the Wind” made popular years ago by Peter, Paul and Mary. While the song was a statement about the devastation of war, there is a line in there that speaks to our current struggle over the sale and use of guns

“How many deaths will it take 'til he knows that too many people have died?”

That’s the question that drives me and many others in the gun violence prevention movement to keep at it. Legal gun owners, if they thought straight about it, would and should join our efforts.

Reflections on the Closing of a Gun Shop

On Wednesday, September 30, Colismo’s Gun Shop on Spring Garden St. in Philadelphia closed its doors for the last time. Once ranked by the Brady Campaign as the fifth worst gun shop in the country when it came to allowing straw purchases of illegal guns, this was a major victory for the gun violence prevention movement in Philadelphia. On September 22 while a group of us from Heeding God’s Call were meeting to plot our next move against Mr. Colisimo and other gun shops, the U.S. Attorney’s office was finalizing its case against Mr. Colisimo and on that afternoon, they charged him with making false statements and failing to keep accurate records with regard to straw purchases. The next day, September 23, Mr. Colisimo’s attorney announced that he would plead guilty to the charges and that the store would close. Those of us from Heeding God’s Call had no prior knowledge that such action was being taken. Over the next few days there were several articles and op-ed pieces celebrating Colisimo’s closing and praising of “religious activists.” We were surprised and elated, and our efforts were vindicated.

As one of those activists, I have been prompted by these events to reflect on what all of this means for the faith community and the gun violence prevention movement, and how God may be working in and through our efforts. From very early on I (along with several others) have had the sense that the gun shops such as Colisimo’s are merely the most visible expression of a hideous and distorted spirit of violence at the heart of North American culture. At our trial in May I spoke about the incongruity and tragic irony that the city’s district attorney and the police department put efforts into arresting us and thereby protecting an illegal gun dealer like Mr. Colisimo. Only a twisted sort of logic would move the city officials to pursue charges against us when their own officers were being killed with these illegal guns ( five in the last 2 years) and who every day were called into situations where illegal guns were in play. Such experiences convinced me that we are contending not just against isolated individuals buying and selling illegal guns, but with a system under the influence of what both sociologists and theologians called institutional “powers” - an indication that the these systems have taken on a mind and life of their own, and are at their heart are evil.

At the heart of these twisted powers is the National Rifle Association (NRA)and the gun manufacturers, such as Smith & Wesson, and Beretta (just to name two). Throughout the period where we were taking action against Colisimo’s, we never heard or saw any concrete indication of the NRA’s influence, and yet we could sense it just below the surface. Moreover, during the same period while we were picketing and protesting in front of Colisimos, the NRA was able to influence the passage of a bill that allowed guns to be carried into National Parks, reaffirmed the Tiahrt Amendment that restricts the dissemination of information to the public about illegal guns sales, and bullied a number of politicians (including Pres. Obama) into not passing a federal ban on the buying and selling of assault rifles. They have even sought to discredit local politicians that have come out in favor of the Mayor’s Code of Conduct that we asked Mr. Colisimo to sign. If the NRA were truly on the side of responsible gun ownership, one would think they would support a bill such has been proposed that requires individuals to report when a gun they own has been lost or stolen. Yet, at every turn the NRA has been at work to oppose any and every law seeking to regulate the sale of guns, and have bullied and lied their way through the public arena.

I am overjoyed that after only eight months of modest pressure and publicity, we were able to contribute to the closing of one nefarious gun shop, but I am also aware that this victory, is only one small step. I have received words of praise from a variety of people and places, some of them quite unexpected, and all greatly appreciated. However, I, like all of us at the heart of this effort, am acutely aware that our work will not be done until children can play in city parks and on neighborhood sidewalks without their parents fearing for their safety.

We will not be done until those persons all up and down the straw purchasing process are “outed’ and made accountable for their greed and lack of civility.

We will not be done until the NRA members turn on their own leadership and challenge them to be on the side of real safety and sanity, and not allow their numbers and money to be a cover for the gun manufacturers’ complicity in the illegal gun market.

We will not be done until politicians, including our Nobel Peace Prize winning president, are willing to take a stand against the NRA and refuse to trade their character in for political contributions.

We will not be done until the cultural link is broken between freedom, patriotism and gun ownership.

For this reason people of faith who care about safety, who deplore violence and who believe we serve a God on the side of social justice, must step up and move out against the powers of violence at the heart of our culture. Through my involvement in this movement, I have seen and heard some dreadful and depressing stories, but I have also met countless courageous people living in violent neighborhoods who continue to pray, march and work for peace on their streets. Likewise, I have met committed folks from outside the cities and violent places, who have taken this cause on as if it were their own. The spirit that holds us together, I choose to call the Spirit of God; others might name it some other way. What is clear is that we are engaged in a struggle of universal proportions that requires as many voices and hands as can be gathered.

Hope and the Culture of Violence

Over the last several months leading up to my arrest in front of Colisimos gun shop and then the five months after that leading up to my trial, I have been made acutely aware of how deeply embedded violence is in U.S. culture. While I was already quite aware of the role violence plays in our culture, being involved in an effort to stop the flow of illegal guns has shown me how irrational the arguments of the NRA and the gun lobby can be. I have come to see more clearly that the struggle in which we are involved has touched a nerve deeply rooted in our cultural DNA. J. Denny Weaver (Anabaptist Theology in the Face of Postmodernity, 2000) has shown how from the very beginning of our nation there has been a clear belief in the link between freedom and guns. A simple search on Google or YouTube of “Freedom and Guns” reveals how prevalent such a belief still is today. In a recent NY times op-ed piece Bob Herbert even suggests that the recent shootings in the Holocaust Museum, Pittsburgh and Wichita, are linked to the NRA-inspired surge in gun purchases since Obama’s election, out of fear that Obama will impose stricter gun control laws.

However, I think the issue goes far deeper than guns or the NRA. We on the progressive end of the political spectrum are as culpable the conservatives we like to lambaste. While the murder of abortion doctor George Tiller was an expression of violence gone wild, so too are the daily abortions he and others like him commit. While the violence on our streets is a concern, so should be the thousands of murders we witness on our favorite TV shows and movies. While we rightly decry violence against police officers in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and other major cities, what about the violence against innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan that is unfortunately (we say) a part of our military strategy? What kind of culture makes it more attractive for poor inner city kids to choose the military and the possibility of dying in war to the staying in their neighborhood and facing the possibility of dying in that neighborhood? While we are not alone in the world as violent, dangerous place, how many weapons large and small are manufactured here and sold to be used in those other places? We wonder about how certain criminals can be so inhumane, and then we put them into a criminal justice system that is so violence-saturated that often people come out more violent than when they went in.

Sadly, religion, especially Christianity, has been a contributing factor to this culture. The pogroms against Jews, the enslavement of Africans and subsequent systematized racism that followed, and the virtual elimination of millions of Native Americans – all by Christian (Protestant and Catholic) Europeans – testify to the debilitating and denigrating role religion has played in the perpetuation of violence against others. A simple YouTube or Google search of “God and Guns” reveals how alive that link still is today. The absurdity of this link was taken to an extreme recently in a Kentucky church that actually had a worship service dedicated to allowing people to openly carry their handguns.

This culture of violence is literally killing us directly and indirectly. We are painfully aware of the direct cost of violence as we watch the evening news. However, Dan Groody (Globalization, Spirituality and Justice, 2007)illustrates the indirect cost by talking what military spending could be used for. If the world redirected its military spending for one day, malaria in Africa could be eliminated. Two days spending could provide the health services to prevent 3 million infant deaths a year. A week's spending could provide education for 140 million children in the developing world. When we examine these costs of violence, we have to ask: what must change?

While the United States is not alone in its addiction to violence, it is too easy for us to either rationalize it, feel overwhelmed by it, or try to simply deny it. Professor John Horgan routinely confronts fatalism in his students regarding the inevitability of war. My guess that a poll of most Americans would reveal that while they favor limits on gun purchases, they are resigned to the fact that the laws probably will never change, and that those of us who try to fight the NRA and the gun lobby are like Don Quixote tilting at windmills. Certainly there is good reason for skepticism when common sense laws get thrown about courts, as happened in Philadelphia this week. There is reason for despair when a “one handgun a month" law can’t get passed in PA, but the Congress can pass a law allowing people to carry concealed weapons into national parks. There is reason for frustration when those in the pro-gun lobby continually create confusion and fear by stating that attempts to control the sale of any guns, is tantamount to control the sale of all guns.

There is no question that our cultural addiction to violence remains strong, and yet I remain imminently hopeful not only that gun laws will change, but that we are at a time when the futility of violence and the absurdity of the gun lobby’s arguments are showing them for what they are. I am hopeful because there are many countries in the world, especially Europe and parts of Asia, where societies carry on quite civilly without the need to show bravado through violence.

I remain hopeful because a change in our culture’s addiction to violence will either consume itself or we will change.

I have hope because I believe in a God of Justice and a God of history.

I have hope because I I believe with Paulo Freire that change is difficult, but it can happen.

I remain hopeful because as I study the movements for social change such as happened with civil rights and against nuclear arms, I can see there was a time when it seemed that things would never change. And yet today we have a black man as president who talks about his commitment to abolishing all nuclear weapons; who would've thunk it?.

I remain hopeful because our cause is right and just, and stands on the side of Truth and “Truth crushed to earth is still truth and like a seed will rise again” (Martin Luther King, Jr.).

Taking on The Gun Lobby: David and Goliath

This week approximately 300 people from across the county will gather in Philadelphia for a peace conference entitled “Heeding God’s Call: A Gathering on Peace." Sponsored by the historic peace churches (Quaker, Mennonite and Brethren), the stated purpose is “to strengthen our witness and work for peace in the world by inspiring hope, raising voices, taking action.” The conference organizers hope that participants will not only leave the conference with encouragement and inspiration, but also have developed concrete plans for addressing the needs for peace, justice and reconciliation in the war torn places of the world. While the focus of the event is largely in international, I was part of a small group folks early on who advocated that we also needed to address the gun violence at home taking place on our city streets. I felt we could not address the wars abroad without also taking on the war at home.

So,on Saturday, January 17, the conference will conclude with a gathering of
1500-2000 people of faith from across the Philadelphia metropolitan area demonstrating in front of a gun shop named Colisimos that is notorious for selling handguns that have end up killing and seriously wounding hundreds of people, mostly young people, in Philadelphia and surrounding communities. We have asked Colismos to sign a Code of Conduct that has been endorsed by the Mayor’s office and has been signed by Walmart, the leading gun retailer in the country. The purpose of the Code of Conduct is to ask the gun dealer to take common sense steps to reduce the likelihood of guns getting illegally into the hands of criminals. If you live in the Philadelphia area I encourage you to join us. You can get more information at http://www.peacegathering2009.org/saturday-witness/take-action.

However, beyond the action we are taking on Saturday, this event is an effort by a number of Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders to say to the people of Philadelphia that there is hope that deaths and injury due to gun violence can be reduced. This past year Philadelphia has seen a 15% decrease in homicides due to gun, but only a 3%drop in violent crimes over all. We can do better as the current death rate is still about one per day, and this event is saying we will do better.

This action is saying to our elected officials that we should pass common sense legislation that will significantly reduce the presence of unregistered guns on our streets: Legislation like the “One Handgun a Month” law that limits the purchases of one handgun every month. Legislation like the “Lost or Stolen” bill which requires a gun owner to report a gun to be lost or stolen within 24 hours of discovering that loss or theft. Legislation like can be found in New Jersey that requires extensive background checks on potential gun owners, so that guns do not get into the hands of unstable or irresponsible people, unlike the cursory background checks that are done in states like Pennsylvania.

These bills are designed to inhibit the process referred to as “straw buying.” Straw buyers are individuals with no criminal records who are hired by underground gun dealers to purchase guns on their behalf. The guns are registered in the straw buyer’s name, but quickly transferred to the underground dealer and then sold under the table to other people, many of whom are under the age 18 and/or have prior criminal offenses. When that gun is used in a violent crime and traced back to the straw buyers, if they say it was “lost” or “stolen” they face no criminal charges. By making the process of straw buying a more serious offense with even the threat of jail time, these bills are would impede and discourage the would be straw buyers, and reduce the flow of unregistered and illegal guns.

However, beyond even bringing hope to those victimized by violence and changing gun laws, our hope is to challenge National Rifle Association who see any effort to control the sales of guns, even illegal guns, as somehow limiting their Second Amendment rights. When I explain the proposed bills many people why it has been so hard to pass these bills. Very simply it is because the NRA fills the campaign coffers of elected officials and stirs up fear among legal gun owners by characterizing any attempt to limit gun sales an issue of curbing patriotic rights. The propsed bills have no bearing on legal gun owners, but are designed to discourage illegal sales.

This action is also a challenge to the gun manufacturers themselves, who profit handily through the sale of illegal and unregistered guns. The legal gun market is basically saturated, and so the “growth market” for guns is the underground market. The gun industry has been largely shielded by the Bush Administration from any prosecution but with a new president, there is hope for a new and more just approach.

Those who have planned this event (I have played only a minor role) recognize that the culture of violence that has gripped our society from the White House to the Pentagon to the city streets to the rural areas will not be changed by one conference or one civic demonstration. So we are committed to work beyond Saturday mobilize our churches, synagogues, mosques, community groups and legislatures so that a new spirit and a new attitude toward guns and violence can be fostered in our hearts and in our community.

I invite you to join us this week and covet your prayers. At times this struggle seems a bit like the Biblical story of young David taking on Goliath. The NRA and the gun lobby are powerfuls force, and we who are opposing them are small by comparison. However, as I recall, size and power did not prevail that day on the Philistine plain, and so I/we go forth in hope, and the expectation that peace can and will prevail.

Plaxico Burress and the Gun Laws

As a Philadelphia Eagles fan who by nature should take delight in any mishaps befalling opposing teams like the New York Giants, I should take some pleasure in seeing Giants star receiver Plaxico Burress being charged with illegal possession of a handgun after accidentally shooting himself in a nightclub. However, not only would such a reaction reveal a sick delight in another’s demise, but also would mask a much deeper sadness that grips me about the Burress event.

Burress shot himself in the leg with a loaded gun when he tried to grab it as it slid down inside of his sweatpants. At the time he was in an upscale night club in midtown Manhattan – not exactly a place where shootings generally occur. However, because Burress’ gun was not purchased legally (i.e. he did not have a permit to carry the gun), he is now facing 3 ½ years in jail for the possession of an illegal weapon. According to New York City law, the penalty for carrying an unlicensed gun carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 3 ½ years, the same minimum penalty as one would get for burglarizing a home. Before the law was enacted in 2006, Burress would have gotten a slap on the wrist and a year of probation for his act; now the stakes are higher.

Yet for me there is yet another depressing side to the story, which is how Burress got the gun and from whom. Currently, I am working with a group of folks planning an action in January to highlight the huge loopholes in Pennsylvania gun laws that allow for the illegal purchases of guns like Burress made. Right now in my state, illegal guns are largely secured through a process known as “straw purchasing.”

Here’s how the process works. An underground gun dealer, who is often a convicted felon and has served time, hires someone to purchase guns for him/her. This hired person is called a “straw purchaser.” The purchaser can buy as many guns as possible at one time, and so usually buys several. A simple background check is done, and if the person has no major crimes on his/her record, the purchase can be completed in less than 45 minutes. Once outside the store, the straw purchaser hands over the guns to the underground dealer for a commission, and the guns are untraceable to the new owner, the underground dealer. Those guns are then sold on the streets to petty criminals as well as law abiding citizens like Burress. If the gun is used in a crime, and the gun is traced back to the straw purchaser, they can simply say they lost the gun or that it was stolen, and no further questions are asked and no penalties are given.

The group I am working with is seeking to promote two laws. The first would limit handgun sales to one gun a month (thus restricting the bulk buying practice). The second law would require that anyone who has a handgun lost or stolen would be required to report that loss to police within 24 hours of discovering the loss or theft. Failure to do so would bring anywhere from a $500 fine up to 5 years in prison. The intention of this bill is to significantly discourage the process of straw purchasing. Similar laws passed in New Jersey and New York state have significantly reduced the straw purchasing practice in those states, with the result being that Pennsylvania has become a major supplier of illegal handguns to those and other surrounding states, as well as it own. Most often when violent criminals are caught they are found to be using these guns, so that passage of these laws is a key to reducing violent crime.

Despite the fact that Governor Ed Rendell, mayors and representatives of all Pennsylvania’s major cities, and most city police chiefs support these laws, they have not been able to get sufficient support. The major reason is that outstate representatives whose constituencies contain many hunters and gun collectors have not come on board, even though the proposed laws have nothing to do with hunting rifles or collector guns. Behind this resistance is a major effort by the National Rifle Association (NRA) to obfuscate the issue by claiming any gun laws limit legal gun owner’s rights and using phrases like “guns don’t kill people, people do.” So the NRA has poured tons of money into the political coffers of these representatives, thus binding them to the NRA position and blinding them to a simple set of laws that could reduce death if not violent crime. Behind the NRA are the gun manufacturers themselves who know that the illegal market is a huge business opportunity they can not afford to lose. Am I implying that the NRA and the gun manufacturer’s are complicit in the illegal market? Absolutely, I think their actions are criminal.

However what is sad in the Burress case is how far the illegal market spreads. Burress is a multimillion dollar athlete who can not only purchase a gun legally, but also can afford to hire bodyguards if he feels threatened (which is a reality for many celebrities). Yet for whatever reason, he chose to go on the underground market; and he is not the only one. The illegal gun market issue reaches the highest levels of society, and reveals not only our duplicity about the gun issue, but also how wedded we are to resolving conflicts violently. Furthermore, it reveals how far gun company corporate executives will go to make a buck. And it is shameful.

So as I watch the Eagles play the Giants I take no joy in Plaxico Burress’ absence, even though every time he plays, he burns my home team. His absence will create a hole of sadness in me for a world gone mad, and a society unwilling to take the practical, necessary steps to keep people from needlessly hurting and killing themselves through the use of illegal guns.

For more information on current efforts to change gun laws in Pennsylvania, go to Ceasefire Pennsylvania. For information about national efforts to change gun laws, and to learn about laws in other states go to Freedom States Alliance