A Message from Our President on Gun Violence in America

In Alabama, four young people were murdered and fifteen teenagers were injured by a gunman who turned a Sweet Sixteen birthday party into a bloodbath. In Tennessee, a Christian school was targeted by an armed assailant who murdered three nine-year olds and three staff.  In Missouri, a sixteen-year old was shot twice when he mistakenly knocked on the door of the wrong house to pick up his siblings. In New York, a twenty-year old was shot and killed after she mistakenly pulled into the wrong driveway while looking for a friend’s house. In Kentucky, a twenty-five year old man walked into the bank where he was employed with an AR-15 style rifle, murdered five colleagues and injured eight others. Just days later, in the same city of Louisville, Kentucky, two others were fatally shot and four others injured by a gunman in one of the city’s parks.

      Sadly, this hardly scratches the surface of the violence, pain and death wrought by people with guns in America over just the last forty-five days. Just this week, we’ve seen mass shooting events in Alabama and the Mojave Desert. Heartbreak after heartbreak. 

Covenant School parent Sarah Neumann receives a hug from Rep. Justin Pearson, D-Memphis as he visits the gallery of the House chamber Thursday, April 6, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

The gun violence we have seen as a nation is at odds with the law and love of God. It reflects not a series of isolated incidents, but a cultural sickness. We are too quick to resort to violence, and we too easily justify violence. We are too comfortable with violence, and too confident in our ability to wield it well. We consider it a greater risk to be caught vulnerable than to sin and violate the commandment of God that we shall not kill.

      I do not write here to offer a final word on what national, state and local policies are necessary (I do serve as an advisor to 97 Percent, a nonpartisan organization that promotes gun safety policies), but to offer a more general appeal: the American people deserve and need to see the political process substantively, constructively respond to the problem of gun violence. 

      Not all policy reforms are equal, and all deserve real debate. However, we should be attentive to the motivations behind objections to a policy response: do the objections rise to the moment? Do they reflect the kind of priorities we wish to have as a nation and as a people? 

      In recent months, we have seen a number of leaders step up to advocate for substantive policy change, including many Christians. Former Senator Bill Frist recognizes the need for a new appraisal in an op-ed this week:

This demands a fresh look, free of past biases and partisan tones which have ruled so much of our earlier discussions and debate. These honest revaluations should be carried out in local communities, in homes and at schools, civic gatherings, and places of faith, and likely will include changes in the larger policy framework in response to these new tragic realities.

       I share Dr. Frist’s hope that “we have an opportunity to depoliticize and more civilly and rationally respond to this fundamental, growing disease tearing at our social fabric.” I also appreciate his understanding that this disease will not be solved by policy change alone.

(AP Photo/George Walker IV)

      The availability of guns is tied to, but does not fully answer, why so many in our society are prepared to use guns to kill human beings, made in the image of God. This readiness to harm certainly has something to do with the degradation, the dehumanization, of other human beings. I am struck by how many recent shootings seem to be expressions of personal grievances and hatreds. We must insist again that people are responsible for their own actions, and that even justified feelings do not justify the perpetuation of harm or the use of violence.  

      This violence demands a response. We must seek to be patient with one another, with fellow citizens. I fear that hateful political rhetoric, even in the name of peace, only contributes to the culture of violence we seek to upend. Yet, as we seek to be patient with one another, there can be no patience afforded gun violence. The absence left by those who have died as a result of gun violence cries out for a response. We must not choose between a political response or a spiritual one. Both our hearts and our politics must respond to the moment. For this we must pray and work.