Crosses in Memory of the Children and Teachers Murdered in the Mass Shooting at Robb Elementary School
It has been a little over a week since the horrific mass shooting left 19 children and two teachers dead at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, TX. Since then we have seen many expressions of love and support for the families and larger Uvalde community devastated and traumatized by this murderous rampage. Less than two weeks before that, similar outpourings were seen in Buffalo, NY where 10 people were murdered in a racially motivated mass shooting there. Just this week at least 4 people were murdered in a mass shooting at a medical building in Tulsa, OK. Each of these tragedies is unique yet all of them have something in common, the killer used an AR-15 assault rifle. What they also have in common is that the response by congress does not yet include renewing the ban on assault rifles that was in place from 1994-2004.
When mass shootings occurred in several other industrialized countries over the last two decades, the responses by their national governments were swift and effective. Australia which has a history of frontier culture that supports gun ownership provides a powerful example. After a mass shooting in 1996 left 35 people dead in Port Arthur, the government led by a newly elected conservative Prime Minister took action that banned assault weapons. The result has been a dramatic decrease in gun related violence that is directly related to this change in the law. The legislators refused to pretend that guns were not at the heart of the problem. The video posted below tells the story of the Port Arthur killings and the government action that followed. One person featured in the video is the mother of a teenaged girl who was killed. When asked what she would say to people in America in light of our refusal to take similar action, she posed the haunting question, “How is that going for you over there?” The answer seems obvious as the death toll mounts each week. As a person of faith, I believe that prayer is a powerful resource for our lives and communities. Yet it is not a substitute for taking action to change laws that prioritize guns over people. At its best prayer deepens our love of God and our neighbors and motivates us to demand changes that truly prioritize people over guns. Its past time to put our prayers into action.