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Page 14
January 19, 2011
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How Many children Will it Take?
When handguns
lead to death
and destruction
by T om H.
H astings
C hristina Taylor
Green is a message
spirit. She arrived on
Earth on Sept. 11,
2001, a day when ter­
rorists armed with no
more than boxcutters
turned jet airliners into guided mis­
siles and slaughtered almost 3,000
people, mostly civilians.
Indeed, she was one of the ba­
bies featured in a book, Faces of
Hope, that looked at one baby from
each of the United States bom on
that day. The third-grader had been
elected to her Mesa Verde elemen­
tary school student council and was
at the meet-up for congresswoman
Gabrielle Giffords with a neighbor
adult, Susan Hileman. The two were
holding hands when gunfire erupted
on Jan. 8.
For me, this child's death engen­
ders the question. How many chil­
dren will it take?
How many children will it take
before the Rush Lim baughs and
Sarah Palins stand down from vio­
lent imagery and rhetoric? Would
it be so hard for them to find lan­
guage that doesn't evoke killing,
shooting and crosshairs? How de­
bilitating to their effective­
ness could it be?
Do they believe they would
lose followers if they honored
the spirit of this child and ab­
jured such language? Do they
need the kind of followers who
only respond to that imagery?
How many children will it take?
How many before those who de­
fend the Second Amendment finally
agree that it doesn't apply to hand­
guns, and if it does, it's time to repeal
it? Ah, they say, guns don't kill
people, people kill people. Yes, but
it seems that when given the option,
murderers seem to choose hand­
guns, don't they?
Christina was not in fact stabbed,
nor was she bombed, nor was she
rundown by a malicious driver. She
was shot. That was the weapon of
choice. A knife-wielding assassin
would simply never have been able
to kill six and wound 14 more. In a
knife attack upon a public figure,
Christina would almost certainly
have been a survivor.
Bombs are already outlawed. And
how many times each year do m ur­
derers run a car into a crowd of
people, killing six and injuring so
many? We are not going to outlaw
cars, since they are not designed to
murder and since they transport us
to work, to school, to shop, etc.
But handguns are different. Yes,
hunters, I see your hands. I am not
suggesting your rifles are part of
this conversation. Just handguns,
and that is what most of us who
want to outlaw guns are talking
about.
Outlaw handguns. What is so
sacred about them? Really?
Who could be against the life of
Christina Taylor Green? Or how
about the 500 or more children who
are killed accidentally by guns an­
nually in the US? Well, you say, I
keep my handgun locked. Sure, and
do you inspect the homes where
your child might go? Should the
parents of 4-year old Dylan Jackson
have swept the home where their
child was at a birthday party, where
he found a gun, picked it up and
innocently shot himself dead in the
chest?
W ell, to paraphrase M adeleine
Albright in the late 1990s when
asked if the thousands o f Iraqi
children dying every year because
o f the deadly sanctions program
kept out many crucial m edicines,
"We think it's worth the price." Is
that what handgun lovers believe?
That without their handguns, the
com m unist M uslim Obam a gov­
ernm ent would take away their
freedom s? Seriously? That, after
all, is the stated reason for the
Second Am endm ent, to prevent
the governm ent from infringing
on the people.
Since the US leads the so-called
developed world in gun deaths per
hundred thousand citizens, I guess
we can safely say it's just lucky we
have that Second Amendment, so
we aren't oppressed like the Canadi­
ans, Scots, Finns and Japanese, all
of whom have far lower rates of gun
deaths than do we. I guess they are
just too protective of their little chil­
dren, willing to give up liberties to
keep them alive. Oh, that's right, the
only liberties they give up are the
gun rights.
Guns are how we murder in the
US (a higher rate amongst the na­
tions studied than any except Co­
lombia, even higher than Guatemala
in terms of percent of murders com­
mitted by guns) and how we commit
suicide.
They make it easy. We like it
easy, and the stories of hurt and
killed children have not dented the
gun lovers. 16,907 suicides in the
US in 2004 were by gun, many of
them by teenagers temporarily de­
spondent and highly unlikely to end
their lives in any other way.
But there was a gun available, as
there was when more than 50,000
lost their lives in the US to guns last
year, and the year before, and the
year before...even box cutters and
jetliners can't approach those m or­
tality numbers.
Really, gun lovers, just be hon­
est. The lives of these children just
don't matter much to you once we
start talking about the sacred right
to own your handgun, eh? Appar­
ently, there is no number, no story
of unspeakable tragedy, no little
face that can pierce the armor you
have around your love for your
handguns. I get that. What I don't
get is why the rest of us allow it to
remain law and public policy.
Tom H. Hastings is director o f
Peacevoice, a program o f the Or­
egon Peace Institute.
Sticks and Stones to Guns and Bullets
Taking
responsibility
for the ways
we interact
so she wanted to meet her Con­
gresswoman; a young leader whose
life was cut short by tragedy in a
shopping mall in Tucson, Ariz.
Our thoughts and prayers go out
to her parents and extended family
who so courageously spoke of her
innocent and hopeful
by R ev . M. L inda J aramillo
spirit. We cannot help
Christina Taylor Green was
but grieve the loss of
bom on Sept. 11,2001; she was
our children’s inno­
nine years old when she was
cence.
shot and killed on Jan. 7,2011.
“Sticks and stones
Christina’s is the Arizona face
can break my bones,
in the book. Faces of Hope that but words will never hurt me.” I
included one baby from each state remember this phrase from my child­
bom on that fateful day almost 10 hood; it was how we responded to
years ago.
someone who was calling us names,
Today her beautiful smile is on putting us down, or just being mean.
the front page of newspapers and at While this response was a way to
the center of television screens deflect the pain, it did not really help
around the world. Christina had just because words did hurt; we just
been elected to her student council pretended that they didn’t.
l l o
r t l a
n
b
( r i h
s
t r b
f r
Today’s children are no differ­
ent, words still hurt them, but the
sticks and stones have turned into
guns and bullets.
D uring sad tim es like these, we
can ’t help but be angry or lose
hope for the future. Everyday, we
hear voices seem ingly intent on
proving that anyone who d is­
agrees with “our” point o f view is
wrong and should be silenced.
M ost will agree that we live in a
time when our profound differ­
ences of opinion are escalating
from words to much more violent
expressions - from sticks and
stones to guns and bullets.
Words can be influential instru­
ments of hate and anger that can
lodge in the hearts and minds of
those who are focused on destruc­
tion and despair. Words can also be
powerful sources of encouragement
Established 1970
meant for good and kind purposes.
The power of suggestion is far more
significant than any one of us wants
to admit. We must not underesti­
mate the potential that words have
to be used as sticks and stones..... or
guns and bullets.
While our leaders set the example
for appropriate and civil behavior,
we cannot simply blame our public
officials for the culture of hostility in
which we live. Each one of us must
take responsibility for the ways in
which we interact. As adults, we
should provide the example to our
children on how to resolve differ­
ences without violence.
Ironically Ju st a few days follow­
ing the Tucson tragedy, we ob­
served the birthday of Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr., a public leader who
walked among us pleading for a
nonviolent response to injustice.
His words ring so true today, “Dark­
ness cannot drive out darkness;
only light can do that. Hate cannot
drive out hate; only love can do
that.”
Regardless of our own perspec­
tive on any issue, let’s fin J ways to
disagree and even get angry, with­
out resorting to violence. Other­
wise our children will see only hate,
darkness, and despair rather than
love, light and hope.
As we grieve and search for an­
swers to this shooting tragedy, let’s
remind ourselves that we can and
must participate in transforming our
current culture of violence to one of
care and kindness. Our children
deserve nothing less.
Rev. M. Linda Jaramillo is an
executive minister in Justice Min­
istries fo r the United Church of
Christ.
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