Editorial: Dump the toxic brew creating gun violence

CAUTION: The contents of this editorial may be disturbing to some readers.

Gun violence is the asphyxiating fumes of a toxic brew. Our response to it has been anemic, at best.

What is this toxic brew? It’s not any one thing but is a cauldron of misplaced values, disregard for others, materialism, lust for violence, entitlement, hatred, suspicion, fear, illness and more. Rather than dumping out the pot, we hurl slogans: “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.”

Slogans are a dodge from our shared responsibility. To say, “People kill people,” is to gloss over the fact a person with an AR-15 can kill more people more quickly and efficiently than someone with a pistol. We shouldn’t shirk our responsibility to deal with the shooter and the gun.

Such slogans also belie the fact guns really can kill you, just as so many other dangerous and regulated things can. The difference is those other dangerous things don’t have a Second Amendment protecting them. Nor do they have our slogans: “Fentanyl doesn’t kill people. People kill people.”

Another oft-repeated refrain—“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun”—may evoke visions of American military victories and Old West justice, both of which we love. Nevertheless, it cedes the terms of the fight to the “bad guy.”

When we let the “bad guy” set the terms, we’ve already lost. It’s time for the “good guys” to set the terms. But this means we have to be clear about who are the “good guys.”

Defining “good” and “bad”

When we divide the world into “good guys” and “bad guys,” we naturally designate ourselves as the “good.” But this is to turn a blind eye to how we are involved in the “bad.” We may not have pulled the trigger, but we are part of the toxic brew.

We are among those who have spread or encouraged demeaning views of other people. We are among those who can’t seem to get enough of violence. We are among those who demand our rights like the prodigal son calling for his inheritance early.

During his appearance on Fox News Sunday with Shannon Bream, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott laid responsibility for the May 6 mass shooting at the Allen Outlet Mall on mental health. He said people want a short-term solution—alluding to gun regulation—but what’s needed is the long-term solution of addressing mental health.

Abbott is partly right. We do need to address mental health, and we need all hands on deck. But it will be a tough row to hoe, because Abbott’s long-term solution will require nothing less than a cultural 180 in how we think about mental health. For we are among those who have belittled and underfunded mental health. Long-term solution, indeed.

Alongside mental health

Alongside addressing mental health, we need legislative action addressing gun access. We’re currently headed toward one of two possibilities—a continuing arms race with the “bad guys” or imposing a police state. We don’t want either of these.

During the summer after my sophomore year in high school—and two years after the U.S. apprehension of Manuel Noriega—my church’s youth choir went to Panama on a mission trip. Armed guards were outside businesses all over Panama City, their guns at the ready.

We stopped for lunch at a McDonald’s—as Americans are wont to do—and as we ate our hamburgers, a guard stood directly behind us holding a shotgun. As is obvious, that made an impression on me.

The same is true at the Texas Capitol this session, where Texas DPS officers are posted throughout the complex, one officer in each pair or group with an assault rifle at the ready. The message is clear: We aren’t safe, not if it takes another AR-15—or two or 10—to save us.

This is not the sort of society we want to live in in the United States or anywhere.

The other possibility—a never-ending arms race in which the “good guys” constantly are trying to stay ahead of the “bad guys”—should be just as untenable to us. There is an upper limit to that race—the stuff superpowers fret over—and to think we are willing to reach for that limit is proof we’re in a toxic brew.

There must be and can be a short-term and long-term solution to gun violence that doesn’t require us to aim for utopia and end up in the dirt.

During the most recent Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board meeting, my friend Pastor Paul Kim addressed his fellow board members with a question he shouldn’t have had to ask.

In his opening remarks, he shouldn’t have had to remember the lives of three Korean American Texas Baptists killed May 6 at the Allen Outlet Mall. He shouldn’t have had to remind Texas Baptists about our commitment to the sanctity of life.

Furthermore, it shouldn’t have been the responsibility of someone from the Korean American community—or Uvalde or other mass shooting survivor community—to ask something so simple. It should have been all of us asking: “Can we as Texas Baptists make a statement about gun violence?”

But Paul was the one to ask, because we just keep stirring the pot.

Today needs to be different

Today needs to be different. Why today? Because today, May 24, marks one year since a gunman killed 19 children and two adults inside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.

Less than one month ago—May 6—a gunman killed eight people at the Allen Outlet Mall.

May 18, 2018, a student gunman killed eight students and two teachers at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas.

Just six months before the Santa Fe High School shooting—Nov. 5, 2017—a gunman killed 26 people and wounded 20 others inside First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs.

Aug. 3, 2019, a gunman—from Allen, no less—killed 23 and wounded 26 people in an El Paso Walmart.

Before the month was out, another gunman killed seven and wounded 25 people in the Midland-Odessa area.

During a press conference following the Midland-Odessa shooting, Gov. Abbott said: “We know that words alone are inadequate. Words must be met with action.”

“I have been to too many of these events. I am heartbroken by the crying of the people of the state of Texas. I am tired of the dying of the people of the state of Texas. Too many Texans are in mourning, too many Texans have lost their lives,” he added.

Yet here we are.

Thoughts and prayers aren’t enough, to borrow the title of Taylor Schumann’s book. We must do more. We must do better. And we can.

At a minimum, Texas Baptists can make the statement Pastor Kim called for. But we can do more. We have the Christian Life Commission addressing the issue. We also have among us lawmakers and judges, professors and teachers, pastors and business owners, children and adults and more—all of whom can join together to tip the cauldron over and dump out the toxic brew.

Eric Black is the executive director, publisher and editor of the Baptist Standard. He can be reached at [email protected]. The views expressed are those solely of the author.