The only gun I own these days is a dead one. It’s old and rusty and hangs on the wall in my study with a rose in the barrel. Walmart doesn’t carry the ammunition for guns used in the recent war of northern aggression. In its day it did a lot of damage for a lost cause for which so many gave the last full measure of devotion and from which so many today will not get over. So the century and a half year old Springfield just hangs there passively remembering those dark days of aggressive slaughter in the hands of my great grandfather at Antietam and Gettysburg – a silent witness to what’s gone with the wind.
The problem is that the problem of racism resulting from that irrepressible conflict way back then did not leave on those winds but has returned with a vengeance to haunt us and fill our headlines with the same old hate that uses assault machine guns and other military weapons to murder innocent children in their schools or people praying in their church or synagogue or mosque.
In the days of my sordid youth, guns were part of my hunting endeavors with Grandaddy and later with friends. The Boy Scouts taught us all the safety rules to earn a merit badge, but they also ask me to support an oath that included kindness and reverence for life. Southern ethics forbade the killing of innocent Mockingbirds. When our children were born and moved in with us for two decades, I gave up my right to bear arms and armed myself with a kinder, gentler spirit without a gun in sight except the deceased Springfield to remind us we lost that war anyway.
We live in a time and place that lets us enjoy life with liberty to pursue happiness. Somewhere along our common way, guns exploded into nothing short of weapons of mass destruction. Terrorists were no longer over yonder but right here among us. They were white Christians rather than Muslims. A “war on gun violence” becomes the current oxymoron while fear stalks our streets and classrooms looking for more innocent victims. Overkill becomes an understatement.
It’s the perfect time for a come-to-Jesus moment, but we can’t seem to shed our defensive attitudes long enough for that. Instead, we drag the Prince of Peace into the battle wondering just which weapon he would use. If we can’t get a religious revival going, could we ask for an act of congress to rise up and resolve this national crises before it becomes the death of us all. It would be a decent thing to do, but moral scruples are conspicuously absent from the body politic.
Maybe a scout could confront us with some simple American values of being trustworthy, courteous, kind, reverent and brave. Perhaps we can find folk with a different kind of intellectual and moral caliber — like Atticus Finch.