It was Valentine’s Day, it was Ash Wednesday, and that evening the Golden State Warriors lost to the Portland Trailblazers in an exciting baskeball game. But there was an infinitely greater loss that day — 17 precious ones were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida. Yes, we had another mass shooting at a school in America.
Even though the gun and ammunition were legally purchased, even though there was an armed officer on duty at the school, and even though authorities may have been tipped off to the danger, the worst that could happen still happened. At that high school, Valentine’s Day was anything but a celebration of love and friendship.
Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent in the Christian calendar. It’s a day set aside for self-examination, confession of sins, repentance, and amendment of life. In an interview before the basketball game, Warriors coach Steve Kerr gave what seemed to me an Ash Wednesday homily. He spoke of a glaring national sin in the clearest possible terms: “It doesn’t seem to matter to our government that children are being shot to death day after day in schools.”
There is ample evidence for what Coach Kerr said. The Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit organization that tracks school shootings, reports that, since a gunman killed 20 little first graders and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012, “there have been at least 239 school shootings nationwide. In those incidents, 438 people were shot, 138 of whom were killed.” That’s about 40 school shootings per year. Apparently we don’t even hear about most of them.
By now we surely realize that what happened in Florida can happen anywhere in the land. Truth be told, I find it hard not to think, God forbid, that it could happen here.
Also on Ash Wednesday, Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, speaking on the Senate floor, called his colleagues to self-examination. He pointed out that these kinds of massacres happen only in America. And why is this so? he asked. It’s because Congress has done next to nothing to control the proliferation of military style guns and ammunition, he answered. In 2012, Senator Murphy was the congressman for the district where the Sandy Hook School is located. “Since then,” he proclaimed to his colleagues, “nothing has changed, and we are to blame.”
Self-examination, confession, repentance and amendment of life comprise a good spiritual discipline for our nation right now. Something is horribly wrong. The vast majority of Americans favor strong gun control laws, and yet the issue is not deliberated in our legislative bodies. Our President, in his response to the Florida shooting, did not mention that a gun was involved.
It’s time to confess the truth. It is a national sin that virtually anyone can obtain weapons of mass murder. That we are duped by hugely funded campaigns to elect leaders who are not beholden to the will of the majority on this issue is no excuse. It’s time to repent of our susceptibility to bought-and-paid-for sleight-of-hand politics. It’s time to amend our national life.
Coach Kerr’s Ash Wednesday homily calls on us to elect people with courage to stand up to pressure groups that make this a nation where “maniacs with automatic weapons just slaughter our children.” In a democracy, we repent of our national sins by electing those who will face the evil and do something about it. Otherwise, we share the blame.
Bob Jones is the former minister of the Guerneville and Monte Rio Community Church.
