Common Ground?

It has become obvious over the past few months that a conversation about gun control in America is never going to be easy. There are too many emotions attached to this issue no matter who you are.

For many people, guns represent the most valuable and most irreplaceable American tradition. They are one of the things that gets handed down from generation to generation. They are part of the tie that binds parents to their children.

For many people, guns are a tool that can be used to protect themselves and their families. They are the means by which many people retain their security.

For many people, guns represent objects of destruction. They have lost children or loved ones to gun violence and their experience and perception of these weapons is an entirely negative one.

This is the dilemma we face. Like many have pointed out, the lines of division seem to be drawn culturally. A group of youth went to Pfeiffer University to hear some of the original Freedom Writers speak. I was not there, but I was told that the person leading the conversation asked those attending to raise their hands if they had ever heard gun shots from their houses. The person telling me this then laughed at this question and I realized that she was laughing because almost all of the youth had raised their hands.

This question is the very different when you ask it of a bunch if rural youth than when you ask kids who grew up in the city. Most rural youth grew up hearing the shots of hunters echoing of the hills or houses around them. When they heard gun shots, it was little more than a reminder that hunting season had begun. When inner city kids hear those same sounds echoing off of the buildings around them, it typically means something much different.

One of the challenges we face is to try to understand one another. Just as with the church, this may not be the easiest thing to do. In fact, it may be the hardest thing to do. But if we are to exist in community (locally and nationally) we must seek to understand each other. The father who passes down his beloved rifle to his son must try to understand the perspective of the mother who lost her son in a drive-by shooting. The mother who tells her daughter that guns are dangerous and that she must never touch one must try to understand the perspective of the parents who teach their children to use and respect guns as a way to keep themselves safe. The off-duty police officer who feels naked and vulnerable without a sidearm must try to understand the perspectives of the grieving mother and father who lost their only child in a school shooting.

The unique perspectives and experiences that define us can also be the things that set up the tallest, thickest walls between us.

So how do we go forward? With all of these differing perspectives and barriers separating us, how can we hope to reach a consensus on gun control? This is the tough question for which I would love to give you and easy answer. This is the part of the story for which I wish we had a script written out. But figuring this out together is the challenge which we face as a people (notice I did not say as a country). Realizing that the people with whom we disagree on this topic are just that - people - is one of the first things we must do as we take steps down the road of peace.