Before our summer sputters
to a close, it’s worth noting how often illegal guns were involved in numerous
tragedies. The summer’s news included:
·
On July 20 in
Aurora, Colorado, a single gunman killed 12 people and wounded 58 in a movie
theatre.
·
Less than 3 weeks
later, on August 5, a lone gunman with a 9 mm handgun shot and killed 6 people
and injured four others in a Wisconsin Sikh temple. Among the wounded were police officer Lt.
Brian Murphy, shot 8-9 times at close range.
The gunman eventually shot himself.
·
On August 7,
Jared Loughner pleaded guilty to shooting and killing 6 people and wounding 13
in Tucson in January 2011.
·
On August 12, 67
family members of the Virginia Tech massacre victims wrote President Obama and
Governor Romney, pleading with them to break their silence and present a plan
for gun control.
·
On August 24, a
lone gunman shot and killed 2 people and wounded 9 near the Empire State
Building in New York City.
·
Earlier this week, more than a dozen
survivors and family members of the 2011 Tucson shootings outlined for Attorney
General Eric Holder their campaign to stem gun violence. Their petition had
over half a million signatures.
Every day in the United States, 34 persons are shot and
killed by guns. This is more than a
Virginia Tech massacre every single day. The national death rate by handguns would
compare to the entire population of Fairfax being obliterated every two years.
I’m sick of hearing this sort of news week
after week.
The petition that the Tucson and Virginia Tech families
are proposing is available at www.demandaplan.org. It calls upon both President Obama and Governor Romney to move beyond “a
moment of silence” and propose a plan to curb handgun violence.
The petition doesn’t outline or advocate one specific set
of solutions. In that sense it’s
intentionally non-partisan. Rather, it
pleads with both men – one of them surely our President for the next 4 years –
to break their deadly silence on this most deadly issue. We’re not well-served as a nation by allowing
our leaders to ignore this problem altogether.
Yet that’s what both men aim to do.
That’s why I’ve signed the
petition and posted it on Facebook. I
invite you to do the same.
My candidate, Jesus Christ, said, “Those who live by the sword will perish by the sword.” And Lord, we are perishing!
Demand a plan.
Pastor Larry
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