There have been greater than 35,000 gun-related deaths in america, including 545 mass shootings and over 19,000 suicides to date in 2022. One in all three all-new episodes of our podcast Voting Catholic looks at gun violence and its impact within the 2022 midterm election.
“Americans are capable of buy guns in ways that almost all people in other advanced or highly developed nations that may be comparable to us will not be capable of,” Patrick McCormick, a professor of spiritual studies at Gonzaga University, in Spokane, Wash., told Sebastian Gomes, an executive editor at America and host of Voting Catholic. America has the best rate of gun ownership on the planet, and there was an increase in the acquisition of guns, adding about 40 million guns to American households within the last couple of years. The U.S. also has more gun related deaths in comparison with other wealthier nations.
There was an increase in the acquisition of guns, adding about 40 million guns to American households within the last couple of years.
“Right away we’re in a situation that’s different from the recent past and we’re in a situation that’s different from our contemporary democratic societies,” said Dr. McCormick, who continuously writes on social justice issues. “We now have to have a look at how individuals are driven to buy guns and the way useful it’s to set limits on people’s ability to bring guns into their households.”
In america, “gun ownership is identified with a form of rugged individualism,” Dr. McCormick said, “But recent studies have indicated that Americans actually didn’t own guns in very high numbers within the 18th and early a part of the nineteenth century.”
It was the gun industry, he said, wanting to maintain their factories running even when the country was not at war, that worked to create a “mythology of the American west.” Partially for this reason marketing strategy, guns took on “an ethical identity” and have become “an icon” of American independence.
“It’s a dangerous theological issue to think that we are able to supply individuals with a god-like power or strength in the event that they have this sort of weapon.”
One recent factor is the Covid epidemic. “I believe that there can be good reason to think that the Covid epidemic has affected us as a society by making us feel more isolated and disconnected from each other,” Dr. McCormick said. “We’ve had an experience of powerlessness and loneliness and frustration…. That’s driven people to exit and buy guns in order that they might need a way of power or a way of safety.”
“That’s strikingly necessary for a Christian to take into consideration,” Dr. McCormick said, suggesting that it’s “idolatry” to consider that “possessing a handgun will supply me with the strength and security that my reliance on God might need supplied me with previously…. It’s a dangerous theological issue to think that we are able to supply individuals with a god-like power or strength in the event that they have this sort of weapon.”
Deaths of despair
What dominates headlines are mass shootings, especially those with children among the many victims. “The concept a toddler would go into a faculty they usually could possibly be slaughtered just seems against every part that we wish to consider in regards to the world,” said Dr. McCormick. The identical holds true about shootings in places we bring our families, including churches and theaters, making us “more more likely to be afraid of a world that seems dangerous and truthfully evil.”
But much more common are the person homicides and the suicides which have increased over the past decade. For the reason that 2008 recession, white males particularly have shown increased rates of death from suicide, opioid use and liver damage, and these “deaths of despair” have been concentrated amongst non-college-educated Americans with higher risks of unemployment. “So it looks like economic aspects are also playing into the rise of individuals turning to gun suicide and to gun homicide.”
Somewhat greater than half of all gun deaths in america are from suicide.
Somewhat greater than half of all gun deaths in america are from suicide. “Satirically, white, rural males in america and not using a college education are the almost certainly people, to oppose any type of gun control,” Dr. McCormick said. “What we don’t appear to listen to is that they’re overwhelmingly the almost certainly people to die from [a] gun at their very own hands.”
Alternatively, “young Black, urban males are the people who find themselves almost certainly to die from any person else shooting them with a gun. … So there’s definitely a racial divide on guns in America.”
Public policy options
How should voters consider gun policy when voting this fall? “I don’t think that [candidates] just saying ‘I’m for or against gun control’ goes to be useful,” Dr. McCormick said. “We now have to ward off with our flesh pressers and ask, ‘What’s it specifically that you just’re recommending for us to do now?’”
He added, “We are likely to divide ourselves into reds and blues, Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and progressives. I believe we want to have a look at the common ground that we share on these issues. For instance, a lot of Republicans and conservatives would support laws focused on background checks and on providing more screening for mental health.”
One other public policy idea is liability insurance: “Whenever you or I buy an automobile, we have now to pay insurance on that automobile in case we hurt any person else with it. It’s not an unreasonable idea to think that if I buy a gun, I’d have some responsibility for harms or injuries or accidents or deaths that result from that.”
“Catholic teaching would say … we don’t live in a lawless society, and we ought to not behave as if we did.”
Catholic voters must relate gun policy to the concept of a typical good, said Dr. McCormick. Individual gun ownership “is an indication that the civilian has faith in himself or herself as a person agent to unravel the issues of crime or violence within the society. Catholic teaching would say that the first responsibility for addressing crime belongs to the society, to the federal government, to the police. We don’t live in a lawless society, and we ought to not behave as if we did.
“I believe the Catholic Church would also say that the underlying causes of crime and violence in society are largely social and economic and human causes. …We must be concerned a couple of society that’s armed with 400 million personal guns and that doesn’t provide adequate health take care of tens of tens of millions of Americans or where tens of millions of American children live in poverty. So I believe the Catholic teaching would tell us that we’re trying to unravel the issues facing us as a society with the mistaken tools. We’re placing an excessive amount of faith in a set of tools that will not be going to get us to the common good.”
Where Guns Are Sacred
Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller of San Antonio was at a gathering of priests when he first heard in regards to the murder of two schoolchildren—later revised to 19 schoolchildren and two teachers—in Uvalde, Tex., on May 24.
“We went to the Civic Center. There have been families outside [in] the garden by themselves. They were waiting to be told. … I used to be capable of visit with the families [inside], but they were silent. They were with their heads on the table. They weren’t chatting with one another.”
He scheduled Masses for each night that week: “The Mass offers a possibility of an encounter with God and with each other. And all those days, the Masses were pretty full, which implies that it was answering a necessity of the people.”
On Voting Catholic, Archbishop García-Siller told host Sebastian Gomes, “I can say that here in Texas, arms are sacred,” and he echoed Patrick McCormick in adding, “My God, that’s idolatry.”
The archbishop has called for stricter controls on gun ownership, and he said, “In some ways, I actually have received good feedback, but I actually have also received letters or emails from people [saying] they will not be going to proceed supporting the diocese. And even [that] ‘the church has failed us.’”
Asked what he would say to Catholic voters this 12 months, Archbishop García-Siller responded, “I’ll invite people to soak up in a roundabout way suffering brought on by guns. After which to say: ‘We’re within the twenty first century, do we want to defend ourselves from one another with guns? Why don’t we show to 1 one other, in little ways here and there, that we are able to live as human beings and respect human dignity?’”
[Related: “Lessons from El Paso and Uvalde: Tragedy can change our hearts, if we let it.”]
To listen to more on how American Catholics view gun violence, you should definitely hearken to Voting Catholic, a podcast by America Media with all-new episodes on inflation, abortion and gun violence prematurely of the 2022 midterm election.
Also read other views on gun violence here.
