Gun legislation won’t do it; we need a twelve-step program

· 3 Comments ·

By Alan Bean

America has a gun problem, but gun control legislation is too weak a fix; we need a 12-step program.

Since the tragic shootings in Newtown CT, we have been buried in a welter of statistics.  Support for gun control is rising, we are told, but the polls vary as to the extent of the shift.  We are reminded that 60% of men but only 39% of women favor gun rights over gun control, and that Republicans (72%) are more likely than Democrats (32%) to place the priority on gun rights.

Those inclined to dig deeper into the figures recently compiled by the Pew Research Center will discover that support for both gun rights and gay marriage has been advancing in recent years, a sign that libertarian arguments are impacting a wide range of issues.

The Pew study also shows that whites are twice as likely as African Americans or Latinos to value gun rights over gun control.   Moreover, white opinion changed radically in the wake of the election of Barack Obama.  In 2007, 37% of white Americans valued gun rights over gun control; the figure is now 57%.  White opinion on the gun issue flip-flopped in the space of four years.

Americans are far more likely to own guns than anyone else on the planet.  Here in the USA, 88.8 out of 100 people own at least one gun, that’s almost one firearm per person.  In Canada, the rate is 30.8, in Germany its 30.3, and in France its 31.2.  But in most of the world, the rate of gun ownership is exceedingly low: (Mexico 15, Australia 15, Denmark 12, Israel, 7.3, England 6.2, Afghanistan 4.6, the Netherlands 3.9, Romania .7).  In North America, Americans own guns at three times the rate of Canadians and six times the rate of Mexicans.

Americans are also far more likely to use firearms to kill people.  In the United States the homicide by firearm rate is 3.2 per 100,000 per year.  In the rest of the developed world, the rate varies between 0.0 in Japan (where only 11 homicides were recorded last year) and Belgium at 0.7.  In Canada, the rate is 0.5, less than one-sixth the American rate. (more…)

205K deported parents separated from their children in just two years

·

By Alan Bean

Americans don’t agree on issues like abortion and gun rights, but most sentient citizens understand that kids need to be with their parents and parents need to be with their children.  We grieve for the families in Newtown CT who lost a child to a mad rampage because the worst nightmare of any parent is the horror of losing a child.

Does our compassion extend to undocumented parents separated from their children through deportation?  Seth Wessler has faithfully covered this issue for Colorlines and his most recent article raises issues most of us never think about because we don’t have to.  Parents frequently cross the border illegally in an attempt to reunite with a child.  Deportation destroys families.  Some deportees make several failed attempts to cross the border regardless of the consequences.  That’s what parents do.

Nearly 205K Deportations of Parents of U.S. Citizens in Just Over Two Years

by Seth Freed Wessler

The federal government conducted more than 200,000 deportations of parents who said their children are U.S. citizens in a timespan of just over two years, according to new data obtained by Colorlines.com. The figures represent the longest view to date of the scale of parental deportation. (more…)

Rachel Weeps for Her Children

· 2 Comments ·

By Charles Kiker

December, 2012

We have been assaulted, insulted, and sickened by the deaths of innocent children in recent days. It was not the first incidence of a “slaughter of the innocents.” Prayerfully it will be the last. But from what we know of the history of human cruelty that is not likely.

We can go all the way back to the Book of Exodus, to the infancy of Moses, for an early demonstration. The Pharaoh of Egypt was getting nervous about all those Hebrew boys being born in his realm, and put out a decree ordering the midwives to kill all the baby boys as they were born. How many were killed? We don’t really know. But Moses was saved by the trickery of his sister and the soft-heartedness of Pharaoh’s daughter.

That incident is echoed in the infancy narrative of Jesus as told by Matthew. Joseph was warned in a dream, and took the child to Egypt, out of Herod’s grasp.

The magi were called to Herod, and they told him of the birth of this king-child. Herod was not pleased about a possible usurper to his throne. The magi were warned in a dream of Herod’s evil intent, and did not report back to him as instructed. Seeing that he had been tricked by the magi, Herod went into a rage, and ordered that all the male babes of Bethlehem under two years old be put to death. Matthew remembered this verse from Jeremiah:

A voice was heard in Ramah,
     weeping and loud lamentation
Rachel weeping for her children,
     She refused to be consoled, because they are no more.

Rachel has wept for her children repeatedly throughout history. She wept for the Jewish children of Germany, gassed and incinerated by the cruelty of Hitler. She wept for Native American children when a blue coated general said that Indian babies were like nits that grow up to be lice, so gave the order to kill them all. She wept when little Amish children were gunned down irrationally in their school a few years back, and she must have sobbed inconsolably a week ago when twenty first graders and six of their teachers and administrators were inexplicably gunned down with an assault rifle—a weapon that the shooter had earlier used to kill his mother. And then the shooter took his own life.

I think it was Joe Stalin who said, “The death of one person is a tragedy. The death of a thousand people is a statistic.” And Joe did his part to create many statistics among his own people.

Lest those children and adults of Newtown, Connecticut are thought of simply as statistics, let’s remember them with their names, one by one:

Charlotte Bacon, 6 years old; Daniel Barden, 7; Olivia Engel, 6; Josephine Gay, 7; Ana Marquez-Greene, 6; Dylan Hockley, 6; Madeleine Hsu, 6; Catherine Hubbard, 6; Chase Kowalski, 7; Jesse Lewis, 6; James Mattioli, 6; Grace McDonnell, 7; Emilie Parker, 6; Jack Pinto, 6; Noah Pozmer, 6; Caroline Previdi, 6; Jessica Rekos, 6; Avielle Richman, 6; Benjamin Wheeler, 6; Allison Wyatt, 6

And the adults:

Dawn Hochsprung, school principal; Mary Sherlach, school psychologist; Rachel Davino, teacher; Anne Marie Murphy, teacher; Lauren Rousseau, teacher; Victoria Soto, teacher. Dawn, and Mary, and Victoria gave their own lives in an attempt to save their children, and in fact may have saved some of them.

Let us remember also Nancy Lanza, mother of the shooter; and the troubled soul who was the gunman, Adam Lanza.

A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation,
     Rachel weeping for her children.
She refused to be consoled, because they are no more.

Let us weep with Rachel for these God’s children, and for all the people of Newtown, Connecticut.

 

Nolan: Why is the BOP so stingy with compassionate release?

·

Pat Nolan’s Justice Fellowship is part of the Prison Fellowship organization created by the late Charles Colson.  They are concerned with issues such as:

The Justice Fellowship is also concerned about Compassionate Release, an issue that will be familiar to readers of the Friends of Justice blog.  Over the years we have told the story of people like Donna Stites, a brittle diabetic in the Indiana prison system who is also an Associate of the Sisters of Providence.  And you will also remember Ramsey Muniz, a leader of La Raza Unida in the 1970s who twice ran for Texas Governor.  Following a hip injury, Ramsey, who just turned 70, is hardly able to walk without assistance.  We believe Mr. Muniz is innocent of the charges that placed him in prison but, that issue aside, the twenty years he has served in prison is more than a sufficient penalty for any non-violent crime.

Both Ramsey and Donna are devout Roman Catholics who could be making significant contributions in the free world.  But, at both the state and national levels, compassionate release is very rare.  Please read Pat Nolan’s comments and click on some of the links at the end of the article.  It is encouraging to see political conservatives and liberals cooperating in support of a shared cause.  AGB

Why is the BOP So Stingy with Compassionate Release?

12/19/2012

Dear Friends,

When a federal prisoner faces imminent death or serious incapacitation, Congress has given courts the authority to grant early release – so-called “compassionate release.” However, the inmate cannot request such an order directly; the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) must file the motion.

And that is where the system breaks down. Congress intended for the BOP to act as a gatekeeper to weed out frivolous inmate requests. They never intended that the BOP would be the decision maker. However, the BOP has arrogated that function to themselves, and the answer is almost always “No.” The numbers tell the tale: Since 1992 the BOP has forwarded an average of only 24 compassionate release requests per year to the courts. (more…)

Winkler: The Secret History of Guns

· 5 Comments ·

Adam Winkler, a professor of constitutional law at UCLA law school, wrote this piece for the Atlantic in September of 2011.  The National Rifle Association has been roundly vilified in recent days.  In the wake of the Sandy Hook slaughter of the innocents, an organization that opposes even the mildest attempt to regulate the sale, ownership and use of firearms comes off as insensitive and out of touch.

But why is the NRA so adamant on this issue?  And has it always been so?

Winkler argues that until the late 1970s, the NRA gave a grudging blessing to gun control legislation, especially in the wake of the wave of political assassinations in the 1960s.  Historically, he says, gun control enthusiasts have been primarily motivated by a desire to keep guns out of the hands of black people and that was especially true when leaders of the Black Panther Party made the most of their right to tote weapons in public.

But by the late 1970s things had changed.  Ronald Reagan, once a proponent of legislation designed to limit the right of the Black Panthers to carry guns in public, had changed his tune.  His new position was remarkably similar to the current policy of the NRA.

What accounts for this dramatic shift?  And why have proponents of gun rights, black and white, taken a dim view of government and law enforcement?  It has frequently been argued that the NRA is a racist hate group, and it is certainly true that the organization’s membership is overwhelmingly white and rural.  But listen closely to the rhetoric of many gun rights people and you will hear a distinctly anti-government message.  These people fear their government and insist on the right to arm themselves against it.

In short, American conservative have moved from the law and order rhetoric of the 70s and 80s to a new form of anti-government paranoia.  Is this largely a function of having a black man in the White House?  Is it a legitimate response to the kind of authoritarian overreach represented by the Patriot Act?  Or might it be an complex combination of a multitude of factors?  Those wishing to pursue this question should read Mr. Winkler’s remarkably evenhanded essay and the book he has written on the subject.

The Secret History of Guns

The Ku Klux Klan, Ronald Reagan, and, for most of its history, the NRA all worked to control guns. The Founding Fathers? They required gun ownership—and regulated it. And no group has more fiercely advocated the right to bear loaded weapons in public than the Black Panthers—the true pioneers of the modern pro-gun movement. In the battle over gun rights in America, both sides have distorted history and the law, and there’s no resolution in sight.

By Adam Winkler

THE EIGHTH-GRADE STUDENTS gathering on the west lawn of the state capitol in Sacramento were planning to lunch on fried chicken with California’s new governor, Ronald Reagan, and then tour the granite building constructed a century earlier to resemble the nation’s Capitol. But the festivities were interrupted by the arrival of 30 young black men and women carrying .357 Magnums, 12-gauge shotguns, and .45-caliber pistols. (more…)

Dobson and Huckabee go over to the dark side

· 4 Comments ·

By Alan Bean

The Sandy Hook tragedy has sparked deep reflection nationwide.  President Obama served as Pastor in Chief when he prefaced his remarks in Newtown with a quotation from 2 Corinthians 4:

. . . do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away . . . inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.

The president knew he couldn’t fix what happened last Friday, and he didn’t try.  But he spoke the words of comfort that were his to speak.  That is all any of us can do.

And then there are all those other guys.

If this was just about the latest outrage from the twisted souls at Westboro Baptist Church (must they call themselves Baptists?) I would let it slide.  By now, we are agonizingly familiar with their shtick.  “God hates fags and everybody who doesn’t hate fags as much as he does.”  Yeah, we get it.  The church has decided to picket the funerals in Newtown . . . a new low, I suppose, but not by much.

But it isn’t just folks on the fringe who feel honor-bound to make nasty at such a time as this.

Governor Mike Huckabee, preacher, Fox News celebrity and perennial presidential hopeful, just opined that God declined to stay the hand of Adam Lanza because “we’ve systematically removed God from our schools.”

Not to be outdone, James Dobson of Focus on the Family fame, gave us his take on “what’s going on.”  America has been complicit in the murder of 54 million babies since Roe v. Wade, and “the institution of marriage is right on the verge of a complete redefinition”, “so I think we have turned our back on the scripture and on God Almighty and I think he has allowed judgment to fall upon us.”

Huckabee, Dobson et al aren’t sure exactly what pushed God’s buttons.  It might have been gay marriage.  It might have been abortion.  Or maybe it was the 1963 Supreme Court decision making school prayer was unconstitutional.  Most likely it was a combination of all three–the trifecta of evil.  But at some point God decided to punish America by ordering the slaying of twenty innocent first-graders.

Really, guys!  That’s the God you worship.  Herod the Great slaughters innocents; the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ weeps for them.  Jesus doesn’t have much to say about hell except when he’s talking about those who mess with his “little ones.”

Of course, these guys aren’t saying that God was directly responsible for the death of school children.  It’s just that he could have stopped it and declined to do so.  The Creator could be charged with being an accessory after the fact, but not with murder.

That’s comforting.  God tells the lost soul with the assault weapon, “Normally I’d put a stop to this, but these people need a wake up call, so, do your worst.”

That is precisely what the preachers are alleging.  So let’s get one thing straight: That is not God.  God is not that.  In the First John we learn that God is love . . . full stop.  Or, if we wish to quibble,  “This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.”

The God of Huckabee and Dobson would be familiar to Darth Vader and his legions.  The preachers appear to have slipped over to The Dark Side.

How do we explain such strange talk from esteemed holy men?  The Apostles of the Religious Right have so consistently equated gay bashing, opposition to abortion, and school prayer with holiness that God has been subsumed under these headings.  For four decades, the culture war has reshaped American evangelicalism so successfully that abortion, gay bashing and school prayer have consumed all other concerns.

Don’t get me wrong.  The Sandy Hook tragedy should provoke serious moral reflection.  Violence works for the entertainment industry just like culture war wedge issues work for the Religious Right.  In both cases, an ugly product is hawked in the market place because it sells.  We have been raised on a steady diet of violence.  We love the stuff.  It shapes our culture, our national identity, and all too often our foreign policy.  We’ve got a problem.  We need help.  Badly.

But God is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for the slaughter of innocents.  That’s on us.  God is Love.  God is Light and in him there is no darkness at all.  None, whatsoever!

Rachel Held Evans: “God Can’t be Kept Out”

· 2 Comments ·

This reflection from Rachel Held Evans originally appeared on her website.

Those little Advent candles sure have a lot of darkness to overcome this year. I see them glowing from church windows and on TV, in homes and at midnight vigils, here in Dayton and in Sandy Hook. Their stubborn flames represent the divine promise that even the smallest light can chase away the shadows lurking in this world, that even in the darkest places, God can’t be kept out. 

It’s a hard promise to believe right now, I know. The children in the pictures are just too young, too familiar. Our hearts ache; the darkness seems so heavy and thick. (more…)

Re-Imagine Justice!

·
Dr. Alan Bean participates in a gathering of faith groups dedicated to ending mass incarceration.

“Nobody else out there does what you do.”

These words kept emerging as I talked to 100 members of a Pentecostal church in Colorado.  They shared painful stories of an ill-conceived federal prosecution tearing apart their lives and their church.

“Nobody else does what you do.”

It’s true.

The narrative campaigns sponsored by Friends of Justice spell the difference between hope and despair.  

“You saved our lives when no one would listen,” a woman in Louisiana told me a few months ago.  “Without Friends of Justice, my family would still be locked up.”

More than sixty men and women owe their freedom to the intervention of Friends of Justice.

But addressing the punitive roots of bad public policy requires a new conversation, a changing wind. Our narrative campaigns are designed to replace racial fear and resentment with reconciliation and a hunger for biblical justice.

With your help, in 2013 Friends of Justice will launch Mission Viento Contrario, a new kind of narrative campaign. 

Friends of Justice will film a series of documentaries dealing with the plight of undocumented families in the Rio Grande Valley, bringing ordinary men and women from big city suburbs along for the transformative ride.

Our documentaries will provide people in communities of faith, civic organizations and the mainstream media with an opportunity to re-imagine justice, to feel the changing wind of justice moving through the land.

This holiday season, we challenge you to Re-imagine Justice with a generous, tax-deductible donation to Friends of Justice. 

Yours for justice,

Alan Bean

Connecticut shooting rampage could be the worst yet

· 13 Comments ·

By Alan Bean

A shooting rampage at a Connecticut elementary school this morning has left 27 people dead, 18 of them children.

What is there to say?  We ask why anyone would want to carry two automatic weapons into a public place and start shooting.  There is no good answer to that question.  But we know that every so often somebody does just that.  The public place might be a theater, or a mall, but schools seem to have a particular attraction for young white men with guns.

The Connecticut outrage may be the worst such event in American history.  Unfortunately, that record won’t stand for long.

According to FOX news personalities it is tacky to argue for gun control in the wake of yet another tragedy.  We shouldn’t make important decisions while we’re still reeling in shock.  If people want to kill they will find a way.  After all, guns don’t kill people, people kill people.

But the people intent on killing people make a much better job of it if they can get their hands on an automatic weapon.  I have no problem with the guy next door having a hunting rifle under lock and key, but there is no justification for any American civilian owning a weapon designed for killing lots of people quickly.

That’s all they’re good for.

And that’s why they should be banned.

Immediately.

ICE officials say they were just doing their jobs

·

By Alan Bean

Two Latino parents were arrested in Detroit on Tuesday morning as they dropped their children off at school.  Immigrant rights groups are outraged.  Officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) say they were simply following procedures.

Although Latino voters gave Barack Obama his margin of victory in 2012, more undocumented residents have been deported under his watch than under any previous administration.  Obama won because Latino voters perceived, correctly, that the situation would have deteriorated even further had Mitt Romney become president.

Were the ICE officials who arrested two men in front of their children following standard procedures?  Probably.  The Obama administration is ostensibly focusing on deporting criminals while going easy on undocumented residents with close family ties in America.  Unfortunately, as the article below makes clear, entering the country without documentation is now a federal crime even, as is often the case, the primary reason for entering the United States was to be re-united with young children.

If you were deported as an “illegal alien” while your citizen child remained in the United States, what would you do?

Nothing?  Perhaps, but if you didn’t do everything in your power to get back with your child you would lose my respect (and Jesus wouldn’t be impressed either). (more…)