I've been thinking a lot, as most people have, about my perspective about gun violence and what should be done.  I've done a lot of learning, such as educating myself on the difference between a clip and a magazine.  I've been listening to my relatives, my colleagues, and my friends and congregants who are school teachers, police officers, parents, and politicians, and to my president--of the UUA and the USA.  And I've been listening to the NRA, and not just the clips played on MSNBC. 

My friend Dani Meier, for example, a long-time anti-violence advocate, gun owner, and school counselor, wrote a HuffPost piece titled "Thoughts From 'A Good Guy With a Gun'" in which he writes, "First, as microcosms of society, schools will always have some students, parents, and teachers with anger problems, mental illness, or poor self-control. As educators, we regularly try to model peaceful conflict-resolution, 99.9 percent of which we successfully deescalate despite significant volatility. And when we don't succeed, weapons are not needed. Introducing guns in those scenarios, in fact, invites other kinds of nightmares."  He also says, "I am a decent shot, but I am not -- nor will most educators ever be -- like Dirty Harry, capable of picking off a moving target amidst the chaos of innocent children and adults scrambling for cover."

My friend the police officer, to illustrate another opinion, doesn't think bans on high-capacity magazines will make much difference.  I respect his opinion, although it goes against what most liberals are calling for.  He says, "3 ten round magazines equals 30. A magazine change can take a second, so limiting it doesn't have much of an effect."  While I think he's probably right, I also, therefore, don't see how it's too much of a restriction on the second amendment to put such a ban in place.  And a dropped or fumbled magazine during a shooting could make potentially make a world of difference.  My officer friend also thinks the open-carry advocates go too far, and that they should be required to carry their license and prove upon request that they are allowed to carry the gun when they are practicing their open carry rights.  And he says, "Of the guns that I have personally taken off the streets, or ones that have been used in crimes (including homicides) that have occurred in [the city he works in] I can't think of one that involved an assault style rifle, or large capacity magazine. Shotguns and pistols are the weapon of choice to the street criminal. I have never had one gun that was also registered to the criminal. Most guns are stolen, or taken from someone else."  I think he has a point, and that when we look at what would stop a mass shooting like the one in Newtown, it's a different set of solutions than would stop the individual shootings we see in Chicago.  And both are huge problems in our society.  We're focusing too much on stopping the violence in Newtown and not enough on stopping the violence on the streets of Chicago or Detroit.

I went to a Detroit event about The New Jim Crow recently hosted by the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion, and heard people there talking about gun violence from a multitude of informed perspectives, and one person talked about having police in schools from a different perspective than I'd heard shared elsewhere.  She said that it was her suspicion, based on the cases she'd seen as someone who was in a position that injustice cases were brought to her, that when there were police officers put in school, children's behavior that might have been resolved in other ways tended to get criminalized.  I think it's important if we're talking about police officers in schools, that we think about what some of the unintended consequences of that might be.  

The Rev. Peter Morales, the UUA president, in another HuffPost piece, writes, of what he thinks President Obama should do saying, "We join with Faiths United to Prevent Gun Violence in calling for change."  (Who "we" are is unidentified, by the way.)  Faiths United to Prevent Gun Violence states:

1. Every person who buys a gun should pass a criminal background check; 
2. High capacity weapons and ammunition magazines should not be available to civilians; and 
3. Gun trafficking should be a federal crime. 

I respect the thoughtful views of all of these people, and the hard work that President Obama and Vice President Biden have done.  It's a complex problem.  And I largely agree with their solutions, although I'll go more into that in the next piece in this series.

I've always been a lukewarm believer in the right to own guns.  Lukewarm, I say, because I think the right to own guns leads to a host of problems, that that writers of the Second Amendment never envisioned an America like today, with the weapons that our government has, and the weapons our citizens have.  I am not, by any means, someone who believes that the Constitution is a perfect document, either.  I believe it's important that a process exists for amending it, and am willing to amend it when it is important for freedom and liberty.  I am willing to rethink the Second Amendment entirely, and don't hold the right to own guns as sacrosanct as I do freedom of religion, speech, and of the press.

Lukewarmly, however, I do support the right to own guns.  I was brought up in a household where there were guns, and I had the example of a responsible gun owner in my father, who kept the guns, if not under literal lock and key, securely away from me during my childhood.  There were important histories tied to guns that were owned by my forefathers that made them family heirlooms, such as my ancestor's "Civil War rifle."  I also have the example of many relatives and friends and congregation members who are hunters and both enjoy hunting as a sport and as a means for providing food for their tables.  I want a degree of gun ownership to continue to exist that allows for hunting, family heirlooms, and perhaps some measure of gun ownership for personal protection.  I am not a passionate defender of this, however. 

I once had a liberal friend say to me, "I would never willingly enter a house where I knew there were guns."  I enter these houses all the time, and without fear most of the time.  There are always exceptions, such as pastoral care calls to someone who is mentally unstable, where I might refuse to meet in a private residence, but that would be true even if there were no guns present.  I know my friends and family and congregation members to be responsible gun owners, and have no more fear of violence or accident there than I do walking down the street.  I also refuse to live and act out of my fear of guns, even where I have fear.  I do fear for my child's safety at school.  I do fear for my sister's safety at the school where she teaches.  I was at a luncheon recently where someone said, "There was a lockdown today at a school in Detroit," and fear for my sister rushed into my heart.  Turns out it was Novi, not Detroit, but we're over here in Jackson, so maybe that distinction was lost.  I do fear for my safety and the safety of my family in my congregation, in the movie theaters, on the street corner with my congress member, in the schools.  We live in an increasingly violent country, with random violence striking in not just the places that we were taught to see as dangerous, like the inner city, but striking in the places we always assumed we were safe--churches, schools, street corners with our congressional representative.  I refuse, however, to live out of that fear and either stop going these places or wear a gun everywhere I go.  I've always refused to let that fear keep me out of the cities, choosing to visit, work, shop, and also live in places that others have deemed too dangerous at many points in my life.  I refuse now to let fear keep me from living a normal life.

But refusing to fear doesn't mean that the problem should be ignored.  There are reasonable reforms that can help make America safer.  And I have opinions about it, just like everybody else, which I'll address in my next post.

Ever since the Sandy Hook shooting, I've been working on a two-part blog series about guns and gun violence.  It's been slow going, because it's an emotional and difficult issue for me.  I've been torn apart in my feelings about Sandy Hook, and mourning deeply, particularly as a mother of an elementary-school-aged child.  This blog series has now become at least a three-part series, maybe more.  I thought I just needed to explain who I was and position myself in this debate, and then lay out my person vision.  Now I understand that I also need to tell my readership, which hopefully and probably includes more than my own religious community, about the community I serve.

I serve a more politically diverse, which is to say more conservative, church than the average Unitarian Universalist church.  It's very different from all the other churches I've known, as someone who was raised Unitarian Universalists and moved quite a bit before seminary and has served seven churches if you count internship, student ministries, and a summer ministry.  This church I serve now is a rural, historically Universalist church.  It has a higher than average Christian percentage for a Unitarian Universalist church.  It has a higher than average moderate-to-conservative population, I would guess, as well.  Two of our biggest controversies have been about whether or not the American flag belongs in the sanctuary and whether or not the picture of Jesus does.  There are strong feelings on either side, and we've worked for compromises in each.  I also have members who wish I would preach more hellfire and brimstone, and have said so--in those words.  I'm not speaking metaphorically!  But with each of our members, there's a reason why they come to us, and those reasons are important.  Sometimes it's historical connection, sometimes it's a gay family member, sometimes it's because they know we were there in some important moment of need or crisis.  Sometimes the reason is theological, sometimes historical, sometimes community, sometimes the drive to be challenged by people who think differently.  And they lovingly stand by this church, even when they disagree with its stands and, often, its minister.

And so it is also true that we have a lot of gun owners.  Most of them are hunters.  It's not unusual in our church in hunting season to have a candle of joy lit for a buck killed.  We've happily eaten the venison at church fundraisers.  (I might add that they were successful, joyful, and well-attended dinners when the venison has been featured, along with vegetarian alternatives, but our gun-owners do outnumber our vegetarians, and some of our vegetarians who don't eat meat because of factory farming issues may happily enjoy the venison, as well.)  I can count on my fingers fifteen percent of our adult members and regular friends of the church where I know those adults have or had guns in their household.  I can count another ten percent where I think it's very likely, but they've never specifically said.  (These are some of our older members from farming backgrounds, where it would be a normal part of farm life to own a gun, but they've never mentioned it specifically.)  There's another group where I wouldn't be surprised to find out they have guns in their household.  And then there's always the ones that might surprise me, such as some of our radical, activist, liberal members who are also gun owners.  But I wouldn't be surprised to find out we have a 30% gun ownership in this Unitarian Universalist church.  I'm sure that whatever the national average for gun ownership is among Unitarian Universalists, we would beat it by a good ten percent at least. 

But I also know this story.  Months before our Governor vetoed the legislation that was going to allow concealed carry in churches, I mentioned that this legislation was pending to one of our most avid gun owners.  "There's just no need for anyone to be doing that," was the response I got.  "Nobody needs to have concealed carry in churches."

What did that tell me?  There may be a lot of guns in our church, but we're just another slice of America here.  And there's a lot of room for compromise between the perspectives of our most extreme members on the right and left of the gun debate.  I see a willingness among our gun owners and second amendment believers to put in sensible reforms.  And I see a willingness among our reform advocates to leave room for gun ownership for our avid hunters.  I see a great willingness here for our church to find common ground here, to have the difficult discussion in microcosm that our polarized country needs to have in macrocosm.  I don't know if we'll have that discussion in organized form or just individually, but I believe it will be, and perhaps already is happening.  So it is with this understanding, that my church is a diverse and unusual place, that I begin to share here my own thoughts, knowing they may not be typical for our group here, but that I have a free pulpit that they have lovingly given me.

There has been a lot of talk about God's role in the Newtown, Connecticut shootings.  I have no more (but no less) a direct line to God than anybody else, but these things I know about God.  Others have been saying these things before me, but they bear repeating.

1. This tragedy in Newtown was not "all part of God's plan," and it didn't happen because "God wanted another little angel."  We as human beings have free will.  The shooter made his decisions to kill children and adults, not God.  We also have free will in how we respond.  Go listen to the early interview with the father of Emilie Parker: "The person that chose to act this way was acting with a God-given right to use his free agency and God can’t take that away ... that’s what he chose to do with it. I’m not mad [at God, I'm assuming]. I have my own agency to use this event to do whatever I can to make sure my wife and daughters are taken care of."  Robert Parker has it absolutely right.  I was so incredibly impressed with the strength of his faith and his clear understanding.  God wasn't there in the finger pulling the trigger--that was the absence of God, because it was the absence of love, the absence of mercy, and the absence of compassion.
2. This tragedy is not a "punishment from God for being kept out of schools" nor was it "God's judgement."  God did not choose this.  See point number one.  And God isn't in the schools?  What a small God that would be!  God was there. 
3.  It's not true that "God never gives you more than you can handle."  Again, see point number one--God did not give you this tragedy.  Secondly, sometimes we do reach a point where something is more than we can handle.  But please know that you don't have to handle it alone--that's why we have church, and why we have mental health professionals.  If this is more than you can handle, reach out for support.

What is, then, God's role in this tragedy?  God is in the creation of love.  God was present in Victoria Soto when she died trying to shield her students.  God was there in Anne Murphy as she died cradling 6-year-old Dylan Hockley in her arms, dying in an embodiment of a pietà.  God is there in the outpouring of sorrow from this nation.  God is there in the people who are responding with every fiber of their being and their last drop of energy, whether it's standing in vigil, helping to bring the community together, counseling the survivors and family members, burying the dead, or just struggling to fix this broken culture of ours.  God is there in the lights we light in the darkness.  God is there in the touch of a friendly hand.  God is in the love we create.  God is in our response.  

This past Sunday our church had a pageant planned, that we went forward with.  Mindful that it was an intergenerational service, I carefully crafted a prayer that would address the tragedy in Newtown, but without explaining the context to young ears that might not have heard of events yet.  This is what I wrote:

Spirit of Life,

As we hear the stories coming out of Newtown, Connecticut, one of the stories we're hearing is about the heroism of teachers.  The stories are being shared of the teachers who died and how their last actions were to try to save their children, and the teachers who survived and how they ushered their children to safety, keeping them quiet, secure, calm, and safe in closets and bathrooms.

I have a school-aged daughter.  My husband and I made the decision to talk to her about the tragedy in Newtown, because she's old enough that she'll look over and read the headlines or hear someone talking.  We keep news sources around us--a daily newspaper, a weekly news magazine, a news radio station--and she was bound to hear about it somewhere.  Other parents, with different habits or younger children, might effectively shield their children from the news, but we knew we couldn't.  So she knew a little bit about it when we sent her off to school again this morning.  And it was a normal school day for her, although nothing feels normal anymore to me about sending my child off to school.  I imagine that's a feeling that will last for a while.

Much of the day, I was thinking about my child's teacher, and how much I appreciate her and every other teacher my child has had.  I know that they're dedicated and caring people.  I know they love our children.  I know they would shield my child with their life.  Teachers don't get enough thanks in this day.  This has been a tough week for teachers in Michigan -- a week that began with the passage of right-to-work laws and ended with Newtown.  We ask these people to love our children, take care of our children, protect our children, and educate our children, and we can't give them enough thanks.  They deserve more pay and more respect for the work that they do. 

And my child knows how much the teachers care, too.  Today, she told me, they made an announcement at her school, and the principal told the student body how saddened they were by what had happened in Connecticut, but that at her school the teachers and staff would do everything they could to keep their students safe.  My daughter said that some of the kids in her class didn't know what happened, so her teacher explained it to them.  "She didn't give details," my daughter said, "just a summary."  Apparently she's been learning about summaries lately, so she was very clear on this.  Some of the children gasped at the news, she said, when they heard that children had been killed.  But they weren't scared, thanks to the reassuring tone of their teacher.

Of course I hate that my daughter has to know about this.  I hate that schools have to think about policies about how people come in the building.  I hate that children have to learn lock-down procedures.  And most of all, of course, I hate that violence was committed against children.

But I'll continue to send my child off to school, scary as it is--mostly scary for me, not her.  She can't live in fear of the world, in fear of living her life.  And because I will continue to send her off to school, I'm thankful for the love and dedication of teachers.  One teacher from Newtown said that as she huddled with her children waiting for the police to arrive, she told them she loved them.  She didn't know if that would be okay with parents, but she wanted if these children were going to die, for them to hear at this time that someone loved them.  I know my child's teacher would do the same thing if she were there.

So I'm writing this today for all the teachers in my life--my daughter's teacher, my sister who is a teacher in Detroit Public Schools, my congregation members who are teachers.  Thank you for the work that you do.  Thank you for loving our children.  Thank you for being there with them in the joyous times of holiday parties, and the dark and scary times huddled in a closet.  Thank you.  We love you for loving our children.