By Bryan Miller
A couple of years ago, the Ebola epidemic in West Africa caused an explosion of concern and fright in the United States. The response, led by the federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention, was successful and, at the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, resulted in zero loss of American life.
That same year, more than 33,000 Americans were shot and killed. These deaths included suicide, murder, mass and unintentional shootings. More than 11,000 were gun murders, the vast bulk of which were committed with illegal guns. The CDC, whose mandate includes seeking ways to mitigate death and injury of all kinds, had no role in trying to limit the damage to families, neighborhoods, cities and towns by this epidemic of gun violence. The US Congress has long prohibited it from doing so.
While our country suffered thousands of gun deaths from murder and mass shootings, no other developed country had as many gun homicides as each of several American cities. On a per capita basis, the United States leads the rest of the developed world in gun death and injury by many times.
Communities of color are impacted at a much higher rate than others, with African American young people killed at an unconscionable rate. The epidemic has a horrific effect on entire swatches of cities and towns, as local economies wither and poverty is sustained when businesses eschew operating in areas deemed too dangerous — many of them communities of color.
Meanwhile, a virtually all-white gun industry (manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers and their lobby) profits by a highly efficient illegal distribution system that puts gun on the street and in the hands of those all agree shouldn’t have them. These are the illegal guns used to wound, maim and kill.
The American faith community has a dire responsibility, based in scripture, teaching and defined purpose (more than putting people in seats at worship) of its component traditions, to adopt and lead a movement seeking the end of an epidemic that is part and parcel of the evils of murder, profit from same, suicide, racism, poverty and more.
This responsibility should be so patently obvious to any person or body of faith that it needs no long citation of scripture. As a Christian, I have no doubt Jesus would both weep deeply over the carnage and its attendant damage and be at the front of the movement to end it.
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