Yet again Americans are having to cope with horrific shootings.
Charlie Kirk, a key ally of President Trump and an influential conservative commentator, has tragically been assassinated whilst addressing students at Utah Valley University.
And less than two weeks earlier, there was a heart-breaking school shooting: students from Annunciation Catholic School in the Windom neighbourhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, were attending a service at the local Catholic church to mark the school year’s opening. Windom is a relatively prosperous and peaceful neighbourhood on the southwest edge of the city in America’s upper Midwest. The school day in America typically begins at 8.00am and the service began at 8.15. About ten minutes into the service, a former student of the school unleashed 120 rounds of gunfire through a church window – 116 from a rifle, 3 from a shotgun and 1 from a pistol (which authorities later said had jammed).
Two children, an eight-year-old and a ten-year-old, were killed. Another 15 children and three adults were injured and hospitalised, though none sustained life-threatening injuries. Authorities stated that all three weapons had been purchased legally (and recently) by the 23-year-old perpetrator.
When hearing of such tragic incidents, people in the UK will often ask, "So what is it about Americans and Guns?"
Whilst there’s no quick answer to that, a bit of historical context helps. America has always been a nation of gun-owners. In the 2020 census, 32% of Americans said they owned a gun; 44% of Americans said they lived in a gun-owning household. For 200 years, gun ownership has been associated in many Americans’ minds with the individual’s right to self-defence and preserving law and order in one’s, often remote, community.
Many years ago, I stayed with a family up in the mountains of northern New Mexico. They lived in Red River, a town of fewer than 500 people. Given its remote location, I guess if you had an issue with a burglar, you reached for your firearm rather than dial 911. If you’ve ever watched the classic movie High Noon (1952) depicting a small New Mexico town in the 1870s you’ll have noticed that guns are everywhere! During the 85-minute running time of the film, four people are shot, three of them fatally. Yet this is America only 150 years ago. I doubt your neighbourhood in the UK was like that in the 1870s!
Guns were such a part of everyday life at the nation’s founding in the late 18th century that the right to gun ownership was written into the Constitution – the famed Second Amendment which states: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
But you may notice that the wording links the right "to keep and bear arms" to the need for a state militia (to resist federal government force), not specifically to an individual’s right to gun ownership.
The turning point came in 2008, when the U.S. Supreme Court, in the case of District of Columbia v. Heller, decided that the Second Amendment did protect an individual’s right to keep and bear arms for self-defence as well as rights associated with state militia. Three of the current members of the Supreme Court – John Roberts, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito – were on the Court back in 2008, and all three voted in favour of that decision. Data published by the Rockefeller Institute of Government shows that mass shootings have increased significantly in the years since the Heller decision.
Because America has a federal system of government, individual states are allowed to pass state laws to regulate gun ownership, carriage and use – provided they don’t contradict the Constitution. In a league table of states ranked according to the strictness of their gun laws, Minnesota, the state in which this latest school atrocity occurred, is ranked 15th out of 50. Eleven of the 12 states with the weakest gun laws are controlled by the Republicans; all 12 of the states with the strongest gun laws are controlled by the Democrats.
Any chance of amending the Constitution regarding guns? Not a chance! As we’ve just shown, the issue is highly politicised and the mechanism to pass a constitutional amendment so demanding (two-thirds votes in both houses Congress, plus three-quarters of the state legislatures) that it’s never going to happen as the Republicans have no wish to change from the status quo. But when politicians say that they’re “praying” for those affected by such incidents – as they did immediately after both the Utah and Minnesota shootings – it does make one wonder what that means. Many Americans would rather have their political support for meaningful gun control legislation, rather than their “prayers”.
One final thought. The New York Times reported a few days later that when the shooting in the Minneapolis church started, the congregation were reading together Psalm 139.
Take a moment today to read that psalm and remember the fragility of life but the wonder of God’s all-knowing love:
1 O LORD, you have searched me and known me!
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
3 You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.
7 Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night”,
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.
13 For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there were none of them.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 I would count them, they are more than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with you.
19 Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God!
O men of blood, depart from me!
20 They speak against you with malicious intent;
your enemies take your name in vain.
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
22 I hate them with complete hatred;
I count them my enemies.
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
24 And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!
(ESV)
To read more evangelical responses to the assassination of Charlie Kirk:
Should UK Christians go to Franklin Graham’s rallies?
Charles Colson was a senior member of President Nixon’s White House Staff who was sentenced to prison for his role …