One Nation under Guns
By Q. Bernard Driskell, Columnist
The gun debate, aside from race, might be the purest political polarization infecting this country. According to NBC and a Wall Street Journal October 2017 poll, 75% of Republicans say they are more concerned about the government going too far in restricting gun rights, while 73% of Democrats say they are concerned the government won’t do enough to regulate access to guns. The country is evenly divided by region and gender, an urban-rural split, and an educational divide with each side now viewing the other not just as wrong but immoral.
For the conservative political right, guns have become a symbol of patriotism. On February 16, 2018, Mr. Trump refused to utter the word “gun” in a seven-minute speech on the shooting. Instead, he called for demands of action.
After 58 people were killed in Las Vegas in October 2017, Congress promised to take a look at bump stock, a rifle’s firing physics as a method for increasing its bullet output. After 26 people were killed in Sutherland Springs, Texas, there was a call for reform on the background check system with legislation, the Fix NICS Act of 2017. As yet, nothing has passed Congress.
The sad reality is that Washington, vis-à-vis Congress, is a town and it is run by lobbyists, to which I am one (in healthcare) and thus can attest to the amount of money—millions upon millions of dollars—poured into the gun lobby. This prevents Congress from taking the necessary moral action to do anything.
Is the idea to reduce shootings by taking a “gun health” approach with the correlation that there may well be a reduction in propensity for mass shootings that follows? Even if not, as most gun-related killings, by far, are not associated with mass events, as data shows, efforts expended in the right direction should yield life-preserving and social benefits. It really is a matter of time and generational shift in mindset about guns.
As with many things pertaining to social shifts, the exact time of the lack in direction is often unforeseen. It would only take a small, prominent bipartisan cluster of the brave and savvy—sheep dogs if you would—to get the sheep to shift direction to a more balanced policy that preserves Second Amendment rights in a most literal interpretation.
However, I am not hopeful that Congress is up to this challenge. Thus, it is up to the kids who saw their friends and classmates gunned down and who are now traumatized to return back to school. It is up to the ones who saw their peers murdered in cold blood—hipsters and adolescents—to do it. The fight against the American gun culture is now theirs since the church and moms in Sandy Hook couldn’t do anything. It’s now up to the children. For the Bible reminds us that a child shall lead them.
In the meantime, we will continue to debate what to do about the American gun violence culture and we will again gain no agreed-upon solution. With 14 students, a coach, athletic director, and teacher dead, the cycle will, unfortunately, repeat itself again. I sincerely pray I am wrong.
The Rev. Quardricos Bernard Driskell, is a graduate of Morehouse College and Harvard Divinity School. He has 10 years of federal lobbying experience, is an adjunct professor of religion and politics at The George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management, and pastor of the historic Beulah Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia. Follow him on Twitter @q_driskell4.
