Taking Aim at Gun Control

Successful deer hunt

A friend recently posted a notice that 36 million deer hunters were out in the woods and there wasn’t one mass killing.  To my friend, that proved it’s human intent that matters, not the weapon.

That’s, of course, as I told her via Facebook, nonsense.

Not one of those hunters was carrying an AK-47 or similar assault weapon.  Why?  Because if they shot a deer with rounds from one of those guns, the animal would be shredded beyond recognition. 

Moreover, a person may be just as intent to kill and have a knife instead of an Uzi.  Guess which weapon will cause more damage?

Successful people hunt in Dayton

No one with a knife killed nine people in Dayton, Ohio this year and wounded 27 more or killed 22 people in Waco, Texas and wounded 24 more.  The list could go one.  After all, there have been more than 380 mass killings in the U.S. just in 2019. 

From 2009 to 2018, this country has averaged 19 mass shootings a year.  That has led to the deaths of 1,121 Americans, including 309 children and 19 law enforcement officers.

No other country has come remotely close to those numbers. That’s because most other countries don’t allow citizens to own weapons willy-nilly.

In countries like Switzerland and Finland, where gun ownership ranks among the highest in the world, gun owners are required to pass mental and criminal records checks among other requirements.  Guess what?  Far fewer gun deaths and virtually no mass shootings.

Hemenway

It’s no hard to figure out why.  Harvard professor Dr. David Hemenway wrote, "We analyzed the relationship between homicide and gun availability using data from 26 developed countries from the early 1990s. We found that across developed countries, where guns are more available, there are more homicides." 

Doh.

Gun homicide rates in this country were “25.3 times higher and gun suicides were 8 times higher in 2010 than in other populous, high-income countries,” according to a 2016 study. Overall, 82 percent of all people worldwide killed by firearms were Americans.

Our response to the carnage?  Congress passed a law preventing research into gun violence while common sense gun controls have never even got through either house since the Brady Bill in the 1994.  And that law, requiring background checks and a cooling off period, has been circumvented by excluding gun shows.  My nephew owned a gun shop.  He knew very well the impact of unregulated gun sales.

In Australia, in contrast, conservative Prime Minister John Howard and legislators appalled by a 1996 mass shooting in Tasmania that left 35 people dead placed strict requirements on gun ownership.  In the next decade, homicides caused by guns dropped 59 percent.  There have been no more mass shootings Down Under.

Opponents to gun control cite the Second Amendment, which clearly states that the need for a militia requires the right to own guns.  Any of those deer hunters in a militia?

Besides, we have journeyed more than 200 years since that Amendment was added to the Constitution.  Weapons have improved.  Then, after every shot, a shooter had to reload.  The idea of an assault rifle didn’t exist.

 

Nor are restrictions on gun ownership illegal.  In McDonald v. Chicago (2010), the Supreme Court ruled that anyone can own a gun, but municipalities have every right to restrict purchases.  That’s been the norm for more than a century.  After all, in the old West, every town that incorporated invariably passed a law banning forearms in the city limits.  Those people lived with gun violence every day.  They knew.

My favorite howler is the claim that citizens need assault rifles to defend themselves against their government.  They also say that the Nazi Party disarmed everyone after taking control in 1933. 

Both are false.

In the first place, gun owners are supposedly patriotic.  Apparently that means waiting to be ambushed by a government armed with nuclear weapons and every high-powered weapon known to man.  Good luck with even an assault rifle.  In Germany, Nazis removed guns from people they didn’t like.  Everyone else was left alone.  Democracies don’t act that way.

Democracies are also guided by the people, who, in poll after poll, overwhelmingly favor gun controls in an effort to end the mass murders in our schools, malls and offices. 

Assault rifle

We can start by banning assault rifles, just as they were from 1994 to 2004.  The law had little effect because ownership was grandfathered in; and rifles were rigged to handle larger magazines.  Only a law that removes these weapons from private hands would accomplish the task.  There is no known use for an assault rifle except to kill people.

With proper restraints in place, you can hunt all the deer you want after clearing background checks and other limitations.  Maybe then, you’ll stop hunting people.

Long-time religious historian Bill Lazarus regularly writes about religion and religious history with an occasional foray into American culture.  He holds an ABD in American Studies from Case Western Reserve University.   He also speaks at various religious organizations throughout Florida.  You can reach him at wplazarus@aol.com. He is the author of the recently published novel The Great Seer Nostradamus Tells All as well as a variety of nonfiction books, including The Gospel Truth: Where Did the Gospel Writers Get Their Information; Noel: The Lore and Tradition of Christmas Carols; and Dummies Guide to Comparative Religion.  His books are available on Amazon.com, Kindle, bookstores and via various publishers.  He can also be followed on Twitter.

Draining Emotion from Religion

Asma

A recent online article by Stephen T. Asma, professor of philosophy at Columbia College Chicago, claimed that religion’s value lies in “its therapeutic power, particularly its power to manage our emotions. How we feel is as important to our survival as how we think.”

That’s typical philosophical rubbish.

Just how much emotional management does a starving child in Africa do?  How about the billions worldwide living on the margins of life, trying to eke out a living while a small percentage of the population wallows in luxury?

Emotion doesn’t drive them.  They are completely focused on such basic needs as food and shelter.

Emotion actually has very little to do with religion.  We can all enjoy a choir singing; the beautiful architecture of a religious structure; the wide-ranging rituals with their cultural and historical bases; and even a theological discussion.  So what?

What really moves people, though, is belief.  Emotion only plays a part when belief is challenged.

Does it ever.  

Asma recognized that science has undermined religion:

Religion does not help us to explain nature. It did what it could in pre-scientific times, but that job was properly unseated by science. Most religious laypeople and even clergy agree: Pope John Paul II declared in 1996 that evolution is a fact and Catholics should get over it. No doubt some extreme anti-scientific thinking lives on in such places as Ken Ham’s Creation Museum in Kentucky, but it has become a fringe position.

But he’s wrong about that “fringe” part.  Just look at the pronouncements of elected officials who are fighting such scientific facts as climate change.  There’s no emotion.  Belief drives them – and, in some cases, economic concerns likely to be damaged by controls to reduce environmental impact.

Emotion didn’t send former astronaut James Irwin climbing Mt. Ararat to look for Noah’s Ark, even though the mount was “identified” as the supposed landing spot about 1,000 years ago, or thousands of years after the biblical sailor could have bumped into the peak.  Or that geologists had long destroyed the myth of a universal flood anyway.

Emotions didn’t cause a school board in Pennsylvania to attempt to impose Creationism teachings on students; or Oklahoma legislators from voting to allow Christian monuments on public land. 

Emotion played little, if any role, in similar efforts across this country.  Nor did it drive a single suicidal terrorist to immolate himself and anyone else in the vicinity.

Empty pews

Religion did that.

Yes, religion does provide comfort in times of crisis – the old part-truism that there are “no atheists in foxholes.”  It certainly “comforts the bereaved among us,” to quote from a Jewish funeral service.  It does impel sincere people to amazing and welcome altruistic feats.

Asma said:

Mainstream religion reduces anxiety, stress and depression. It provides existential meaning and hope. It focuses aggression and fear against enemies. It domesticates lust, and it strengthens filial connections. Through story, it trains feelings of empathy and compassion for others. And it provides consolation for suffering. Emotional therapy is the animating heart of religion. Social bonding happens not only when we agree to worship the same totems, but when we feel affection for each other. An effective community of mutual care emerges when groups share rituals, liturgy, song, dance, eating, grieving, comforting, tales of saints and heroes, hardships such as fasting and sacrifice. Theological beliefs are bloodless abstractions by comparison.

But at what cost?

Religion continues to spur wars, divide society, disrupt normal discourse and  interfere with knowledge.

At one time, religion served as the societal glue.  In our isolated communities, we could accept the same tales and follow the same rituals to honor our invented deities.  That’s not the modern world. 

The world is becoming increasingly secular.  Religion has become wedges that is driving us apart, not bringing us together.

It’s time to move on, without a hint of emotion.

Long-time religious historian Bill Lazarus regularly writes about religion and religious history with an occasional foray into American culture.  He holds an ABD in American Studies from Case Western Reserve University.   He also speaks at various religious organizations throughout Florida.  You can reach him at wplazarus@aol.com. He is the author of the recently published novel The Great Seer Nostradamus Tells All as well as a variety of nonfiction books, including The Gospel Truth: Where Did the Gospel Writers Get Their Information; Noel: The Lore and Tradition of Christmas Carols; and Dummies Guide to Comparative Religion.  His books are available on Amazon.com, Kindle, bookstores and via various publishers.  He can also be followed on Twitter.

God and Donald Trump

Trump

Evangelicals are insisting the President Trump was sent by God.  Obviously, that requires the existence of a deity to do the packaging.  To me, the existence of President Trump is a great argument against the existence of God.

Fortunately, there are many more.

In January 2009, Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger successfully guided a U.S. Air passenger plane to a safe landing in the Hudson River after bird strikes crippled its engines.  His skill saved the lives of the 150 passengers and crew.  This was the first time a major airline crash landed in a river with no fatalities.  

Crash cartoon

A nationally published editorial cartoon that commemorated the miraculous effort showed hands from heaven safely guiding the plane into a river.  Presumably, God was involved in rescuing participants in the crash.  The caption read: “Any questions?”

Just one.  Where were those hands when, one month later, a Continental Airlines flight crashed in Buffalo, killing 50 people.  While Capt. Sullenberger’s actions were heroic, it’s absurd to assume divine involvement.  Otherwise, we’d be forced to believe God chose to act in one situation and declined in another.  If that’s true, now the questions really start: was there someone or something special about U.S. Air flight 1549 that warranted divine intervention?  Was someone aboard that God was protecting?  Are fliers leaving a downstate New York airport more valuable than ones that use an upstate facility? And so on.

Such questions point out the futility of understanding why anything happens.  After all, these were two of more than 5,300 documented plane crashes internationally in 2009. How many times did hands from heaven reached down and save passengers and crews?  

Once.

Sullenberger

We can say that God works in mysterious ways.  In truth, however, Capt. Sullenberger had the experience and opportunity to save his passengers.  That’s all.  In the thousands of crashes, odds are that one such situation would occur.

The issue, however, extends far beyond a single plane crash.  The real question is: how much is God involved with human life at all?

If we answer yes, then we should see evidence.  

At a 2009 debate on the existence of God I participated in, one of the speakers insisted the proof of God lies all around us.  For example, he pointed out that the Earth lies in the exact zone at a distance from the Sun that allows life to flourish.  That the Moon is of the right size to support the existence of life.  Even in small ways, he said, God’s hand is evident.  For example, a giraffe is designed in a special way to give birth without killing its offspring because of the heights involved. 

Of course, he was quite correct that such situations exist – and many more.

He’s simply wrong about the order.  We are here because of our location and the Moon.  We would not be here otherwise.  That’s why scientists are now locating other planets with proper temperature ranges and expect to find life.  There will be life wherever the conditions warrant.  That’s abundantly true on Earth where strange creatures thrive in hostile conditions humans could not tolerate, such as recently discovered bacteria that reportedly requires deadly arsenic to endure.  

The same is true for the giraffe.  Giraffes, like all creatures, evolved.  Smaller versions have died out.  If larger ones had not evolved a mechanism for giving birth properly, they would have become extinct, too.

That evidence is all around us.  Right now, humans are evolving larger heads.  This, in turn, is creating problems for women because their birth canals are too small to accommodate bigger-headed babies.  That’s one reason Caesarian sections are more commonplace.  In time, they may become a necessity.  However, at least one female will be born with a larger birth canal that can accommodate the bigger-headed babies.  In time, her descendants will predominate. 

Then, someone can say God created women with big birth canals.  

Six-fingered baby

Natural processes are continually making changes.  Sometimes, there are mutations – changes caused by damage to chromosomes or for other physical reasons.  Some of the mutations are benign.  A baby born with six fully functioning fingers will be the same as a baby with the usual five, for example, but with an extra digit.  

Nevertheless, some mutations are inherently life-threatening: children born with no mouth or other major deformity.  In nature, these children die; their genes die with them.   Humans, however, treasure life.  We help these children to survive through surgery or other means.  That’s why hemophiliacs endure.  An estimated 400 babies a year are born with the condition in the U.S. alone.  In the wild, there are no hemophiliacs.

Snake leg

Some changes are caused through evolution.  Evidence of that is everywhere, too.  Whales still have legs under their skin, proof their ancestors lived on land.  Snakes have hidden legs, too, reflecting a time millions of years ago when they walked.  Our DNA contains coding for tails, fur and other ancient aspects.  Sometimes, those genes are accidentally expressed, and babies are born covered with fur or a tail.  

In the womb, human babies progress from reptile to amphibian to human as if replaying the evolutionary process.  

This is a natural progression.  No divine involvement is required.

In fact, whether or not there is a God is actually immaterial.  Normal natural forces will maintain evolutionary processes.  Life will continue, constantly changing.  Those that survive will be those best adapted to the conditions, what Darwin labeled “natural selection.”  The rest will die out.

It’s all random, which is true for all living creatures, airplane crashes and even presidents.

Long-time religious historian Bill Lazarus regularly writes about religion and religious history with an occasional foray into American culture.  He holds an ABD in American Studies from Case Western Reserve University.   He also speaks at various religious organizations throughout Florida.  You can reach him at wplazarus@aol.com. He is the author of the novels The Great Seer Nostradamus Tells All, Ice Flow, Revelation and Adventures in Bonding (via Bold Venture Press) as well as a variety of nonfiction books, including The Gospel Truth: Where Did the Gospel Writers Get Their Information; Noel: The Lore and Tradition of Christmas Carols; and Dummies Guide to Comparative Religion.  His books are available on Amazon.com, Kindle, bookstores and via various publishers.  He can also be followed on Twitter.