It goes without saying that this past weekend was devastating for our country. At least 31 people were gunned down by evil pieces of human debris in Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas. While this should have resulted in a time of mourning and for everyone with a conscience to come together in unity against these evil acts, the events quickly turned into what they usually do: people using the dead bodies of victims to justify their political stances.
Members of the pro-gun Right used the events as justification for arming more citizens in order to protect the citizens, and members of the anti-gun Left used the events to justify more gun control. No one took hardly even a second to see these acts as what they are, a true, terrible evil in which the real lives of Americans were lost. These people had families and loved ones. They are not simply just tools for either side to use to justify their stance on guns and the 2nd Amendment.
Of course, the media and Democrats had a field day blaming President Trump and his supporters for the shooting that occurred in El Paso. Instead of blaming the shooter himself for his own actions, they blamed Trump and his supporters because the shooter was a racist, white supremacist and in their book, Trump is also and so is anyone who supports him. Presidential candidates Beto O’Rourke and Cory Booker are just a few examples of these.
While in the past Trump has been lax on condemning white supremacy like in Charlottesville, he has certainly done better since then and certainly never promoted racism or white supremacy, even though some of his tweets have been insensitive.
Immediately after these attacks occurred, Trump came out and condemned white supremacy and bigotry of any kind. You would think that everyone would be happy about this, that Trump is denouncing white supremacy. If you thought that, you would be wrong. It’s almost like members of the left want Trump to be a white supremacist; it’s because they do. They want him to be a racist so that they can continue to yell at him and talk about how much they hate him. I’m sure there were even some on both sides of the political aisle who were glad a mass shooting took place so that they could use the dead bodies to beat their ideology into their opponents. Of course, no one will ever say any of those things directly out loud but by the reactions of some, there are without a doubt some people who are so fixed on their ideology being correct that they rejoice when real people are murdered. This is sickening and has no place in the world.
So here we are. I’m not writing this post to change anyone’s mind about what should or shouldn’t be done about gun control. I’m not bringing forth any policy changes. I’m not even going to go there because the problem at hand is much deeper than gun laws. I’m writing this post because my heart is broken. My heart is broken for the loved ones of those who were lost on this tragic weekend, as well as for our country as a whole. I want to share the story of one of the families that were lost during the shooting in El Paso. I think that sometimes, these victims can become just numbers when they are people, just like you and me. This is from CNN:
“Jordan and Andre Anchondo had gone to the store after dropping off their 5-year-old daughter at cheer practice…The couple brought along their 2-month-old son as they shopped for school supplies for their daughter. Only the little boy would survive. As the gunfire erupted, Jordan, 24, shielded her baby. Andre, 23, jumped in front of his wife… Andre Anchondo died with his wife Jordan in the El Paso Walmart shooting. The first call of an active shooter went out at 10:39 a.m. local time, authorities said. Around 2 p.m., Anchondo’s relatives started calling each other, saying the couple was not answering their phones…The baby was “pulled from under her body,” said Terry, the sister of Anchondo’s father…The couple had recently celebrated their first wedding anniversary.”
This is not the time to be pointing fingers at one another. No amount of gun control or lack thereof will ever solve the mass shooting problem we have in the United States. Our country cannot last if every time a tragedy strikes, we are quick to blame the other side saying, “See! If we had only enacted my solution this would have never happened!” We will indeed collapse into ruin if this continues. There is only one answer to this great divide. I wish I had a megaphone so I could shout this for the whole country to hear, but our only answer is Christ, not more or fewer laws. The Church has become lazy and weak, yet we wonder why our social fabric is tearing apart. The Church must wake up and take action. No more casually going to church on Sundays and vaguely knowing what the Gospel is. No, we must dive deeply into the Gospel and know it and rejoice in it and proclaim it.
Those were Jesus’ parting words to his disciples, weren’t they? So why are we not doing it?
Above All Things 