Adam Weinstein’s article on gun violence, It’s Really Hard to Be a Good Guy with a Gun, is a worth a close read.
The quick summary: Weinstein grew up with guns, has served in the military, and has a concealed carry licence. Private citizens, “good guys,” legally arming themselves was part of his solution to the growing problem of irrational and unprovoked shootings. The line usually runs, “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” In the wake of the recent Las Vegas shooting it seems Weinstein’s faith in the efficacy of that approach has changed.
It does not seem that his position on violence has changed.
It does not seem that his position on gun control has changed.
This is not an article advocating either pacifism or an amendment to the constitution. Weinstein’s article is about wisdom in the face of complexity. In short, it calls into question the wisdom of an anonymous, armed citizen taking matters into their own hands. I hope that many, many readers are able to grasp this. We have been well trained by years in the civics classroom and countless political campaigns that everything political is about The Issues, and the The Issues are simple, and there are only two positions for every Issue. Sure, there are variations of perspective, but these can all be neatly plotted between the two real points. You are on the left or the right, but everyone fights to be the “moderate.”
We need to recapture the right and ability to think laterally, to think outside or without the rules of game as dictated. This is not a pure anti-authoritarianism, but, for the Christian, an appeal to a different authority, a different set of rules.
Weinstein puts his finger on a set of Issues that, I think, plenty of legitimate, earnest, God-fearing Christians disagree about: violence and gun control. The problem with how we deal with these Issues is that often the shape of the conversation is dictated by another authority, an authority (mediated through campaign and culture) that says you have to fit the binary: either this or that. But what about approaching the totality of life-before-God with an eye towards the prize of fulfilling God’s Wisdom, which recognizes that binary solutions to every problem are not always the best route, and, being wise, sometimes are. Wisdom knows the difference.
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