Guns and Courage

          On December 8, 1941, the United States Congress declared war on Germany and Japan after the disastrous Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.  The European war had been festering for a long time and the US had provided aid to Britain in the form of Lend-Lease and other programs.  The President had hoped to keep us out of a shooting war, but after Pearl Harbor, that was no longer an option and this country headed into a four year shooting war with a seemingly endless cold war to follow with the Soviet Union. 

           

            I am impressed with the solidarity of the war declaration, a country united in purpose and resolve.  I remember the posters that went up all over the country uniting us and proclaiming our clear intent to not let the disaster of Pearl Harbor, or the sinking of the Lusitania go unpunished.  We were certainly a nation unified in purpose.

            I remember all of this because of the incredible difficulty that we seem to have in this nation after the Newtown shootings to provide any kind of effective legislation regarding guns.  There is, to be sure, organized opposition to anything that would restrict gun ownership or providing background checks of purchasers of guns, but the country seems to me to be united in its resolve to do something about the proliferation of assault weapons in this country and the problem of mentally unstable people able to get their hands on them.  We keep hearing about the Second Amendment to the Constitution, and its granting of permission to own guns, with the part about a well-regulated militia being necessary for our common defense de-emphasized so that it always sounds as though our founding fathers were endorsing the possession of any kind of weapon at all by the common people.  

            Where is the resolve that the people of this country are demanding?  Where is the courage of this congress to provide relief even in the face of the concerted opposition of the American Rifle Association and all of the others who are opposed to any kind of regulation?  

            In the face of certain opposition by many people who had power, Jesus continued to heal and instruct, knowing full well that those in power were trying to kill him.  His healing and their killing were not to be avoided, and we have the Cross of Calvary, and the Resurrection of Jesus as our prize and our hope out of all that he did in his powerful ministry.  

            All that we need to do is to cling to that hope with the same courage that our Lord provided to us and without fear do something about not only guns, but all of the crises that face humankind.  God will bless us when we do this.