CAN YOU IMAGINE JESUS SHOOTING A DEER?
Can you imagine St. Francis packing heat? Gandhi standing hundreds of feet from a gentle buck, doe, or fawn and killing one of them with a high-powered rifle with a telescopic scope? How can that possibly be construed to be good parental guidance for the family or an example of toughness (it seems just the opposite)? All this "need" to have a gun is mixed in with conservative Christianity and out comes a strange concoction. Show me someone who NEEDS to have a gun, and I will show you someone who probably shouldn't have one. Guns may have some function in a democratic society, but being used to pump up some pseudo-tough-guy is not one of them. Guns may have some function in protecting our nation from attack, but they are not to be used to lie and then invade a sovereign nation who had no connection to 9/11. Guns may have some proper function in the 21st century, but not to provide individuals or nations with excuses to act like bullies. Guns may have some military function, but not to help recruitment by terrorists for new members because we flaunt our weaponry.
"What would Jesus do?" is a common phrase used by especially Christian fundamentalists. And then they act in direct opposition to the life of Jesus of Nazareth. One does not honor the life of the Jesus portrayed in the Bible by quoting an isolated verse to justify one's own actions. Consider the whole life of the Nazarene, and then ask what Jesus might do. It is safe to say He would not join the National Rifle Association. It is safe to say he would not be the pilot of a bomber dropping bombs on civilians 30,000 feet below.
"Guns have a way of materializing more readily than the commodities that sustain life." -Norman Cousins
"Everybody is a 'law-abiding citizen' until the gun goes off." -Lauerence J. Peter
"With all the violence and murder and killings we've had in the United States, I think you will agree that we must keep firearms from people who have no business with guns." -Robert F. Kennedy [May 1968, five days before his assassination]
"The tendency to identify manhood with a capacity for physical violence has a long history in America." -Marshall Fishwick
"Once lead this people into war and they will forget there ever was such a thing as tolerance." -Woodrow Wilson
"By our readiness to allow arms to be purchased at will and fired at whim, we have created an atmosphere in which violence and hatred have become popular pastimes." -Martin Luther King, Jr.
