Reflections on the Use of Guns

One week ago today there was a shooting on my block, just a few houses down from where I live. I had been home alone for a while that Friday evening, cooking dinner, relaxing, and actually writing a blog post that never made it to the web. I heard shouting out on the street for a while, which isn’t uncommon. The distance to the other side of our one-way street is short, so people often shout from porch to porch. Even the fact that they were angry shouts wasn’t all that uncommon.

But it was disconcerting to me that the shouts persisted for 25 minutes. At one point I glanced out of the large window in our front door just to see who it was. I didn’t recognize anyone except one of our neighbors who was on her porch across the street from me. She has called herself the “unofficial block captain,” so I was put at ease to see her out there, even if she was just observing the same as me.

I went back to blogging, briefly praying for peace to reign on my block and in Southwest Philly. Not long after, three of my teammates came home, excited to share a funny story from their experience on the trolley ride home. They took turns sharing parts of the story, and we were all laughing.

Then came the shots, several of them. It’s hard to know, but between 7 and 12 shots rang out. Our first reaction was to shut off the lights and run upstairs to the back room of house. We alerted the police and the rest of our teammates who were potentially making their way home soon. Rattled, we prayed together and eventually went to sleep with heavy hearts, wondering who may have been affected by the gunfire.

The next day we saw a police car parked outside the house of a neighbor we know well. You may remember the story from one of my newsletters about a woman who couldn’t believe that we would host a dinner just especially for her and her family. It was her house, where she lives with her husband, two sons (one 22 and one in high school), 10ish-year-old daughter, and four-year-old grandson. We were surprised, because for the most part this family keeps to themselves. We were immediately afraid that the bullets, which had shattered the storm door, had injured any of them, but especially one of the young kids that we play with regularly.

We heard about what happened through the eyes of various neighbors. One of our teenage friends told us it was an intra-gang dispute. She knew because she was standing next to the gunman, apparently not older than 23, who told her, “Get down,” before firing the shots. We learned from the father of the house that it was their oldest son who had “gotten into a little trouble,” but that everyone was okay.

The mother attended our Christmas party later that weekend and told us that her oldest son was shot in the arm, but that he was okay. She told us about how the police offered to take her to the hospital, following the ambulance, but instead went to the police station to question her. After she refused to answer any questions, they eventually took her to her son, the gunfire victim, who was handcuffed to the hospital bed while receiving treatment. Although we were saddened and disgusted by the story she had to share, we were relieved to hear that the physical harm was not extreme.

Our team has spent a lot of time processing these events. There are so many facets. What if I had called the police to break up the dispute in the street before it got violent? What if the trolley had dropped off my teammates a little bit later, so that they would have been walking home when it happened? What if the bullets hit some other part of his body? What kind of trauma would this cause our friend who witnessed it? What if the kids had been playing in the living room? How were we to respond in love to our neighbors’ situation?

Our conversations have not answered every question. But they have revealed the power of guns to turn an emotional response or impulse into a life-changing or life-ending event. From my understanding, the young man with the gun wanted to set his friend straight. In a moment of pride, vengeance, and anger, he pulled out a weapon. Frustrated that his point hadn’t yet been made after 20 minutes, he resorted to use of a deadly weapon.

It’s often said that people, not guns, do the killing. As someone who appreciates technicalities, that saying is technically true. There many, many factors that contributed to this complicated situation, but had the young man not been holding a gun, his fit of pride and vengeance probably would not have ended the same way. I don’t write this to make a political statement. (Frankly, I'm annoyed that most readers can't absorb this without politics coming to mind.) I write to lament that such life-threatening power is afforded to emotion and impulse by guns. I never want my emotions—be they anger, pride, envy, fear, or protection—to be so powerful as to take life. I don’t trust myself—or anyone really—to augment raw emotion with the power to kill.

It’s not worth it.

Please join me in praying for my neighbors affected by gun violence last week and those around Philly affected by it almost daily. Pray for the gunman on my street and all those that resort to gun violence. Pray for a society that trusts deadly force to impulse and emotion. Pray for violence of all kind to end.

Gunshots

This post is about gunshots I heard in my neighborhood one night this week. I hesitate to write about this experience, because I don’t want to reinforce assumptions about my neighborhood: that it’s violent and dangerous and unfriendly. But part of my intention is to analyze those assumptions and what implications they have for our spiritual lives. So for the sake of exploring my transformation through Jesus, I will risk reinforcing your assumptions about my neighborhood.

Here are some reflections paraphrased from my journal the morning after I heard the gunshots:

“Last night as I lay down to sleep, I heard about 15 gunshots. There was a series of several shots, a pause of a few seconds, and then another series of shots. My first reaction was heartbreak and tears. I sat up in bed and was immediately moved to pray for the situation that was probably just 2-3 blocks from my house. I prayed for the victim(s) and the one(s) firing the gun. With no details beyond the sound of shots themselves, I prayed for whatever I could think of.

“This, I thought later in the night, is not the reaction I would have had in the past. To be honest, I have heard gunshots from my home in North Charleston. When I heard gunshots there, my concern was at first for my safety; I was afraid at what could happen to me. I called the police to make sure whatever was happening ‘over there’ wouldn’t spill over to where I was. And, I thought, there was some criminal now on the loose that needed punishing!

“But last night in Southwest Philly, I mourned the situation. It hurt me to know that there was potentially loss of life, that someone had gotten to a point where s/he felt like violence was the only answer, that children lived on that street and were afraid, that my neighborhood would be looked down upon for the sins of a few. Later, when I once more tried to sleep, I was afraid. What if shots came through my window or wall? What if a police chase led the perpetrator to my back yard?

“After sensing my own fear, I was ashamed and returned to mourning: the situation of those directly affected deserved my prayer more than I did.”

Events like these are a part of the Mission Year experience. Something about living amongst the gunshots makes you care more about them. And not just for the victims. We often shun from our prayers those firing the guns, deeming them worthy of judgment and damnation (if not to hell, then at least the death penalty or maybe prison). But I was moved to pray even for the one(s) firing the gun(s).

Being among my neighbors and caring about them has opened my heart from selfish fear to grieving prayer. This is just one (rather extreme) example of how the Lord is using this relocation to transform me. I thank God for the opportunity to experience such transformation.