By Rev. Dr. Patrick G. Duggan
This post originally appeared on New Sacred, a United Church of Christ Blog.
I was half sleeping with the television on, and either I was having a nightmare or I heard somebody tell a really bad joke. Guy walks into a gay club with an assault rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition…
Wait. Did a guy really do that? No, something must be wrong here.
How does a guy walk around an international resort city with an assault rifle and all that ammo? Did he sneak it in under a trench coat? Is that the way people walk around near Disney World?
How does a guy who was interviewed for possible terrorist links two times by the FBI walk into a gun store and buy an assault rifle? How does a gun store sell an assault rifle in any community in the United States? For that matter, why do we need a gun store anywhere?
Did this guy, while emptying his assault rifle, killing 49 people and wounding another 50+ people, really take out his cell phone and call 911 to report what he was doing; to profess his allegiance to a tiny, wealthy, violent, hate-filled self-appointed nation?
Did the political right say that we cannot ban assault weapons because ‘the bad guys have them so we should be able to get them’? Did the politicos on the left make the same lamenting remarks about how wrong it is to not pass more aggressive gun control legislation?
Over 103 people shot in Orlando with 50 dead this weekend, and 64 shot in Chicago two weeks ago? Do we keep diddling around and let 40 more people get shot each week for the next four weeks?
Wait! This IS a nightmare. I AM sleeping. ALL people of faith are sleeping. We only wake up to yell at each other.
Sorry, go back to sleep.