gun violence

Three people died in the attack on the Boston Marathon. That same day, 11 Americans were murdered by guns.

We had a week of frightening headlines as each day greeted us with a new horror. Yet, the chorus soothes my troubled soul as I inhale and imagine God filling me with peace in the midst of all those dreadful dispatches.

After the Senate refused to take up several gun-control proposals Wednesday, I checked in with faith-based activists on the legislative process. (See my earlier Century article.) Many expressed frustration but also tentative hope for future prospects. "I'm deeply disappointed and very angry at the vise grip the NRA has on this issue," says Katherine Willis Pershey of the #ItIsEnough campaign.

Many activists weren't thrilled with the legislation to begin with.

Alexander Hamilton’s 1804 death in a duel galvanized popular opposition. We need a similar campaign around gun violence.

A couple of brief follow-ups to both my post on eucharistic witness on gun control and my article in the latest issue of the magazine.

History is littered with the husks of failed faith-based campaigns to change society. Will the current gun control push be different?

A number of activist organizations are declaring March 15-17 "National Gun Violence Prevention Sabbath Weekend."

It's not clear if this is meant to replace The Brady Center's "God Not Guns Sabbath," which has been observed on the last weekend of September for a number of years. But the organizers seem eager to keep the event broadly ecumenical and interfaith.

Here's some good news: despite our short collective attention span, despite the fiscal-cliff debacle dominating the headlines shortly after the Newtown shooting, the U.S. scourge of gun violence is still part of the national conversation.

Now, every time I hear a public official mention Newtown and Aurora but not Chicago—which experienced a startling spike in gun homicides in 2012, mostly in poor, black neighborhoods—I'm ashamed at the implication that some killings deserve more shock and outrage than others. Still, whatever it takes to motivate people to take on the pro-gun lobby, I'm grateful to see it happening.

President Obama’s speech in Newtown on December 17 included this pivotal question: “Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?” The president is bristling here at the way our political discourse reflexively leaps to claims about individual rights and freedoms.

On Sunday I attended a worship service at which the air was heavy with a sense of loss. But I saw the church being the church at its best.

In the wake of the Newtown shooting, political will is growing to do something about guns. People are moved to act—and we must act.

Megan McArdle thinks that gun-control measures wouldn't accomplish much but that training kids to run at a shooter instead of away might. That's a weird payoff at the end of a 4,500-word post, but it's not as offensive as Charlotte Allen's argument.

Those of us in violence-plagued neighborhoods look forward to winter's reprieve. Our teenagers understand Advent waiting all too well.

The Peaceable Kingdom pricks my conscience every time I see it because of the enormous gap between its vision and the world's reality.