If there's one thing guaranteed to frustrate the average American, it's a Brit lecturing them on gun control. If they're in favour, this is just a poorly-informed reinforcement of an argument they've already made much more convincingly themselves – the rookie preacher sermonising to a choir of theologians. If they're against – or at least they oppose widespread disarmament – then this is an arrogant, unwanted, moralising voice from way outside the situation that simply doesn't understand it.
As a Brit with a sometimes arrogant, unwanted, moralising voice, I'd say those people are absolutely correct. I don't understand. A couple of mornings after the horrendous atrocity in Las Vegas that has become America's deadliest mass shooting, I listened to a BBC radio interview with two eye-witnesses from the event. They described the horror of being caught in the line of fire, of watching people who thought they were taking refuge by kneeling on the floor, actually turning themselves into targets for a gunman some 30 floors above them. They recalled the sheer terror of watching people fall all around them, not knowing if they would be next.
Then, the interview took what to me felt like a remarkable turn. The British journalist asked both his guests if being caught in the incident had changed their mind on gun control. Both immediately said that it hadn't. Both invoked that famous 'right to bear arms' that's entrenched in the American constitution. Both opined that good, regular people aren't the problem, and that it's only the criminals who should be prevented from carrying weapons. The interviewer didn't fight back; you could hear the resignation in his voice. He couldn't empathise with their point of view, and nor could I... because neither of us have grown up in America.
Now, I could launch into a predictable rant here about how this doesn't make sense; I could lob another fruitless piece of opinion across the ocean. But the truth is that it's impossible for me, living in a nation with mercifully few guns in circulation, to really understand what it's like to live in a place where they're carried in plain sight. So instead, I want to say something else to my American friends: I get it.
I get that the gun 'market' in the US is already very mature. I get that criminals across the country are armed to the teeth with deadly weapons; not just handguns, but the sorts of assault rifles that were originally intended for military combat. I get that as a result, the police are similarly armed, and that normal, law-abiding people all over the land have a weapon stowed in their closet, just in case one of these dangerous individuals ever decides to cross their front lawn. The whole thing is a highly-developed mess of tension and defensive aggression. Take guns from the people and they feel vulnerable; disarm the police and you risk exposing the people. It's not unlike the more global example of nuclear weapons, where the idea of 'deterrent' keeps everyone armed to a potentially-catastrophic level.
It's easy for us to criticise this; to share graphs on social media of gun crime statistics in the US and shake our heads at another awful incident involving these weapons. But like every socio-political debate, the truth is that it's just much more complicated than that. I video-called a compassionate, gun-opposing Democrat friend the other day and expressed my sympathies about the Las Vegas incident, and he could do little more than shrug his shoulders. Of course this is painful for every American, but they simply don't know how to get out of this mess. The one thing they don't need right now is our contempt.
What they need instead is a sense of hope; a reason to believe that this situation can get better, and that the mass shootings that have become punctuation marks in the American calendar could somehow begin to lessen and even cease. And while I can't offer a solution from thousands of miles away, perhaps this vantage point does afford me the clear sight to imagine from where it might arise.
It's often been stated – and proved – that Evangelical Christians won the last Presidential election for Donald Trump. They came out in force on polling day, rallied by Trump-supporting influencers like Pat Robertson, Jim Bakker and Franklin Graham. In turn, Trump has granted Evangelicals unprecedented access to the White House, famously being pictured in the Oval Office surrounded by pastors and leaders including Paula White. He could soon appoint a series of conservative judges to the Supreme Court who will seemingly justify the decision of every voter who 'held their noses' to vote for him. The Evangelical lobby is as powerful as ever in America.
Some might see that as a cause for concern or even disgust. But what if that lobby took on something else? A different moral issue aside from same-sex marriage; another pro-life issue that wasn't abortion? I'm not being cute here – I'm deadly serious. What if the American church decided it was going to do something about the gun problem?
For some there's an immediate roadblock here: their goal isn't the removal of all guns, because the Second Amendment grants the Right to self-defence. Well, humbly, here's another thought from outside the American bubble: as Christians, your devotion to Christ and his rules for living, supersede even your Rights as an American. There's nothing wrong with being proud of your nationality or of the great things your country has achieved, but as a Christian, you must get the order right: God first, country second. And honestly, to be more than a little provocative, if you can't agree to that, you're probably not a follower of Jesus.
What does God want for America? More mass shootings? Certainly not. For everyone to be armed to the teeth, so that the whole nation is always on the brink of internal conflict, large or small? No way. His American Dream is for that nation to turn to him, rather than on each other.
So just imagine what might happen if the church across the great nation of America decided to take on the problem of gun violence. It could look something like this, at least to start with: those influential pastors, writers and speakers who were so powerful they could swing an election even away from a Clinton, start speaking out on this issue. They – and those in their networks – lead their congregations in meaningfully symbolic acts of prayer, crying out to God for a solution. Churches begin to open safe gun disposal centres, all the while praying for the people in their community to reduce and even give up their armouries. And perhaps, with difficulty and risk, Christians begin to take the truly prophetic step of giving up that Right to own a gun. Perhaps that's not the exact nature of a solution; it's just one version. The important kernel of the idea is that Christians who are passionate about loving their neighbour and defending the right to life, turn all that passion on an issue that's bringing untold misery with predictable regularity.
Imagine if this generation of American Evangelicals weren't remembered in history for electing Trump and opposing fallen morals, but for solving the terrible, cyclical problem of American guns. It's a crazy dream... but you've achieved so many others. And if you would only take it on, then rather than moralising, or ranting, or telling you how broken you are, we'll be cheering you on from Across the Pond.
Martin Saunders is a Contributing Editor for Christian Today and the Deputy CEO of Youthscape. Follow him on Twitter @martinsaunders.
