Andy lives next door to me with his wife and two small children. Actually, he lives ten feet from me: not as close as an apartment, but like a detached townhouse. He works from home and they school their children at home; but mostly they stay gone, on the road to yet another state, park, or city. So that ten feet of separation is of small concern to me.
Not so down the street,
Walk through the stop sign at the corner and past five houses just like ours, then turn left down that strip of grass 10 feet wide that separates one house from another. You will see where the bullet left one house and entered the other. About neck high.
The wall is pierced, the glass is shattered, the curtain torn, the mirror busted, the splintered bullet on the floor.
The police came and arrested the middle child who was cleaning the 22 millimeter handgun legally owned by his slightly older brother. Discharging a handgun into a car or house is a felony in the state of South Carolina. The young man was booked into the Greenville County Detention Center.
I found myself on the sidewalk talking to the owners of record of those two houses. “We have two handguns in our house,” said the neighbor who called the police, citing his history in the military. “We also have two handguns in our house,” answered the mother of those two young men and their teenage sister. What followed was a friendly but frank discussion about the whole shocking episode and why there were four handguns little more than 10 feet apart.
In 76 plus years I have never lived in a house equipped or armed with guns. There has never been a need. Nor a desire. And this neighborhood episode illustrates the damning data : the most endangered people are those who live in houses with guns. Not the midnight thieves, nor the street-wise strangers, nor gangs that may roam a city a long way from where I live.
I wonder how many of the other 51 new homes in our development are likewise equipped (or endangered) with guns, loaded guns at that. Research reveals that 50% of households in South Carolina (and eleven other states) have registered guns: 60% in Montana and three other states, but less than 20% in five states, with New Jersey at the bottom of this list (of guns per 100 residents, technically).
The second amendment of our constitution permits such armaments, derived from a time when everybody’s hunting rifle was needed to fight off Indians or defeat the British. This rationale is quite silly today when armies fight with tanks, bombs, and drones and modern countries prove that public safety is best secured when gun ownership is tightly restricted.
Our country would be better off if people would stop manufacturing, selling, buying, and using guns. There would be fewer deaths and injuries and more safety.
My perspective on this is informed by my reading of the gospels, by my Jesus-shaped perspective on violence, community, and peace. It is expressed by a Ken Medema song titled “Moses” which is a retelling of Moses’ encounter with God “on the back side of the mountain” when God called for Moses to “give it up, let it go, throw it down.”
The reference was to his staff, that wooden accessory to the shepherd’s work that functioned as tool, weapon, and companion in the harsh conditions of the Sinai Wilderness. But I hear it as a call for believing people to give up the guns, to let go of this out-of-date strategy for peace and safety, and to throw down the implement that last year killed 42,348 people in the United States. That is a public health crisis, although not as bad as drug deaths (69,973). But it is one place where people of faith can lead the nation into a safer and more secure future.
“All to Jesus I surrender,” we often sang in my childhood churches. And the day we sing that song while laying our guns on the altar of God will be a day of real revival in the United States. Plus, it would make living next to somebody a lot safer, be it ten miles or ten feet.
September 18, 2026
(subscribe to this weekly commentary on Religion and American Life)
Andy lives next door to me with his wife and two small children. Actually, he lives ten feet from me: not as close as an apartment, but like a detached townhouse. He works from home and they school their children at home; but mostly they stay gone, on the road to yet another state, park, or city. So that ten feet of separation is of small concern to me.
Not so down the street,
Walk through the stop sign at the corner and past five houses just like ours, then turn left down that strip of grass 10 feet wide that separates one house from another. You will see where the bullet left one house and entered the other. About neck high.
The wall is pierced, the glass is shattered, the curtain torn, the mirror busted, the splintered bullet on the floor.
The police came and arrested the middle child who was cleaning the 22 millimeter handgun legally owned by his slightly older brother. Discharging a handgun into a car or house is a felony in the state of South Carolina. The young man was booked into the Greenville County Detention Center.
I found myself on the sidewalk talking to the owners of record of those two houses. “We have two handguns in our house,” said the neighbor who called the police, citing his history in the military. “We also have two handguns in our house,” answered the mother of those two young men and their teenage sister. What followed was a friendly but frank discussion about the whole shocking episode and why there were four handguns little more than 10 feet apart.
In 76 plus years I have never lived in a house equipped or armed with guns. There has never been a need. Nor a desire. And this neighborhood episode illustrates the damning data : the most endangered people are those who live in houses with guns. Not the midnight thieves, nor the street-wise strangers, nor gangs that may roam a city a long way from where I live.
I wonder how many of the other 51 new homes in our development are likewise equipped (or endangered) with guns, loaded guns at that. Research reveals that 50% of households in South Carolina (and eleven other states) have registered guns: 60% in Montana and three other states, but less than 20% in five states, with New Jersey at the bottom of this list (of guns per 100 residents, technically).
The second amendment of our constitution permits such armaments, derived from a time when everybody’s hunting rifle was needed to fight off Indians or defeat the British. This rationale is quite silly today when armies fight with tanks, bombs, and drones and modern countries prove that public safety is best secured when gun ownership is tightly restricted.
Our country would be better off if people would stop manufacturing, selling, buying, and using guns. There would be fewer deaths and injuries and more safety.
My perspective on this is informed by my reading of the gospels, by my Jesus-shaped perspective on violence, community, and peace. It is expressed by a Ken Medema song titled “Moses” which is a retelling of Moses’ encounter with God “on the back side of the mountain” when God called for Moses to “give it up, let it go, throw it down.”
The reference was to his staff, that wooden accessory to the shepherd’s work that functioned as tool, weapon, and companion in the harsh conditions of the Sinai Wilderness. But I hear it as a call for believing people to give up the guns, to let go of this out-of-date strategy for peace and safety, and to throw down the implement that last year killed 42,348 people in the United States. That is a public health crisis, although not as bad as drug deaths (69,973). But it is one place where people of faith can lead the nation into a safer and more secure future.
“All to Jesus I surrender,” we often sang in my childhood churches. And the day we sing that song while laying our guns on the altar of God will be a day of real revival in the United States. Plus, it would make living next to somebody a lot safer, be it ten miles or ten feet.
September 18, 2026
(subscribe to this weekly commentary on Religion and American Life)
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