The doctrine of original innocence looks like a kid asking, “Why do we have so many guns in Philly when there aren’t that many deer to shoot?”
We are not made to kill. We learn to kill. We are taught how to hate. As Nelson Mandela said, “No one is born hating another person. . . . People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”8
Before we were sinners, we were creatures that God called “good.” We are made in the image of God, every one of us. Every time a life is lost, we lose a piece of the image of God in the world. We are image-bearers of God. It’s worth taking a step back and thinking through how we can deconstruct the culture of gun violence, by which we are conditioned to accommodate death.
Violence is a sin that we learn. Violence is taught. It is also caught like a contagion. It is something we form in the imaginations of our children. And it is something we can unlearn. Perhaps the kids will help us.
Politicians and gun profiteers continue to defend the status quo. Companies are designing bulletproof backpacks and talking about arming teachers. But young people have had enough.
They have helped organize some of the largest marches in US history, like the March for Our Lives. They’ve managed to get some of the largest corporations, like Walmart and Dick’s Sporting Goods, to change their policies and make costly decisions like no longer selling assault rifles and setting a minimum age of twenty-one to buy a gun.9 They’ve replaced politicians and changed the narrative on gun control. They’ve helped the new standard for election to become an “F” rating from the NRA and a clean record of refusing NRA money. They’ve had sit-ins and walkouts. The young people are rising up. And thank God they are.
Toddlers and Hazelnut Trees
In 2016 RAWtools was at an event in Toledo in partnership with a couple of churches and gun-violence prevention groups. A woman who lost her husband was going to bang on a .22 rifle and participate in helping us turn it into a garden tool. At the end we would take a spade, made from a donated shotgun, to a spot in a community garden and plant a nut tree. The fruit of this tree, along with other produce from the garden, would help provide fresh food to a local elementary school.
The news crew that was on its way to cover the event was pulled to another story—a seven-year-old had unintentionally shot and killed a three-year-old.10
Children planting a tree using shovels made from guns [Toledo Guns to Gardens]
When the news crew finally arrived at the end of our event, young children were planting a hazelnut tree with a shovel made from a gun. Unfortunately, the two events that the news crew covered on this day were not quite a coincidence. A coincidence would be when two relatable events occur at the same time but hardly ever occur again. Kids are dying too often by gun violence for us to consider this a mere coincidence. Two weeks before the tragedy in Toledo, USA Today ran a story in which it found that “minors died from accidental shootings—at their own hands, or at the hands of other children or adults—at a pace of one every other day, far more than limited federal statistics indicate.”11 Every other day we have an opportunity to turn a gun into a tool in a city where a kid died from gun violence. We need to be making garden tools, not burying our children, every other day.
Guns kill three kids per day, over 1,200 per year in the United States, not including the thousands who survive a gunshot.12 Ninety-one percent of children who die from a gunshot are from the US. This has driven gunshot wounds to be the third-leading cause of death for children in the US, many of which are called accidents.13 Our medical professional friends tell us, however, that this is wrongly categorized. Such incidents can’t be defined as accidents, because that would imply there was nothing that could have prevented them. Children dying because of guns is a preventable problem, not an accident. There are many steps we can take to keep toddlers from gaining access to loaded weapons.
When I (Mike) think about the “least of these” suffering because of gun violence, I think of my own two children. How can I not? And why would I not want to offer myself to be transformed in such a way by a fire that refines me and my neighborhood, moving us toward gardens instead of shooting ranges? The death of a child rocks a community. Ask Pharaoh. After the death of his son, he let the Israelites go, only to retaliate by sending his army after Moses and his people. Scripture tells us Pharaoh’s heart was hardened. Pharaoh’s heart had not been softened and transformed by fire. When steel is too cold and then struck by a hammer, it cracks. The steel is no longer useful for a tool unless it is welded back together. Pharaoh’s heart was cracked at the loss of his firstborn.
Blacksmith Dane Turpening and Toledo Mennonite pastor Joel Shenk are part of a RAWtools location in Toledo. These images show them gathered around the forge, helping event participants make a garden tool from a gun. As part of their work, they teach youth how to solve conflict nonviolently and how to turn guns into garden tools and other lovely things. [Joel Shenk]
We must not let our hearts harden so much that we cannot hear the cries of the children until it’s too late and the child is our own. Kids killing kids with guns is directly related to the easy access they have to them, compounded by our ability to carry guns, both openly and concealed, and by our inability to safely store guns. Is our devotion to guns really worth the lives of our kids?
We can change the foundation of how our society solves problems by training the future leaders that a gun is not a problem solver but a problem creator. This is the implication of turning swords into plows. It’s a community effort to get rid of weapons, requiring all of us to use other options to solve conflict. The kids need to see the adults be an example of this. Collectively, can your community be this example?
eight
Another Dark Secret
Working up the courage to pull the trigger was hard for me. That Smith & Wesson called to me like an old friend who was here to save me. It was time.
—Ben Corey
EVERY THIRTY MINUTES, a person takes their life with a gun. Some 45,000 people die from suicide each year in America.1 Most people who attempt suicide do not die—unless they use a gun. Access to a gun in a time of crisis is often what makes the difference between life and death.
Suicide is the second-leading cause of death among young people fifteen to twenty-four years old.2 Of the thirty-eight thousand gun deaths each year, nearly two-thirds are suicides.3 When access to guns decreases, so do the number of suicides. When access to guns is greater, so is the number of suicides. Just like in war, adding more guns creates more casualties.
In short, guns make it a whole lot easier to commit suicide, and yet suicide is overlooked and neglected in the gun debate. Studies consistently show that suicide attempts by gun almost always end in death: nine out of ten are fatal, compared with 3 percent or less for other more commonly used methods such as overdosing, cutting, or jumping.4 It’s the only method that is anywhere near that high. Studies put suffocation around 25 percent or lower in fatality, and taking poison around 10 percent. When it comes to all the others—jumping, cutting, and other means—the completion rate drops even lower, sometimes showing that over 95 percent of those who attempt suicide survive. The only exception is suicide attempts by gun.5
What’s more is that 90 percent of the people who survive a suicide attempt do not end up dying by suicide, so surviving the first attempt is monumental.6 About 70 percent will not attempt suicide again.7 They get help, counseling, medication, or just rethink their decision to take their life. Just stalling an attempt can stop a suicide, since many suicides, especially by men, are done impulsively or reactionarily. But access to guns makes suicide attempts much more lethal. A gun in the home triples the risk of suicide.
Timing is a critical element when it comes to suicide because so many suicides are impulsive. Many of those who attempt suicide spend less than ten minutes deliberating before the attempt. Suicide expert Jill Harkavy-Friedman of the American Fo
undation for Suicide Prevention stresses how critical the time element is when it comes to suicide.8 She points out that a crisis often seems less hopeless with time. Time opens up the opportunity to get help, which is why limiting the access to guns is so important. If the first attempt can be prevented, or even survived, then the life is almost always saved. Guns make that nearly impossible.
And guns make the impulsivity so much easier. Seventy percent of suicides happen within an hour of consideration, and nearly a quarter (24 percent) happen within five minutes.9
THE ECHOES OF GUN VIOLENCE
I (Mike) lost my mom to suicide. She didn’t use a gun, but I found out years later that guns have an impact on how first responders engage with suicide calls (and other special circumstances). I can’t speak to all calls, but in our case it was standard practice for law enforcement to have to clear the scene of firearms prior to a paramedic entering the house or property, whether or not they knew of the presence of a gun. There is no way for us to know if that ten minutes or so made a difference for my mom, especially since we lived in a more rural location at the time. I certainly don’t blame first responders for not rushing into the house immediately; there is good reason for their practiced caution to be in place—tragedies have occurred and continue to occur. At some point first responders became endangered by the possibility of guns being in a home, and a new practice was put in place—for the sake of losing fewer lives and harming fewer people. This is an echo of gun violence that many of us don’t know about. It’s also a practice of gun safety. Firefighters and EMS crews are being outfitted with tactical gear because of mass shootings. Are we willing to trade EMS response time and public funds for unfettered access to guns?
It’s one of the reasons that states with higher gun ownership have more suicides, especially among kids. Eighty percent of kids who commit suicide with a gun use a family member’s firearm. Veterans are especially at risk: two-thirds of veteran suicides are by gun (and twenty veterans commit suicide by any method each day, which is 22 percent higher than the civilian population).10
Meanwhile, some states, like Florida, have written into law a provision that prohibits doctors from asking patients or parents if there is a gun in the home, including patients that they may be worried are considering taking their lives. The NRA has said that asking this is unacceptable and beyond the reach of what a doctor should do. The NRA’s chief Florida lobbyist said, “We take our children to pediatricians for medical care—not moral judgment, not privacy intrusions.”11
Memorial to the Lost
GUN SUICIDE VICTIMS
Each year, over 21,000 Americans take their own life with a gun. There are too many to mention by name, but we honor their memories and the loved ones they left behind.
Fortunately, some of Florida’s doctors sued to stop this ridiculous law, and they prevailed in court. It is one more reminder that guns are a public health issue, and a doctor’s job is to do no harm.
Programs that limit access to guns have been effective in decreasing suicides. We don’t have much data on that in America, since getting data is one of the problems, but other parts of the world are way ahead of us on reducing suicides and the role that guns play. A promising program was implemented in Australia.
After a mass shooting on April 28, 1996, where thirty-five people were killed and twenty-eight wounded, Australia said, “Never again.” Over the course of the next year, Australia launched one of the most vigorous gun buyback programs in history. They collected roughly 650,000 privately held guns. One study says that this was 20 percent of the guns in the entire country. Australia’s prime minister, John Howard, knew the campaign would not be easy. He even wore a bulletproof vest on occasion as the process unfolded.12
Here’s what’s so important about what happened next: not only did firearm homicides drop by 42 percent, but the suicide rates also dropped dramatically. Firearm suicides dropped by 57 percent in the seven years after the gun reforms. As the number of firearms dropped, so did the number of suicides. As Australia bought back 3,500 guns per 100,000 people, there was a 74 percent drop in gun suicides and a similar but less precise effect on homicide rates (difference between averages for 1990–1995 and 1998–2003).13 Without a doubt, lives were saved, and the United States has a lot to learn from the courage of Australia. In the two decades since these shifts, there has only been one mass shooting in Australia. Firearm suicides continue to drop (and suicides by other means have not increased to compensate). It is clear: we can save lives if we want to.
“IT’S A FACT THAT GOD LOVES YOU”
(Note) Benjamin Corey is a mutual friend who has worked with us in a variety of ways. He is a military veteran who found himself in a dark and lonely place and nearly pulled the trigger one night.
Working up the courage to pull the trigger was hard for me. There were so many mixed emotions that I couldn’t explain, yet I so desperately wanted to follow through. However, something inside me kept getting in the way—so I decided I’d go to the store to grab something to drink and take the edge off, before coming home to finish the job once and for all. . . . Upon returning home, I sat back down on my black couch amidst a dark and gloomy living room whose shades hadn’t welcomed daylight in weeks. I looked at the pistol staring back at me as if it wanted me to pick her back up and click the safety to “off.” I again began to sob as I looked around the room and saw how badly things had spiraled out of control . . . especially when I saw the bottle of sleeping pills beside me which I had been abusing for quite some time, taking a few in the morning to make me sleep all day and a few at night to ensure I was only a prisoner to my thoughts for the shortest amount of time possible. I was rarely “with it,” and when I was, that Smith & Wesson called to me like an old friend who was here to save me. It was time.
Something beautiful happened to Ben on his trip to that store. On the way there, he repeatedly asked God if God loved him. While there, a woman walked by and placed a piece of paper in his hand, which he put in his pocket without looking at it. When he got home, he remembered and pulled it out to look at it. At the top it read, “It’s a fact that God loves you.”
This saved Ben’s life.
Left: Ben Corey at the anvil / Right: Ben with his finished garden tool
He later took that Smith & Wesson and made a garden tool out of it. He also had a disabled German Mauser from World War II that he obtained while stationed overseas. We got a little artsy with that one and kept it in one piece, but with the barrel turned into a garden tool. Its bayonet also made a good little weed shovel.
Another study, done in Israel, related to the suicide rate of soldiers, 84 percent of which were gun suicides. Israel enacted a policy to decrease the proliferation of guns, especially among soldiers. They stopped letting soldiers take their weapons home with them on weekends. And suicides dropped by 57 percent among Israeli soldiers. Because where fewer guns are present, there are fewer suicides.14
It’s clear—when it comes to homicide and when it comes to suicide, we can save some lives . . . if we want to.
Suicide Guns
As we’ve seen, the suicide rate among soldiers and veterans is astronomical, twice that of the general population.15 Twenty veterans or active military service members take their life every day.16 Our friend Ben Corey could have been one of those numbers, but he beat his gun into a plow. And we are so glad he did. Our hearts grieve for every life lost to suicide and rejoice with every life that is spared.
Not all stories end like Ben’s. In the time RAWtools has been operating, we have received many inquiries from folks about what to do with a gun they don’t want to keep or sell because a loved one used the gun to complete suicide. It is often the case that after investigation is finished, police are required to return the gun to the family. Sometimes they offer to destroy it, but they first have to notify the family to give them the choice. It’s hard enough to live through the trauma and days following a suicide; the gun being returned further tips the scales of g
rief.
One gun donation to RAWtools was from a family whose teen played Russian roulette with guns he had found. Some had bullets and some didn’t. The police confiscated most of the guns, but for some reason one rifle was left behind. A friend of the family saw what that gun represented to the family and offered to take it off their hands. Now it’s become a few garden tools cultivating life from Florida to Oregon.
Another donated gun was from a friend whose dad completed suicide decades before. Like many others, he held on to it because it carried meaning, having belonged to his dad. But it had become tainted by also being the means by which he lost his dad. A family heirloom gun carries a lot of weight. In many cases the gun provided food and memories from traditional hunting and camping trips that have nothing to do with a culture of violence (unless you’re the deer) and everything to do with familial bonds and experiences. So when tragedy strikes in the form of suicide, families are placed in a predicament. The gun has taken on a new identity because of this tragic part of its history. So now what?
Healing Hearts and Minds
Love compels us to care for those who struggle with mental illness or thoughts of suicide. Beating swords into plows means protecting lives—including preventing the harm someone might inflict on themselves.
States and countries that reduce access to guns see fewer people take their own lives. What if we could save even a few lives by making guns a little less accessible? Wouldn’t it be worth it? “Red flag” laws are being introduced across the country. They would allow law enforcement to temporarily confiscate a gun when someone is a risk to themselves. The gun would be returned when a medical professional cleared the individual as mentally fit for gun ownership.
Interrupting a person’s suicide attempt is the best way to prevent suicide and further attempts. It’s part of what drives advocacy for three- to seven-day holds on gun purchases. If the country wanted to curb gun violence, two-thirds of which is suicide, education on what to do when a friend or loved one exhibits signs of suicide and mental illness should be a large part of a comprehensive approach.
Beating Guns Page 11
