Beating Guns

by Shane Claiborne

  5. Lopez, “America’s Unique Gun Violence Problem.”

  6. Kim Parker et al., “America’s Complex Relationship with Guns,” Pew Research Center, June 22, 2017, http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/06/22/americas-complex-relationship-with-guns.

  7. Richard Florida, “The Geography of Gun Deaths,” Atlantic, January 13, 2011, https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/01/the-geography-of-gun-deaths/69354.

  8. Lopez, “America’s Unique Gun Violence Problem.”

  9. David Owens, Judith Horrocks, and Allan House, “Fatal and Non-Fatal Repetition of Self-Harm: Systematic Review,” British Journal of Psychiatry 181, no. 3 (September 2002): 193–99, cited by Everytown for Gun Safety, “Firearm Suicide in the United States,” 2017, https://everytownresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Suicide-in-USA-FACT-SHEET-091917A.pdf. See also Lopez, “America’s Unique Gun Violence Problem.”

  10. Here are a few websites that track police-involved shootings: https://www.fatalencounters.org; https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/police-shootings-2018; https://mappingpoliceviolence.org.

  11. David I. Swedler et al., “Firearm Prevalence and Homicides of Law Enforcement Officers in the United States,” American Journal of Public Health 105, no. 10 (October 2015): 2042–48, https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2015.302749.

  12. Swedler et al., “Firearm Prevalence and Homicides.”

  13. WRAC, Winchester letter book, from Winchester to Charles Bradford, Indiana, October 18, 1862, cited in Pamela Haag, The Gunning of America: Business and the Making of American Gun Culture (New York: Basic Books, 2016), 59.

  14. US Department of Justice, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, “Firearms Commerce in the United States,” 2017, https://www.atf.gov/resource-center/docs/undefined/firearms-commerce-united-states-annual-statistical-update-2017/download.

  Chapter 11: In Guns We Trust

  1. Richard Lacayo, “Under Fire,” Time, June 24, 2001, http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,153695,00.html.

  2. Turf, Field and Farm, March 19, 1875, advertisements in this volume; Colt Collection (Connecticut State Library), box 66, folder 3, advertisement, “The Pioneers of Civilization, Colt’s Repeating Firearms,” cited in Pamela Haag, The Gunning of America: Business and the Making of American Gun Culture (New York: Basic Books, 2016), 168.

  3. Closing remarks, NRA annual meeting, Charlotte, North Carolina, 2000, available at “Charlton Heston; From My Cold Dead Hands. Long Version,” YouTube, April 26, 2008, https://youtu.be/5ju4Gla2odw.

  4. Check out a more detailed account of this in Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw, Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008), 65–137.

  5. Tertullian, On Idolatry 19.

  6. Tertullian, Apology 50.

  7. A great compilation of quotes from early Christians is Eberhard Arnold, ed., The Early Christians in Their Own Words (Farmington, PA: Plough, 2007), https://www.holybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Early-Christians-in-their-own-Words.pdf.

  8. Andy Crouch, Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2013), 56.

  9. Garry Wills, “Our Moloch,” New York Review of Books, December 15, 2012, https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2012/12/15/our-moloch.

  10. Peter G. Peterson Foundation, “U.S. Defense Spending Compared to Other Countries,” May 7, 2018, https://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0053_defense-comparison. See also Shane Claiborne and Ben Cohen, Jesus, Bombs, and Ice Cream: Building a More Peaceful World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013), DVD and study guide, which details the military economy; and “Ben Cohen’s Dessert—Another World is Possible Vol 1 with Shane Claiborne,” YouTube, August 31, 2010, https://youtu.be/YVPGb21oaq8.

  11. “A Moral Agenda Based on Fundamental Rights,” Poor People’s Campaign, accessed July 26, 2018, https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/demands.

  12. Nick Turse, “Does the Pentagon Really Have 1,180 Foreign Bases?,” Huffington Post, originally published January 10, 2011, updated December 6, 2017, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/nick-turse/does-the-pentagon-really-_b_806817.html.

  13. Our pal Rob Bell did a great podcast series on this. Rob Bell, “Politics and Guns—Part 4—The United States of America,” The Robcast (podcast), https://robbell.podbean.com/e/episode-57-politics-and-guns-part-4-the-united-states-of-america.

  14. Wilson Andrews et al., “Taking Apart the Federal Budget,” Washington Post, accessed September 20, 2018, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/budget-2010; Tanza Loudenback, “Middle-Class Americans Made More Money Last Year Than Ever Before,” Business Insider, September 12, 2017, https://www.businessinsider.com/us-census-median-income-2017-9.

  15. US Government Accountability Office, “Public Relations Spending: Reported Data on Related Federal Activities,” September 30, 2016, https://www.budget.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/GAO%20PR%20Agency%20Spending.pdf; Derek Thompson, “War and Peace in 30 Seconds: How Much Does the Military Spend on Ads?,” Atlantic, January 30, 2012, https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/01/war-and-peace-in-30-seconds-how-much-does-the-military-spend-on-ads/252222.

  16. Bill Theobald, “Pentagon Paid Sports Teams Millions for Patriotic Events,” USA Today, November 4, 2015, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/11/04/millions-paid-pro-teams-patriotic-events-sens-flake-mccain-say/75141688.

  17. Noah Shachtman, “27,000 Work in Pentagon PR and Recruiting,” Wired, February 5, 2009, https://www.wired.com/2009/02/27000-work-in-p.

  18. Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris, “Status of World Nuclear Forces,” Federation of American Scientists, updated June 2018, https://fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapons/status-world-nuclear-forces.

  19. This incredible video gives a sense of the scale: “The Terrifying True Scale of Nuclear Weapons,” YouTube, October 7, 2016, https://youtu.be/fs1CIrwg5zU.

  20. “Nuclear Weapons—the Facts,” New Internationalist, June 2, 2008, https://newint.org/features/2008/06/01/nuclear-weapons-facts.

  21. Skye Gould and Jeremy Bender, “Here’s How the US Military Spends Its Billions,” Business Insider, August 29, 2015, https://www.businessinsider.com/how-the-us-military-spends-its-billions-2015-8.

  22. Philip J. Cook and Jens Ludwig, Gun Violence: The Real Costs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 11.

  23. Hugh Waters et al., The Economic Dimensions of Interpersonal Violence (Geneva: Department of Injuries and Violence Prevention, World Health Organization, 2004), 24–25, http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/42944/9241591609.pdf.

  24. C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, in The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007), 626 (emphasis original).

  25. Alexa Liautaud, “White House Acknowledges the U.S. Is at War in Seven Countries,” VICE News, March 15, 2018, https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/a3ywd5/white-house-acknowledges-the-us-is-at-war-in-seven-countries.

  26. F. Brinley Bruton, “U.S. Bombed Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia in 2016,” NBC News, January 9, 2017, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/u-s-bombed-iraq-syria-pakistan-afghanistan-libya-yemen-somalia-n704636.

  27. Martin Luther King Jr., “Beyond Vietnam” (sermon, New York, April 4, 1967), https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/beyond-vietnam.

  28. Dwight D. Eisenhower, “The Chance for Peace” (address delivered before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 16, 1953), http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=9819.

  Chapter 12: Exorcising Demons

  1. Carma Hassan and Steve Almasy, “During Sermon on Violence, N.C. Pastor Confronts Man with Rifle,” CNN, January 4, 2016, https://www.cnn.com/2016/01/02/us/north-carolina-pastor-man-with-gun/index.html; “Pastor Says Armed Man in N.C. Church Disarmed with Prayer,” CBS News, January 3, 2016, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pastor-says-armed-man-north-carolina-church-disarmed-with-prayer.

  2. John Dear, “Expelling the Demons of War,” National Catholic Reporter, March 29, 2011, https://www.nc
ronline.org/blogs/road-peace/expelling-demons-war.

  3. The pig was also the mascot of Rome’s Tenth Fretensis Legion stationed in Antioch (Warren Carter, Matthew and Empire: Initial Explorations [Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press, 2001], 71). It’s interesting to note the places where Jesus drove demons out of people: often in the temple and in the militarized zones. The words “come out” that usually accompany an exorcism are the same words with which Jesus exorcised the temple, calling the money changers to “come out” because they had made a market of God’s temple and marginalized visiting gentiles. We’re thankful for John Dominic Crossan, Ched Meyers, and the numerous scholars whose work on this text has given us new eyes to see. For an in-depth study of Mark’s Gospel, we suggest Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus, rev. ed. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2008).

  4. Someone caught this encounter on video, and it’s powerful to watch: “Pro-gun Advocates Sing ‘God Bless America’ Over Top ‘the Lord’s Prayer,’” YouTube, March 8, 2010, https://youtu.be/9YTajZfqTYI.

  Chapter 13: Christians with Guns

  1. Chuck Shepherd, “Bible-Quoting Contest: Loser Shoots, Kills Winner,” Montgomery Advertiser, Associated Press, July 18, 1996, cited in James Atwood, America and Its Guns: A Theological Exposé (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2012), 8.

  2. “Argument over Bible, Forgiveness Leads to Man Being Shot Twice in Head, Say Police,” WLTX, October 30, 2017, https://www.wltx.com/article/news/crime/argument-over-bible-forgiveness-leads-to-man-being-shot-twice-in-head-say-police/101-487309612.

  3. Madeleine Albright, The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs (New York: HarperCollins, 2006), 25, cited in Atwood, America and Its Guns, 59.

  4. Ed Mazza, “Gun Maker Creates ‘Crusader’ Assault Rifle with Bible Verse on It,” HuffPost, September 3, 2015, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/crusader-assault-rifle_us_55e7ff20e4b0b7a9633bcb11; https://www.spikestactical.com/products/complete-rifle-crusader.

  5. Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra, “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition, Quantified,” Christianity Today, July 24, 2017, https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2017/july/praise-lord-pass-ammunition-who-loves-god-guns-pew.html, citing Kim Parker et al., “America’s Complex Relationship with Guns,” Pew Research Center, June 22, 2017, http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/06/22/americas-complex-relationship-with-guns.

  6. Sarah Pulliam Bailey, “Jerry Falwell Jr.: ‘If More Good People Had Concealed-Carry Permits, Then We Could End Those’ Islamist Terrorists,” Washington Post, December 5, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2015/12/05/liberty-university-president-if-more-good-people-had-concealed-guns-we-could-end-those-muslims.

  7. For a thorough survey of early Christian views on violence, we recommend Ron Sider’s edited volume, The Early Church on Killing: A Comprehensive Sourcebook on War, Abortion, and Capital Punishment (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012).

  8. T. Rees Shapiro, “Gun-Friendly Liberty University to Open On-Campus Shooting Range,” Washington Post, December 15, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/12/15/gun-friendly-liberty-university-to-open-on-campus-shooting-range.

  9. William Barclay, The Gospel of Luke (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 92.

  Chapter 14: Unlearning Violence

  1. Norman Herr, “Television & Health,” Sourcebook for Teaching Science, accessed August 21, 2018, https://www.csun.edu/science/health/docs/tv&health.html.

  2. Cited in James Atwood, America and Its Guns: A Theological Exposé (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2012), 33.

  3. Alan Dawson, “The 51 Best-Selling Pay-Per-View Fight Nights in History,” Business Insider, August 25, 2017, http://www.businessinsider.com/the-50-best-selling-pay-per-view-events-boxing-ufc-wrestling-tv-history-2017-8.

  4. Robert Johnson, “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Destroys Records in First Day Sales Rampage, Pulls in $310M,” New York Daily News, November 12, 2009, http://www.nydailynews.com/news/money/call-duty-modern-warfare-2-destroys-records-day-sales-rampage-article-1.417049.

  5. Sasha Emmons, “Is Media Violence Damaging to Kids?,” CNN, February 21, 2013, https://www.cnn.com/2013/02/21/living/parenting-kids-violence-media/index.html.

  6. Angelo Dargenio, “10 Call of Duty Facts That Will Blow Your Mind!,” Arcade Sushi, June 1, 2014, http://arcadesushi.com/call-of-duty-facts-that-will-blow-your-mind; Brian Fung, “Humankind Has Now Spent More Time Playing Call of Duty Than It Has Existed on Earth,” Washington Post, August 13, 2013, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/08/13/humankind-has-now-spent-more-time-playing-call-of-duty-than-it-has-existed-on-earth.

  7. Jeremy Diamond, “Trump: I Could ‘Shoot Somebody and I Wouldn’t Lose Voters,’” CNN, January 24, 2016, https://www.cnn.com/2016/01/23/politics/donald-trump-shoot-somebody-support/index.html.

  8. Benjamin Carlson, “Yes, Language Does Shape Culture,” Atlantic, July 26, 2010, https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/07/yes-language-does-shape-culture/340451; Lera Boroditsky, “How Language Shapes the Way We Think,” TEDWomen 2017, November 2017, 14:13, https://www.ted.com/talks/lera_boroditsky_how_language_shapes_the_way_we_think.

  9. Craig A. Anderson and Brad J. Bushman, “Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggressive Behavior, Aggressive Cognition, Aggressive Affect, Physiological Arousal, and Prosocial Behavior: A Meta-Analytic Review of the Scientific Literature,” Psychological Science 12, no. 5 (September 2001): 353–59, https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.00366.

  10. Atwood, America and Its Guns, 36.

  11. Sami Yenigun, “A Real-World Connection between Video Games and Guns,” All Tech Considered (NPR), April 29, 2013, http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2013/04/29/179853504/a-real-world-connection-between-video-games-and-guns.

  12. The NFL and sports reference found in Atwood, America and Its Guns, 206. Perhaps the New Orleans Saints can petition other teams for a new name!

  13. Ronald J. Sider, ed., The Early Church on Killing: A Comprehensive Sourcebook on War, Abortion, and Capital Punishment (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012).

  Chapter 15: The Third Way of Jesus

  1. Daniel Berrigan, No Bars to Manhood (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970), 49.

  2. Jim Forest, At Play in the Lions’ Den: A Biography and Memoir of Daniel Berrigan (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2017).

  3. Vivian Giang, “What It Takes to Change Your Brain’s Patterns after Age 25,” Fast Company, April 28, 2015, https://www.fastcompany.com/3045424/what-it-takes-to-change-your-brains-patterns-after-age-25.

  4. Daniel J. Siegel, The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are, 2nd ed. (New York: Guilford, 2012), 24. Donald Hebb, author and psychologist, developed a theory that is often paraphrased as “Neurons that fire together wire together.”

  5. Michael N. Nagler documents this in his book Is There No Other Way? The Search for a Nonviolent Future (Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Hills, 2001).

  6. Walter Wink, The Powers That Be (New York: Doubleday, 1998), 111.

  7. Wink, Powers That Be, 111.

  8. Wink, Powers That Be, 111.

  9. Robert Ellsberg, ed., Dorothy Day: Selected Writings (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1992), 339.

  10. Pope Francis, “Words of Holy Father Francis” (Vigil of Prayer for Peace, Saint Peter’s Square, September 7, 2013), http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/homilies/2013/documents/papa-francesco_20130907_veglia-pace.html.

  11. Tertullian, Apology 50.

  12. Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2010), 47.

  13. Ronald J. Sider, “God’s People Reconciling” (speech, Mennonite World Conference, Strasbourg, France, summer 1984), https://www.cpt.org/resources/writings/sider.

  Chapter 16: Love Casteth Out Fear (and Fear Casteth Out Love)

  1. S. L. A. Marshall, Men against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command (1947; repr., Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000). See also Dave Grossman, On Killing: The Psychologi
cal Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, rev. ed. (New York: Back Bay Books, 2009); Grossman, “S. L. A. Marshall Revisited . . . ?,” Canadian Military Journal 9, no. 4 (2008), http://www.journal.forces.gc.ca/vo9/no4/18-grossman-eng.asp.

  2. Richard C. Dieter, “Battle Scars: Military Veterans and the Death Penalty,” Death Penalty Information Center, 2015, https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/files/pdf/BattleScars.pdf; “Suicide among Veterans and Other Americans 2001–2014,” U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, Office of Suicide Prevention, August 3, 2016, https://www.mentalhealth.va.gov/docs/2016suicidedatareport.pdf.

  3. Michael Martin, “Radical Red Letters: A Story from a Gun Donor,” Voices of RAWtools (blog), April 25, 2018, http://www.patheos.com/blogs/voicesofrawtools/2018/04/radical-red-letters-a-story-from-a-gun-donor.

  4. Shane has written in depth about this in Executing Grace: How the Death Penalty Killed Jesus and Why It’s Killing Us (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2016).