Assault Rifle was owned by Adam Lanza's mother[/caption]Carol Forsloff — Assault rifles have been the weapons of choice for two mass killings in late 2012, one in Connecticut and the other in a mall in Oregon, as Facebook posts present the usual good wishes for 2013. Many posts offered pictures of assault rifles, accompanied by messages about the need to protect oneself from government tyranny while keeping Christ as the Light of the World, a position of hypocrisy that reflects the risks of fundamental belief.
Guns proliferate around the holidays, often offered as gifts. When violent episodes occur on television, the response is to buy more guns. The killings of 20 children and 7 adults in Newton, Connecticut, gave impetus to the purchase of guns, with the media reporting assault rifles actually been virtually sold out before Christmas. How does that mix with the message of Christmas as the time of joyous reunions, family love, community goodness, and the hopes for world peace?
Research on gun violence in America shows that the states with the most restrictions on guns also have the least gun violence. While gun rights advocates use the Connecticut mass killings as an example of the need for more guns to protect school children and speak of Connecticut's restrictions on guns as creating an atmosphere for increased gun violence, the fact is that Connecticut is one of the states with the lowest overall rate of gun violence, along with Hawaii and Colorado.
The Violence Policy Research Center offers a listing of the various states with the highest and lowest rates of gun deaths. The five states with the highest rates of gun deaths - Alaska, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and Wyoming - have 400 to 600% higher rates than those five states with the lowest rates of gun deaths - Hawaii, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, and New Jersey. The five states with the lowest rates also have the most restrictive gun laws.
Those states with the highest rates of gun deaths are also among those states with the highest percentage of professed Christians. They also have the highest percentage of fundamental Protestant denominations. Rhode Island, which is among the states with the lowest rate of gun deaths, is Catholic.
White Christian Protestant Evangelicals have the highest percentage of gun ownership at 58% of households. This compares with 32% of Catholic households. Research points out stark contrasts in the views about gun control and gun rights. Only 35 percent of white evangelicals support stricter gun laws. That’s starkly different when compared to 62 percent of Catholics and 60 percent of individuals who count themselves unaffiliated to a particular faith. The Religion News Service points out the entrenchment of gun rights advocates among the more fundamental Protestant groups, many of which are located in rural America, the Southwest and the South.
The culture of fundamentalism often promotes a specific denomination over another and the superiority of Christianity over any other faith. Yet that same culture is very different than the belief of many other religious groups, including many within the Christian community itself.
Jesus admonished his followers not to be like the Pharisees who counted their steps to the temple and emphasized a rigid way of looking at the world while violating the spirit of the religious laws, the cornerstone of love and mercy. So those who wish to regain the stature of Christ, and the message of the season, have only to look within themselves to see which direction actually brings one to that salvation of which fundamentalists speak. For it is the capture of Christ and His inclusion in the fundamentalist beliefs about God and guns that takes away that "Light of the World".
