Muzzles,
Defibrillators, and Body Armor
I sat and looked at the front page
of the Journal and Courier,
mesmerized by the image of the first responders rushing to assist and protect
those who were hurt by the bomb blasts near the finish line of the Boston
Marathon. It amazed me how quickly
the police, EMT, and fire fighters were able to sort through the carnage and
get the most injured medical care.
It’s been a while since September 11th and it is easy to
forget one of the important lessons we learned there: we are surrounded by everyday heroes who put their own
safety on the line in order to insure ours.
Then I heard a comment by a news
anchor who said that the last mile of the Marathon was dedicated to the victims
of Sandy Hook Elementary School.
And I remembered how so many police chiefs, police commissioners, and mayors
came out after Aurora and Sandy Hook asking for reasonable restrictions on
things like assault rifles, extended magazine clips, armor piercing ammunition,
as well as other kinds of lethal military-style equipment.
If I’m not mistaken, it was only
days after the Connecticut mass shooting that someone set a fire near his home and
shot down the first responders who showed up to put that fire out. Yes, he had an assault rifle with
extended magazines, and yes, he killed/injured several of those whose job it
was to save lives and the destruction of property.
There
is a simple verse from Deuteronomy 25 that says: “You
must not muzzle an ox to keep it from eating as it treads out the grain.” In other words, if the oxen are working
to help you sort grain, they should be given the chance to eat some share of
that grain. The apostle Paul
quotes this verse several times to the early church essentially underscoring
this as a biblical principle: Provide
for those who help provide for you—give the servant what they need, especially
when they are in the process of giving you what you need.
What I don’t hear a lot of in the debate
over gun violence is the common sense plea by us citizens to protect those who
already put themselves in harm’s way to protect us. There is a lot of talk is about guarding my rights with very
little conversation about stepping up to my responsibilities. I think the faithful response is to
ask: What would you and I be willing to give up; what privileges would we be
willing to curtail; how willing would we be as a community to put our responsibilities
on equal footing with our rights especially if doing so would help save the
lives of those who regularly risk their lives for us?
If a shooter had to change magazine clips
more frequently, and in so doing, provided a chance to get an injured officer
to safety or to drag a wounded firefighter out of danger—wouldn’t that alone be
worth restricting their availability?
What possible use would someone outside
the military need for armor piercing bullets? Since they are specifically designed to penetrate the protective
body armor our police officers wear—why do allow them to be sold in the first
place?
And by opening up more and more public
places to conceal and carry licenses aren’t we just adding more confusion and
danger to situations where sheriff’s deputies, school security guards, or
police try to quickly discern the good guys from the bad guys?
Maybe I’m just a naïve head-in-the-clouds
pastor, but there isn’t a lot I wouldn’t consider giving up if it meant that
those who are charged to protect my family and my church family would be more
likely to return—unharmed—to their own families at the end of the day. I guess I’m also naïve enough to
suggest that followers of Jesus take whatever position they have on this
important issue and weigh it against the witness of scripture, as well as lay
it humbly before God in prayer.
And
as long as we are on our knees it wouldn’t hurt to pray for the safety of all those
who have committed themselves to keep us safe in what has increasingly become a
difficult and dangerous world.
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