Guns Don’t Kill People, But People With Guns Do.

I am an omnivore, so, I get the hunting rifle. But the handgun? That, I do not get. This comes in large part from my understanding of what it means for me to follow Jesus. (CAUTION: Please keep the safety engaged. I did not just say all Christian handgun owners were not true followers of Jesus).

Here’s why I could not own a handgun while continuing to imitate Christ.

The singular objective for the design of the handgun is to give one human being the power to take the life of another human being. The handgun is specifically designed to extinguish the Divine image in another person, and I just think we need as many Divine image bearers as we can get on this planet.

As I try to imagine Jesus and the disciples in an age of handguns, I simply can’t picture them packing, let alone whipping out their guns and firing upon others, even those who would seek them harm. As a matter of fact, something like that kind of happened and Jesus wasn’t interested in self-defense in Matthew 26 (regarding the obscure Lukan passage where Jesus tells his disciples to buy a sword, see the Wikipedia entry).

Might physical force be needed to restrain evil? Sure, I’ll go there. I probably would resist an evil person, but this may be more a question of my maturity than it being a deeply held conviction. Jesus specifically told his followers, “do NOT resist an evil person.” Matthew 5:39. I simply don’t think I’m at a place in my attempt to imitate Jesus where I am able to do that.

But I will say that there are ways to resist an evil person without extinguishing their life. I understand that using non-lethal forms of force against someone with a gun may not end well for me. I’d probably be more successful in resisting them by hurling a bit of metal from a barrel at their head. Unless of course their gun was bigger, or faster, or threw more metal than mine. Then it’d be better if I had a grenade. Unless they had a grenade, then … (you see where I’m going here). Building up a cache of weapons to match the firepower of others is the kind arms race that only ends well for arms manufacturers. My first thought if I had a madman coming at me with a gun would not be “where’s my gun,” but rather “who gave that guy a gun?” No one is beyond the possibility of healing, so maybe the command to not resist an evil person is really about the eventual redeemability of evil people rather than about allowing an evil person to beat you up.

Guns don’t kill people, but people with guns do. And since we are all just a bit broken and prone to go off, let’s just set our weapons down and walk away slowly.

I’m probably naïve, but making it extremely hard for the general public to get their hands on items designed to quickly and easily exterminate another human being might give broken people more time to heal and allow more Divine image bearers a chance to flourish on this planet. But more importantly, my choice to eschew violence and refuse to purchase a handgun will allow me more time to heal and a chance for the image of Jesus to flourish in me.