I have buried too many victims of gun violence. The Supreme Court decision means I'll bury more.
Last month I presided over the funeral of a young man, only 27, who was killed by gun violence. Not only was he cut down in the prime of his life, but his family and friends were cut down too.
As I looked out over my devastated congregation during his service, I felt as though I was looking out over a battlefield littered with spiritual and psychological casualties.
As we laid this young man to rest, it occurred to me he deserved burial in the military section of the cemetery – one more soldier who had made the ultimate sacrifice so that our so-called pro-life society can worship at the altar of the Second Amendment.
The highest court’s 6-3 decision in the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen case is going to have consequences that reach far beyond New York and the handful of states with laws that restrict carrying a concealed weapon in public. The most damaging is that it incites Americans to escalate our fear-driven war against one another.
An escalating war against each other
As the pastor of a majority-Black church in Memphis, I am a chaplain in this escalating war. I bury the victims of our country’s incremental massacre.
President Joe Biden recently signed into law the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the first major federal gun safety legislation enacted in decades, with the following words: “God willing it’s going to save a lot of lives.”
Unfortunately, it probably won’t.
The incremental massacre of tens of thousands of people every year due to gun violence is almost surely going to continue unabated thanks to the Supreme Court’s ruling.
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If I sound angry it is because I see no end in sight. The overturning of a longstanding legal precedent allowing states to protect their citizens from gun violence followed by the overturning of Roe v. Wade is just too much hypocrisy to bear. Why aren’t these both right-to-life issues?
Yes, I applaud the provisions in the Safer Communities Act that provide funding to implement and manage crisis intervention programs, strengthen red flag laws and attempt to keep guns – especially military-grade semi-automatic assault weapons – out of the hands of volatile 18-to-21-year-old young men, the perpetrators of many mass shootings. I am grateful for the closure of the “boyfriend loophole” that will hopefully prevent more women from becoming victims of domestic violence.
Yet the law still does nothing to curb this country’s insatiable appetite for guns – and guns have only one purpose: to kill. The Supreme Court majority has reframed the conversation around this deadly purpose as the right to self-protection.
This is a lie.
Treating our gun addiction
The killing of the 27-year-old I buried last week gives a face to that lie. Now he is one more incremental massacre statistic – along with the more than 110 people shot and killed every single day in this country, whether in groups or one-by-one.
I am only a chaplain in this war, in the desperate position of comforting the victims of gun violence’s exponential impact and praying for peace in a land that loves the instruments of its own demise. I have become convinced that the only way we end this war is to treat our gun addiction.
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I am committed to such treatment and have joined with other chaplains from denominations across my state – the African American Clergy Collective of Tennessee – to lobby our elected representatives to pass laws rooted in love over hate and trust over fear.
We have crafted statewide legislation that would rebrand gun violence, not as a public safety crisis, but as a public health crisis. Thus far our legislation has been tabled.
But we do not intend to go away or give up.
We actually believe in the sanctity of life. We strongly urge other wartime chaplains in other states to do the same. And we strongly urge other people of goodwill who are sick of our nation’s systemic hypocrisy on issues of life to stand up, be vocal and vote.
Those of us who want to end the senseless war America is waging against itself are the majority. And we deserve to live in peacetime.
Rev. J. Lawrence Turner is the senior pastor of Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church in Memphis and the founder of the African American Clergy Collective of Tennessee (AACCT).
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: The Supreme Court is wrong on guns. I help bury the victims.
