On Saturday, June 15, a lone gunman drove to Rochester Hills, a suburb of Detroit, and opened fire at a splash pad in a city park around 5 p.m. It is believed the man fired as many as 28 times, stopping several times to reload. Nine people were injured, including an 8-year-old boy who was shot in the head; his 4-year-old brother, who was shot in the leg; and the boys’ mother, who was wounded in the abdomen and leg.
The day before, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a ban on bump stocks, the gun accessory used in the deadliest shooting in modern American history — a Las Vegas massacre that killed 60 people and injured hundreds more. Bump stocks are accessories that replace a rifle’s stock, the part that gets pressed against the shooter’s shoulder. When a person fires a semiautomatic weapon fitted with a bump stock, it uses the gun’s recoil energy to rapidly and repeatedly bump the trigger against the shooter’s finger. That allows the weapon to fire dozens of bullets in a matter of seconds.
Reading about these two particular pictures of American life brought a sense of anxiety and apprehension as I thought about the approaching summer season. My family and I enjoy many outdoor performance activities: Helena State Capital Band concerts, Shakespeare in the Park, and a favorite, Symphony Under the Stars, to name a few. Even small events like Shakespeare in the Park (Hamlet, scheduled for Sept. 4 in Boulder) could fall victim to a random shooter like near Detroit.
But in particular, Symphony Under the Stars, even last year, had me contemplating “what if” scenarios. It is a large crowd of people (15,000+), tightly packed in an open area with little or no cover, with a loud fireworks display concluding the event which could serve as cover for a mass shooter. I find myself thinking, would I even know there was a shooter soon enough to do anything, even if it was to dive to the ground for some minimal cover, when bullets are spraying at a rate of six to nine per second? It doesn’t take much to envision a truly frightening scenario. And at some point, even with extremely low odds of occurrence, the belief that “It can’t happen here” fades when we look at the random places where it has happened.
This is not a diatribe about gun control as much as it is a lament about the life our gun culture has created for us. What price do we pay for this facet of our American life? It is estimated there are nearly 400 million guns in circulation and over 500,000 bump stocks. That horse, so to speak, has left the barn. Death from gunfire is already easy enough, although one wonders if we really need another several 100,000 more bump stocks in circulation. Regardless, at this point, we all live with the knowledge that tomorrow may be the day that a mass shooting hits home for any one of us, if it hasn’t already. And that is to say nothing of more personal shootings and suicides.
So then, do I live in fear? Do I wonder each day if this will be my last, not from a car accident or some other mishap, or a heart attack, but from a gunshot?
No.
As a Christian, I choose to live in love. This is what those of all faiths must always hold fast to. Love wins. Anger does not win, righteous or not. Violence never wins. Hate surely does not win. And fear does not win, either.
So what is left? Love. Love wins. Love overcomes. Love gives forth even unto death. So I choose to live another day, not in fear, but in love. We will go to Symphony Under the Stars and celebrate as a loving family together. We will be part of a greater community that looks positively upon the world around us. Fear will not defeat us, nor will it even conflict us. Love will overcome it, as it does each day we wake up and breathe the air.
I can’t stop how many guns are out there, nor how many individuals might feel somehow pushed to take violent action. At least not in the short term. But I can embrace life with love and compassion, in the belief that to live and act in love is never wrong. Somehow, in the midst of famine, or war, or disaster, or mass shootings, we can reach out to one another in love and not let these other things defeat us. Love wins.
“Life is short, And we do not have much time to gladden the hearts of those who make the journey with us,” wrote the Swiss philosopher Henri-Frédéric Amiel. “So be swift to love, and make haste to be kind.”
For love wins. Always.
Roger Reynolds is an ordained Episcopalian deacon. He lives in Jefferson City.
