Maniacs Around Every Corner: Sad, Angry & Brief Reflections on Armed Guards, Tragedy & Gun Control
“If there was an armed guard inside the temple, they would have been able to stop him” – Donald Trump
The above statement was one of the first gut responses from Donald Trump when he was asked about the horrific, terroristic hate crime that occurred Saturday, October 27th, which resulted in the death of eleven Jewish people who were worshiping peacefully in a synagogue in Pittsburgh that morning. I can’t begin to describe how upsetting and insensitive of a remark this is to me.
I personally know of a few White Evangelical churches in my area that have armed guards as greeters (Trump would be proud of them!). And I’m willing to bet that the attendees of churches like these are overwhelmingly in support of gun rights and adamantly against any sort of gun control. Additionally, I feel I can infer at least two more things about these types of churches: 1) their view of human nature is a panicked, pessimistic and hopelessly warped one, and 2) their faith is not in the weak and powerless God who saves by surrendering, suffering and dying but in the abominable myth of redemptive violence; if a god is what you turn to when all else fails then violence functions as their god and this god demands obedience unto-death.
Those guns that these churches have greeting people at the door, which are meant to protect them from “maniacs,” are actually protecting them from people like them; they should open their eyes and recognize that they’re the maniacs, the maniacs with fucking guns in their church! There is no place sacred to them, not even a literal sanctuary is a refuge for these people. To them maniacs lurk around every corner, and you know what? They’re right. Because wherever conservative white men go with their guns a maniac is very close by indeed. Surprise! Look in the mirror. The vengeful, distrustful manic carrying a gun around on their person whom we should all be afraid of is you, white conservative Christian man. White men have done enough killing, it’s time to surrender our weapons.
Lord have mercy on us all.
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