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Some thoughts and a prayer after the latest mass killings, this time of elementary school students:
Banning all guns is necessary but NOT sufficient in light of the increasing violence in our society. We need a fundamental transformation as well as banning guns. Otherwise, we will now revert to the normal debate between liberals wanting more gun control and conservatives saying that it's not guns that kill, but people. Both are right. So here is what we need to do:
1. A constitutional amendment to ban all guns, and to create special holding units for hunting rifles to be held in control of locally elected officials in every neighborhood who keep the rifles under lock and key except when given to hunters during a hunting season and to be returned immediately thereafter, with all necessary criminal controls and penatlies for those who do not return them in a timely manner and those who continue to hold on to their guns privately. No private ownership of guns of any sort. Police must similarly be disarmed, and allowed only to use billy clubs and mace, except in emergencies in which a judge signs a warrant for the temporary use of lethal force against someone who is using lethal force. Lesser measures (background checks, banning only extreme assault weapons, etc.) are wimply and will have only slight impact.
2. We must create a track of education in every school and every grade level that teaches non-violence both as a philosophy of life and as a practical way to live one's life, plus: non-violent communication, that teaches children and teenagers and college students about a) how to value and care for everyone else on the planet including their parents, teachers, neighbors, friends, and future lovers or partners, b) how to deal with depression, anger, feelings of alienation, powerlessness, stress, and isolation, c) how to give support to those who are not functioning or are psychologically or spiritually impaired and how to find the correct help for people who need professional help, d) how to recognize and appreciate all the beauty and miraculous wonder of life itself, of the universe, and of human beings, e) how to appreciate and protect the planet from all those forces that are inadvertantly destroying it, f) how to end poverty and share the resources of this planet with everyone equally in a planet-sustaining way and g) how to develop one's own capacities as a spiritual, ethical, aesthetically and emotionally developed, mature and loving human being.
These are what we must be seeking. The liberals are right about step number one, but they don't go as far as I propose. The conservatives are right that human beings and not just guns are the problem, but then they never develop or support an educaitonal system that will teach people the skills we all need. Liberals fear introducing values into public education for fear that they'd be the wrong values. It's time to stop that, and fight for a values oriented education, based on the values of love, caring, kindness, generosity, and protection of the earth. Till that happens, conservatives will always have a good case for devaluing public education, and for saying that only religion teaches values (and liberals will prove their case by not creating an educational system that teaches any value other than "making it" or, in polite Obama talk, an "education that prepares our children to compete effectively in the global marketplace," which de facto means, learning how to advance oneself at the expense of everyone else so that "you can be number one and make America number one"). Well, guess what helps make you or others number one: violence and power over others. And that message gets reinforced over and over and over again by television shows about crime and the police, about wars and violence, but also by the society valuing and rewarding soldiers who go off to kill innocent people in foreign wars to protect imperial interests. So, it takes a whole society to create pathological killers out of human beings who are not born that way, and it will take a societal effort -- plus individual efforts to get the pathological messages out of our consciousness and replace them with loving and caring messages and worldviews. But we can do it, and that is precisely what our Network of Spiritual Progressives is all about (read our Spiritual Covenant with America ). Without this kind of change of consciousness, step one (banniing guns) will be ineffective and possibly dangerous.
Meanwhile, for immediate relief, but not in replacement for collective action around points one and two above, you might find some support in the prayer below which I urge you to read to yourself and family, to your friends and community. And blessings to you and all whom you love, and Happy Chanukah and Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday Season to all!
Rabbi Michael Lerner RabbiLerner.Tikkun@gmail.com Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of Tikkun www.tikkun.org, chair of the (interfaith and atheist-welcoming) Network of Spiritual Progressiveswww.spiritualprogressives.org, and rabbi of Beyt Tikkun Synagogue in Berkeley, Ca. He is the author most recently of The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right and of Embracing Israel/Palestine: A strategy for Middle East Peace. He welcomes your responses at RabbiLerner.tikkun@gmail.com
God, let me cry on your shoulder
A prayer after today's school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.
By Rabbi Rachel Barenblat
God, let me cry on Your shoulder.
Rock me like a colicky baby.
Promise me You won't forget
each of Your perfect reflections
killed today. Promise me
You won't let me forget, either.
I'm hollow, stricken like a bell.
Make of my emptiness a channel
for Your boundless compassion.
Soothe the children who witnessed
things no child should see,
the teachers who tried to protect them
but couldn't, the parents
who are torn apart with grief,
who will never kiss their beloveds again.
Strengthen the hands and hearts
of Your servants tasked with caring
for those wounded in body and spirit.
Help us to find meaning
in the tiny lights we kindle tonight.
Help us to trust
that our reserves of hope
and healing are enough
to carry us through.
We are Your hands: put us to work.
Ignite in us the unquenchable yearning
to reshape our world
so that violence against children
never happens again, anywhere.
We are Your grieving heart.
Rabbi Rachel Barenblat
Follow Rabbi Michael Lerner on Twitter: www.twitter.com/rabbilerner
Debate on Gun Control Is Revived, Amid a Trend Toward Fewer Restrictions
Gun control, yes, but that's only the beginning
Previewing Your Comment.
This comment has not yet been postedA much simpler solution (as posed by comedian Chris Rock): make bullets extraordinarily expensive. If an individual bullet cost $500, people would be disinclined to use them. Gun violence rates will crash, and people will still be able to have guns, as intended by the authors of the Constitution.
A Culture That Condones The Killing Of Children And Teaches Children To Kill | Common Dreams 2012/12/15
Let's say we did this...in China they have fruitcakes running into schools with knives and slashing kids - soon we would have the same. So then we ban kitchen knives. Guess what? Instead of just old people (who have been driving for 50-60 years?) 'confusing' the gas and brake pedals we would get lots more vehicular homicide. So now we can't have cars anymore. Then someone will find a way to weaponize spray cheese, and bye-bye spray cheese. Alright, we probably would be better off in a world without spray cheese. Then some evil genius figures out how to catch farts and paint them purple and we all have to wear butt-plugs and cannot have red or blue paint, because you can mix them to make purple. It just doesn't end.
People are violent. People are mean and cruel and stupid. They have always and will always find ways to hurt and kill when they feel the need to do so.
Here's an idea, Rabbi...take you ideas to Israel. Ask the most militant and violent people in the world the stop killing their neighbors. Don't bulldoze a neighborhood because some kids threw rocks at your tanks. Show that you understand what you are talking about before you push such ideas on our nation.
As one who calls himself a "Rabbi", you should know that those who who want to "ban all guns" are really hoping that this is the equivalent of bringing back-to-life the fallen in this horrific event.
And sense no right provided or taken away could ever bring back-to-life someone who died from a murder, plane crash, missle attack or car accident, then there is no logic in "banning all guns".
I mean, you yourself, agree that it's not the gun that kills so why ban the gun?
I'd like to see the liberals lead by example. How many liberals are willing to forgo the 14th amendment's ostensible protection of abortion found in the due process clause (that only took the court a century to detect). Once liberals give up a few of their sacred cows, maybe conservatives will consider a few of their own.
no they are not right. bans do not work and it does not matter whether the ban is for guns, abortion, contraception, drugs. bans increase black markets and do not stop people from obtaining the illicit items.
"The conservatives are right that human beings and not just guns are the problem, but then they never develop or support an educaitonal system that will teach people the skills we all need."
This is true but conservatives are not the only ones who understand this.......conservatives have no interest in an educational system unless it is one that they can privatize and control.
"Liberals fear introducing values into public education for fear that they'd be the wrong values. It's time to stop that, and fight for a values oriented education, based on the values of love, caring, kindness, generosity, and protection of the earth."
introducing values into public education is not the problem. the problem is that religious values should be introduced and kept at home in the church and synagogue, mosque etc. conservatives value a controlled education then they can choose which religion gets to indoctrinate in schools.
"Police must similarly be disarmed, and allowed only to use billy clubs and mace."
And while we are at it, we can finally create a wildlife preserve for all the Unicorns.
I'm with the Rabbi on our basic culture, and how violence is celebrated in it, but that is going to take much longer to change. In fact, it IS changing-very slowly. When it comes to that, we just need to be patient and to do our part to change it. I personally don't patronize violent movies or TV shows. I don't play any video games (except non violent ones like Tetris) and I'm not a big fan of violent music. I know many other people who are the same way.
Why not a constitutional amendment to ban Gravity? the above statement is what I like to call play-to-lose Liberalism. A far smarter move would be to support Smart Guns :
New Gun Safety by TriggerSmart Uses RFID to Identify Authorized Users
by Max Slowik
http://www.guns.com/2012/03/02/triggersmart-safety-uses-rfid-to-id-police-officers/