DO SOMETHING!

As I write this, I am listening to the news from Colorado - a new school shooting, another gun death, another school name in a growing roster - Arapahoe High School.  Tomorrow, of course, is the anniversary of the massacre of so many innocents at Sandy Hook Elementary School.  As of this morning, 33,018 Americans, 195 of them children, have been killed by guns since the date of that massacre.  Meanwhile the profits of Cerebus Capital Management, the parent company of the manufacturer of the Bushmmaster XM-15 used at Sandy Hook have risen 52%.  And we have done NOTHING to better control guns, to treat mental illness, and to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill.  Indeed, this morning the NRA is lobbying to kill a congressional bill that would ban plastic guns that can evade metal detectors.  This is obscene!  How long will we continue to sin by what we have not done.

 

For Christ's sake - and ours - do something!

 

What you ask can we do?  Might you take a moment to read the letter to Congress from the 54 national religious leaders of Faiths United to Prevent Gun Violence (Read it HERE)?   Might those of you who have a pulpit preach about this on Sunday December 15 or December 29, the day after Holy Innocents?  Might you make the letter available to your parishioners by including it in your newsletter or posting it on your bulletin board and drawing the attention of your parishioners to it?  Might you urge your parishioners to urge their senators and representative to pass - AS A MINIMUM - the Mancin-Toomey bill (Amendment to S. 649)/King-Thompson bill (H.R. 1565) which would close the "gun show loophole" and expand background checks.  Might you join the efforts of EPF (http://epfnational.org/what-about-guns/), the Brady Campaign Against Gun Violence (www.bradycampaign.org/) , Mayors Against Illegal Guns (www.mayorsagainstillegalguns.org/), Gaby Giffords' Americans for Responsible Solutions (http://americansforresponsiblesolutions.org/) or similar organizations to enact more forceful regulation of guns?  Might you lobby locally and nationally for better care and treatment of our fellow citizens who are mentally ill?  And might you, my DioCal friends, publicize in our churches and communities the two resolutions relating to guns that were passed by our diocesan conventions in 2010 and 2013?

 

Do something!