“Why I Don’t and Won’t Own a Gun” by Ray Schellinger

also why I don’t believe that you should either-

As a matter of faith, I believe it is my responsibility to love even my enemies, and to seek solutions to the enmity that may exist between us, solutions which are redemptive:

Solutions that redeem the relationship.

Solutions which redeem my behavior.

Solutions which can redeem the other, to encourage them to find and become the best version of themselves.

I believe that God gave me grace beyond measure, far beyond anything I could ever deserve. My reaction to that grace is to offer it freely to others. It is the central tenet to my faith.

I do not do this very well. (So, I am in constant need of grace.)

I have heard lots of arguments for the use of a gun as protection- and they can be compelling, especially when it comes to having the ability to protect other innocent lives. But they are not convincing.

The most important argument I have found against gun ownership is that the presence of that gun at my side will change my first reaction to conflict. If the tool you have in your bag is a hammer, you treat everything like a nail. If the main tool you have is a gun, it becomes your default resource to use in the midst of crisis. Your power over the situation is your ability to project the destructive power of the bullet. Perhaps this is makes the term projectile all the more applicable. The more you train with it (which a gun owner should do, right?), the more that gun becomes part of your default response to crisis.

I have spent some time with International Ministries being trained and then training others in conflict transformation. It takes a lot of time to challenge and transform our default reactions to conflict, to learn to de-escalate and build bridges to creative solutions in which both (all) participants are able to win. Even with lots of training in this, I still find it hard to overcome my instincts, or rather, my years of life training of aggressive confrontation.

But when done well, when we spend much more of our time concentrating on ways to engage conflict as an opportunity to win over, or win with, our neighbor, those reactions become much more natural. They become second nature to us.

I did spend several years studying martial arts. But what impressed me most in that study, with exceptional teachers, was that in learning to defend myself, I was learning how to control a situation without attacking. The emphasis was always on deflection of destructive energy, and when this is done right, it protects both you and the aggressor.

In the wake of yet so many more examples of gun violence, this has become my mantra. How can we learn to take the frustration, anger, confrontation and violence that the world directs toward us deflect it, transform it into something that redeems us all? How can we seek first solutions which protect not only ourselves and/or innocent victims, but also the person who may be attacking us, and whose life may be unraveling in front of our eyes.

A number of years ago, I was faced with such a situation when a man I had been meeting with, strung out on crystal meth, stood before me with a shiv in his hand trying to kill me. When I arrived, he had been trying to burn down a church because he wanted the pastor to lead him to his wife and children which the church was protecting from him. He became furious when he realized that I had called the police to intervene. It was fortunate for me, and for Pedro, that the shiv he had made got caught for a few seconds in the threads of the pocket from which he tried to extract it. But he was 4 feet away from me and entirely intent on killing me. If I had believed in guns and had carried a gun in that moment, if that would have been my mindset, then he very likely would be dead and I in jail.

Instead, I did my best to calm him down and redirect the anger he was aiming toward me, toward the church, toward his life and the whole world.

We found a way to continue without blades or bullets. We stayed alive.

Three weeks later, at a rehab center, this same man collapsed into my lap, bawling his eyes out, bawling his heart out. I rocked him in my arms as he shared with me the trauma he had been through which led him to this state. He had been raped at the age of 8. Beaten by his father and then finally disowned because his father couldn’t handle the shame that his son had brought upon the family. He carried all of that pain into every relationship and learned to abuse as badly as he had been abused.

When I encountered him outside the church that day, Pedro was at his end. It took a while, but after many attempts at rehab, Pedro finally got clean and began a new life. We forged a new friendship, a true friendship, which lasted more than 5 years before we lost contact.

Why don’t I believe in guns?

Pedro.

I know that there is an innocent child inside even the worst abusers.

It’s because I believe the people on whom I might use a gun are the very ones I am supposed to protect.

If you share my faith, a faith based above all else on God’s grace, I would hope you would come to this same conclusion.