the Empathy List #56: Up in Arms

The Gospel of Guns

Hey friend, Liz here.

How does this keep happening here? That’s the question myself and other Coloradoans are asking this week, in the aftermath of the Boulder, Colorado grocery store mass shooting.

The store where a shooter pulled out his automatic weapon is only a 45-minute drive from my house. (And this wasn’t the only mass shooting this week either, as I’m certain you’ve heard!!)

There are more guns than people in the United States of America. Even our children could claim their own handgun to defend their classrooms, with leftovers to spare. Of course, not every American owns a gun, more like a third of us. But according to 2017 Pew Research Center data analyzed for Christianity Today, white evangelicals, like me, are even more likely to carry: over 41% own a gun. (And that’s saying nothing of those Christians who support the second amendment as a mandate for gun ownership, equating our rights as citizens to a Biblical ideal.)

In evangelical spheres, pro-military and pro-gun and pr…