Violence vs." Blessed are the Peacemakers"

We have experienced yet another act of violence in the USA, in a time that should have been a nice Sat. afternoon. Representative Giffords doing what she loved to do; meet with her constituents, and address their concerns. A young 9 year old girl attended out of excitement in meeting her congressional representative, after her own election in student government. But instead of excitement she lost her life, along with 5 others, and 19 injured, including Rep. Giffords. Instead of this being a nice Saturday, a troubled young man with a hatred of government, and paranoid characteristics, opened fire, changing the lives forever. January 8th, 2011 will live in our hearts for a long time, if not forever as a tragic day in our history.

My trouble with this is that there are so many factors that led up to this moment, that made this carnage possible. This incident didn't happen in a vacuum. We live in the most violent country of the "civilized" world. We have the least amount of gun control laws that would prevent these incidents, and Arizona has the weakest level of gun control laws in the US to protect the innocent. One of the most glaring to me, is why on earth a young man with mental problems can go in and legally purchase a gun. But he was able to do so. While I understand that gun control is not the only solution to this problem, it does have a huge part in whether or not this can happen again. Just ask the police officers all over our country.

We have had many glaring examples of very violent speech as well from right wing politicians, and commentators of late as well, including Sarah Palin, having a map of the US, with points on the map of political elections that she was "aiming for" to overcome. Those points on the map intentionally made to look like a scope of a gun, with the cross hairs. Her language was war like. "We don't retreat, we re-load." It is too easy to now say, "I didn't mean to shoot someone." It is a lie for her to say she doesn't like violence. It permeates her words continuously.

The candidate who ran against Rep. Giffords used the language of using an M-16, to "remove" her from her office, and Glenn Beck spoke openly on his show about wanting to "Kill" Michael Moore, and debated himself about whether he should do it on his own or hire someone. He concluded that he could do it himself and just put his hands around his neck. And I want to know when we got to the place of talking about killing someone for believing differently than us? And the answer is, slowly and one incident at a time. Somewhere along the line, we have failed to realize that we are talking about real human beings with families and friends, and colleagues, who love them. We have somehow become hardened or maybe numb to the violent language that barrages us through the movie screens, the Television screens, and especially in our political discourse of the last few years.

It has been said,

"This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for politics. I have saved this one opportunity, my only event of today, to speak briefly to you about the mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives. It is not the concern of any one race. The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one - no matter where he lives or what he does - can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on and on in this country of ours. Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr's cause has ever been stilled by an assassin's bullet. No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of reason. Whenever any American's life is taken by another American unnecessarily - whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of the law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence - whenever we tear at the fabric of the life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded. "

These words were spoken by Robert Kennedy, over 40 years ago, but the words speak so profoundly to us today. We obviously haven't learned much. We haven't developed as humanity to realize that violence solves nothing. We just keep perpetuating the cycle of violence over and over. On one of the many websites available for people to record their opinions or emotions of this incident in Tucson, some troubled soul stated that it was ok that the 9 year old girl was killed because she "most likely would have become a liberal politician anyway." What possesses a person to make such an unfeeling, and stupid comment? A 9 year old girl should die because of what she "might become?" What happens in a spirit or soul of someone that causes them to degrade themselves and the value of a life so much that they can make a statement such as this??

I have lots of questions, and a few answers for myself, but what I am convinced of is we need to tone down the rhetoric, speak up when people speak in violent tones, and not just walk away in disgust. The more we tolerate, the more it will continue. Although Jesus spoke of turning the cheek, he also turned over a few tables. But he never gave permission to kill another person. We each need to examine our own hearts, for those parts of us that have the potential for violence, and work to change our ways. We need to teach our children far better coping skills when confronted with issues of conflict, but we all need to be aware of the power of our words. Our words do have the potential to influence anothers' actions. We have the choice of speaking for peace or for violence. I choose peace.