“Put down the gun.”
When you read that sentence, who do you imagine I’m speaking to?
I’m not addressing someone who is about to pull a trigger. I’m not talking to someone who has an urge to take lives.
If I ever find myself face-to-face with such a person, I dearly hope I will say those words. But my wishes and speculations are not the point here.
Right now I’m talking to the people who, from a perfectly safe and comfortable vantage point, refuse to say those words.
The people who hold power but maintain a kind of deranged silence.
The people who occupy bully pulpits, who could speak in meaningful ways about violence and avoiding violence, but who somehow believe that’s a bad idea.
The people who might, just might, be able to “talk someone down” but pass up that opportunity every day, all because of a twisted agreement among Those Who Serve the Gun.
The people who sit in legislatures and stand behind podiums and, just as importantly, the people who host podcasts and talk shows that cater to (or at least don’t discourage) a certain audience.
While you’re talking…
While you’re reaping the benefits of your position…
While you’re negotiating book deals and speaking fees…
A troubled person…actually, several troubled and isolated individuals scattered across the map…are at this moment hatching unspeakably dark plans.
You know it. I know it. We all know it.
The headlines prove it. The atrocities prove it. The deaths of children—which, in a sane and reasonable society, would rob most citizens of their sleep—prove it.
One of the dangerous individuals I’m writing about, or some of them, or any of them, may have voted for you. Or are among your listeners, your viewers. Or will have liked you on Facebook, retweeted your words from time to time.
You don’t have to know who they are, where they live, the circumstances of their daily existence. I’m not asking you to tune in to their day-to-day. What I’m asking you to do is recognize that they tune in to you. You are on their radar.
So…because you have their ears, their gaze, their attention—call me crazy, but I believe you have an opportunity to, if not intervene, at least crack open a window and bring in some light.
“Put down the gun.”
Four simple words.
Am I touting this message as a solution to the mess we’re in? That would be foolish. And believe me, I have no illusions that you are a professional psychologist or active shooter negotiator, defusing threats with certainty and finality. If you did speak out and by some tragic quirk of fate a new attack followed, that would be horrible, but you wouldn’t be to blame.
Can you admit that the opposite is also possible? That you could perhaps make a difference? Save somebody’s life? You could try.
Of course, you would need to use your imagination. You would need to pretend you’re speaking to a single person, when in fact you are speaking to who knows how many are out there. In addition, you would need to use more words than those four. You would need to speak gently, intelligently, reassuringly, the way you would speak to anyone who is going through a personal crisis. You would need to say that there is help, that there is hope for something better. I leave the specifics of that to you.
I also realize you’d need to prove where you stand. To show you’re not a weakling or a traitor. You would need to talk about how the Second Amendment is fundamental, how you’re not coming to take away anyone’s guns, how every American has a right to the defense of self and family. And all that is true. I’m not suggesting you leave that out.
But let’s get real. The political stuff is background. It doesn’t have any bearing on this present moment. It doesn’t change the fact that someone is out there right now, preparing to attack innocent people, possibly children.
And if you refuse to say those four simple words, there is really only one explanation.
It would be too easy to say you’re a coward, although we can start there.
Obviously, you fear the people who make, sell, and worship guns. You’re terrified of saying something they consider profane, even sinful.
Let’s look at the act of speaking itself, though.
Through a bizarre linguistic short circuit, you are incapable of describing the act of putting down a gun. For you, that’s like praying to Satan or asserting that God is a woman or any number of other sacrileges. How and why this language deficit has taken hold of you, given Christ’s well-documented preference for peacemaking, escapes me. But your silence demonstrates it beyond a doubt.
“Put down the gun.”
You can’t say it, can you?
It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a right-wing American in the 21st century to counsel calm, let love in, plea for peace.
And yet, those four words remain available. They’re in the dictionary.
The opportunity still awaits you—on the air, in the news feed, from a podium or pulpit.
You still have your platform, your fans, your followers.
They’re still listening.
The Luminous Hand 