The film maker and famed political commentator, Michael Moore, has composed a 28th Amendment to the Constitution. He presented the Amendment to Congress on July 11, 2022.
The 28th Amendment would repeal and replace the 2nd Amendment.
As lifelong hunter and gun owner, I would vote YES.
You can check it out here at Moore’s blog. I have also reproduced the entire Amendment below:
XXVIII AMENDMENT
SECTION 1.
The inalienable right of a free people to be kept safe from gun violence and the fear thereof must not be infringed and shall be protected by the Congress and the States. This Amendment thus repeals and replaces the Second Amendment.
SECTION 2.
Congress shall create a mandatory system of firearm registration and licensing for the following limited purposes: (a) licensed hunters of game; (b) licensed ranges for the sport of target shooting; and (c) for the few who can demonstrate a special need for personal protection.
All who seek a firearm will undergo a strict vetting process with a thorough background check, including the written and confidential approval of family members, spouses and ex-spouses and/or partners and ex-partners, co-workers and neighbors. A mental health check will also be required. There will be a waiting period of one month to complete the full background check.
SECTION 3.
Those who meet all the requirements for the restricted gun owners groups and successfully pass the background check must take a firearms safety class and pass a written test on an annual basis.
SECTION 4.
The minimum age for the restricted groups who can own a firearm is 25 years old. Renewal and review of the firearms license will occur on an annual basis.
SECTION 5.
Congress will stipulate and continually update the limited list of approved firearms for civilian use, including weapons in the future that are not yet invented. The following firearms are heretofore banned:
• All automatic and semi-automatic weapons and all devices which can enable a single-shot gun to fire automatically or semi-automatically;
• Any weapon that can hold more than six bullets or rounds at a time or any magazine that holds more than six bullets;
• All guns made of plastic or any homemade equipment and machinery or a 3D printer that can make a gun or weapon that can take a human life.
SECTION 6.
Congress shall regulate all ammunition, capacity of ammunition, the storage of guns, gun locks, gun sights, body armor and the sale and distribution of such items. No weapons of any kind whose sole intention is the premeditated elimination of human life are considered legal. Congress may create future restrictions as this amendment specifically does not grant any American the “right” to own any weapon.
SECTION 7.
Police who are trained and vetted to use firearms shall be subject to comprehensive and continuous monitoring and shall be dismissed if found to exhibit any racist or violent behavior.
SECTION 8.
Persons already owning any of the above banned firearms, and who do not fall into the legal groups of restricted firearms owners, will have one month from the ratification of this Amendment to turn in their firearms for destruction by local law enforcement. These local authorities may organize a gun buy-back program to assist in this effort.
I’ve got another comparison of two video clips for you today. Except, this time I will allow you to make your own analysis without my input.
The first clip is of a dude on the Christian Broadcasting Network speaking about the recent mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
His verdict on the renewed debate over gun control? “We can govern our way out of chaos.” Tell me what’s wrong with his thinking.
The second clip is again from an interview on Democracy Now.
Amy Goodman discusses the actions taken in Australia after a mass shooting shocked the nation in 1996. No, Australia was not transformed by a religious revival. It was transformed by legislation.
As more details about the recent Texas school massacre are released, the picture becomes increasingly disturbing.
Eye-witnesses are now explaining that local police stood outside the school, leaving the killer inside the building for nearly an hour. They made no attempt to enter the school or to stop the shooter during this time.
In fact, the police prohibited locals gathered outside the school from launching an assault of their own when the police refused to intervene and stop the killing.
Police actually tasered one man who tried to enter the school on his own. Meanwhile, local police entered through the back door to remove their own children from the school while listening to the murderous gunfire killing 19 children and two teachers.
As it becomes increasingly clear that that US police are being trained to place their own safety above public safety, it is long past time to ask questions.
When and where was this decision made? Where are the training materials being produced? Why does anyone enlist for a potentially dangerous job if they are not willing to take risks?
Our risk-averse police force is literally killing people.
The police shoot unarmed black people regularly. Now they have the blood of another 21 people on their hands because they cared more about their own safety than they did about the little children they had sworn to serve.
The traditional law-enforcement motto, to protect and serve, seems now only to apply to themselves.
Javier Cazares, whose fourth grade daughter, Jacklyn Cazares, was killed in the attack, said he raced to the school when he heard about the shooting, arriving while police were still gathered outside the building.
Upset that police were not moving in, he raised the idea of charging into the school with several other bystanders.
“Let’s just rush in because the cops aren’t doing anything like they are supposed to,” he said. “More could have been done.”
Below is a clip from Breaking Points News which discusses this new dimension of the Texas shooting story. They include video of the parents standing outside the school shouting at police to enter and subdue the shooter:
Ahmaud Arbery was murdered last February while jogging in the state of
Ahmaud Arbery
Georgia.
Mr. Arbery was black. His two murderers, a father and son, are white. Neither of them has been arrested or jailed. The father is a retired police officer who worked as an investigator for the state attorney’s office. The son killed Mr. Arbery with a shotgun at close range (as you can see in the video below).
The two men saw Mr. Arbery jogging through their all white neighborhood and immediately saw him as a criminal. So, they jumped into their pick-up truck and hunted him down, killing him in the street.
They claimed he looked like a burglary suspect – probably because all black men look alike to them. Their defense claims that they acted in accordance with Georgia’s Stand Your Ground law, even though they had driven blocks away from their home in order to ambush Mr. Arbery, who was shot in the middle of a public road.
Ironically, their “stand your ground” defense is actually a testament to their own racist sensibility. Obviously, in their minds, all of America is the white man’s ground, where all black Americans are trespassers and criminals.
Their actions unveil the deeply ingrained suspicion throughout white America that all African-Americans are suspect, guilty until proven innocent.
Imagine how differently this incident would have been handled if two black men had shot down a white jogger running through the neighborhood. The shooters would have been beaten by the arresting officers, thrown in jail without bail, and quickly convicted with life sentences.
Mr. Arbery’s murderers have not suffered any of these things. They are white men living in white America, an American where black people are still – in 2020 – considered to be inferior, a genetically criminal underclass.
White protesters at the Michigan state capitol building
[I have often thought of this racial double-standard when watching the white, anti-government demonstrators protesting their governor’s stay- at-home orders. A good number of these protesters arrive at their state capitols with guns, often semi-automatic, high-powered rifles. Oh, my goodness, how very, very differently these demonstrators would be handled by the authorities if they were angry black Americans doing the same things.]
Three state attorneys have been taken off the case for conflicts of interest. The Arbery family lawyer will soon have a chance (finally) to present his case before a grand jury, where the proceedings will probably remain closed.
Had the video recording of Mr. Arbery’s murder not been disclosed, the two murders would undoubtedly have gone free after being declared innocent.
When the local police informed the victim’s mother about her son’s death, they simply repeated the murders’ version of the story. They told Mrs. Arbery that her son was a robbery suspect and that he aggressively started the confrontation that ended in his death.
But the police version of the story merely repeats a long-standing racist trope: whites are driven to defend themselves against the aggression of inherently violent black men.
Look at any photograph of an American lynching, for that is what we are talking about here. What do you see? A crowd of armed white people looking at the mutilated body of a black man accused of some crime against a white person.
America is still infected with such racism.
Examples similar to Mr. Arbery’s occur regularly all throughout this country, month after month, week after week. Often the assaults are committed by uniformed police officers – perhaps you have seen the recent videos of policemen beating black citizens for not wearing face masks in public. [So, why haven’t the Capitol police punched Donald Trump in the face?]
White America’s suspicions about the racial inferiority of “colored people” continues to cast a heavy, destructive shadow all across in this country.
African Americans live with the weight of that oppressive shadow every day of their lives.
So my question remains: what is the white church in America doing to help eliminate that racist burden for our brothers and sisters blessed by God with a different skin color?
Update 1: Please take a few minutes to watch political activist and former Ohia state legislator Nina Turner’s response to Ahmaud Arbery’s murder on HillTV’s program “Rising.” She speaks from her heart as an African-American mother, poignantly describing the effects such crimes have within the black community.
Update 2: I just read a southern pastor’s blog post lamenting Ahmaud Arbery’s death. It is a good example of what is wrong with so much of white American Christianity. His analysis is entirely emotive and individualistic. In his mind, Arbery’s death is one more example of “sin in our society.” His solution is to “hold your children close” and “pray for Jesus to come quickly.” He has nothing more to offer. Frankly, it’s pathetic. No wonder African-Americans attend their own churches, while seeing white congregations as out of touch.
Recently a good friend sent me a selection of articles from past issues of the Christian Century. They all deal with Christianity and gun control. More specifically, they contain stories about the ways various churches are dealing with concealed carry laws in their states and whether they allow guns in church. (You can read my previous posts about gun control and guns in church here, and here.)
I may revisit other articles in the future, but for now, I was especially struck by an article from pastor Kyle Childress entitled, “In Texas, Even the Pastors are Carrying Guns in the Pulpit” (3/7/16 in print, 3/16/16 online).
Several years ago I attended a public meeting sponsored by a cadre of local churches. Several hundred people showed up at the local Hilton Hotel conference room. At the end of his anti-Muslim rant, the visiting pastor/speaker boasted about the fact that he and all his church elders carried their guns to every church activity, both inside and out of the church building, in order “to protect their flock.”
Contrast that man’s view of Christian faith with the following story excerpted from pastor Childress’s article:
“The rationale of gun-carrying church members is that they want to be ready to protect themselves and their families if an armed intruder enters the church. But with the new [concealed carry] law in place, who will know if the person is an armed intruder or an armed visitor?…All visitors are now scrutinized, with every visitor being a potential threat. At the same time, to demonstrate their enthusiasm for the new law, some churches are posting signs that say — as an act of outreach — ‘Guns Welcome Here.’
“I’ve been astonished at the level of fear associated with perceived threats that are just outside our doors ready to get us…I keep asking myself where the witness of Christ is in all of this. Many of the pastors who are carrying guns teach and preach a version of the gospel that’s different from what I know. It is a gospel of everyone looking out for himself or herself, a gospel that says, ‘It’s a dangerous world, so get them before they get you…’
“One of my deacons, the dean of a nearby college, was in a faculty meeting listening to faculty members discuss how they were all getting guns. The dean said she refused to carry a gun. It got quiet in the room, then someone asked why. She said she was not prepared to shoot and perhaps kill someone. There
Jesus arrested on trumped up charges. Maybe if he had carried a gun…?
was a long pause and then ‘What would you do if someone threatening came into the classroom?’ The dean said, ‘I’d tell them about Jesus and try to show them the love of Jesus.’
“‘You could hear a pin drop,’ she told me later. ‘Everyone looked at the floor, and someone changed the subject.’
“During a sermon on baptism a few weeks ago, I explained why I would not be carrying a gun in the pulpit or anywhere else. ‘It has to do with baptism,’ I said. ‘When I went down into the waters of baptism, I did not come out to strap on a gun. I came out entering into the life of the crucified and resurrected Jesus Christ.’ I went on, ‘In baptism our lives are no longer our own. We belong to Christ.’ I could see and hear some crying in the congregation…”
Our lives are no longer our own.
We belong wholly and completely belong to Jesus Christ to do with as He pleases.
If your pastor is packing heat, I am afraid that he doesn’t have wisdom enough to lead a conga line, much less the people of God.
Last week’s school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas brings the count to 22. That’s right. Five months into 2018 and there have already been 22 school shootings (slightly more than 1 mass shooting per week) in America.
Widen the circle beyond our schools and there have been 101 mass shootings in this country so far this year, leaving 202 dead and 473 injured (see MassShootingTracker). And these figures do not include the many additional causes of gun injuries and deaths such as suicide, police shootings and accidents. According to the research organization Gun Violence Archive, there have been 22,257 gun related incidents in 2018, including 5,511 deaths and 10,071 injuries. Those numbers include 1,000 teenagers, 238 preteen children and 646 accidental shootings.
Yet, many public officials continue to insist that guns have nothing to do with this problem. In fact, as they feed themselves at the NRA corruption-trough of gun manufacturer campaign contributions, discounts, pay-offs and lobbying efforts, these folks want us to believe that the solution to mass shootings and other gun deaths is to sell MORE guns to more people.
But this is not surprising. It is exactly what I expect lobbyists for the arms industry to say. (See me earlier post on guns, shootings and the NRA here).
American politicians and makers of public policy love guns, and all the cash that comes with it, more than they care about Americans. It is a pop culture form of idolatry.
In the March 14, 2018 edition of the Christian Century, Peter W. Marty penned an article entitled “Guns are Americans’ Golden Calf.” Below is an excerpt:
President Trump and his son being introduced at this year’s NRA convention, 2018.
“We’re in golden calf country here, elevating a loyalty to the gun over a fidelity to God’s desire for abundant life. More than a hunting or safety device, the gun has become an object of reverence. We bow in devotion at its altar. ‘Sacred stuff resides in that wooden stock and blued steel,’ onetime NRA president Charlton Heston said. And when a gun becomes an idol, it demands loyalty even if it regularly disappoints. Like other small g gods that offer false consolation, a gun’s guarantee of ultimate safety and security is a myth.”
Unfortunately, people calling themselves Christians are no more immune to idolatry than anyone else. If anything, church-goers have even more ways to express this human penchant for worshiping false gods than do atheists and other non-religious folk. Believers have to navigate the many run-of-the-mill secular temptations to idolatry as well as the many corrupting excesses of religious practice and aberrations of faith.
Vice-President Mike Pence speaking at the recent NRA convention, 2018.
When those two streams of temptation flow together and succeed in sweeping the church away in its turbulent currents (always with a heavy undertow), well, the resulting idolatry is especially repugnant.
Idolatrous, Fake Christianity, Exhibit A – Recently a friend of mine showed me the notes of a church council meeting approving its newly minted plan for well-armed, congregational security guards at its corporate gatherings. Church members were selected for the necessary training in order to become body guards for the Body of Christ. Can there be such a thing as a body guard of Christ? I don’t think so.
In how many different ways can you say apostasy?
Asking for church elders and deacons to arrive packing heat whenever the congregation gathers for corporate worship is one of the grossest expressions of anti-faith I can imagine.
Unless you are part of a church with an extremely high public profile for its incredibly effective, vocal, activist agitation uprooting America’s military-industrial-intelligence-surveillance-corporate media-war mongering empire, then arming your church members reflects an astonishing level of paranoia.
We are all more likely to be struck by lightning than we are to be shot in
This flier promises a free AR-15 giveway to people who attend the March 23 service at Grace Baptist on Fourth Avenue in Troy.
church by an anti-religious misanthrope – unless you are shot accidentally by one of the armed elders during an over wrought hymn-sing.
I know that the church’s leadership team will undoubtedly defend itself by
pleading marriage and parenthood. That is, as leaders of their households, these men must remain vigilant in protecting their families against surprise attack in an increasingly violent America.
There is so much wrong with this picture that it would take a small book to address the overflow of theological, Biblical, pastoral and practical disasters revealed by any plan to arm the local church. I will touch on 3 issues but focus on only the last one.
First, the ancient, Christian justification for using violence in self-defense finds its roots in the Just War Tradition that arose after Christianity’s embrace by the Roman Empire. I discuss the many Biblical mistakes committed by that tradition in chapter 9 (“Does Kingdom Service Permit Military Service?”) of my new book, I Pledge Allegiance: A Believer’s Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in 21st Century America. Please take a look. You will find it as helpful as it is interesting.
I also encourage anyone interested in this topic to read John Howard Yoder’s classic little book, What Would You Do? If a Violent Person Threatened to Harm a Loved One…. A violent reaction to violent threats is the default position for fallen human nature. Yoder will help you to think more clearly, more practically and more Christ-like about non-violent ways (and thus more Christ-like ways) of responding.
Second, one of my seminary professors, who was also the pastor of a large city church, would regularly complain about Christianity’s “idolatry of the nuclear family.” Aided and abetted by popular ministries such as James Dobson’s “Focus on the Family” and similar programs, many people in the church have replaced obedience to Jesus with obligations to one’s family.
We excel at finding seemingly unimpeachable, family-friendly ways of abandoning Jesus. So we can conveniently ignore our Lord’s words when he says things like this:
“Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” (Matthew 10:37-38)
“If any man come to me, and does not hate his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers, and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever does not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26-27)
Regardless of the details, Jesus’ central point is clear: disciples must have greater devotion to Jesus than to the dearest members of their families, including spouses and children.
The third and final point is intimately connected to the last one above. Faithfulness to Jesus requires every disciple to follow in his footsteps, including his submissive acceptance of suffering and death, for him/herself as well as others, including parents, spouses and children.
“Anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:37)
“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.” (Mark 8:34-35)
Hear it again. Whoever wants to save his/her life will lose it, but whoever loses his/her life for me and for the gospel will save it. Affluent Christianity’s obsession with self-preservation and the avoidance of suffering arises from a false gospel. A ‘gospel’ that can never save anyone.
Carrying a gun into the body of Christ, for whatever reason, is a grotesque act of unbelief and idolatry. In fact, carrying a gun anywhere and thinking that you are ready, willing and able to use it against another human being, is the quintessential act of an anti-disciple.
Fortunately, Jesus still loves and can save even anti-disciples, just as he can save all of us faithless believers. But relying on firearms to protect members of the body of Christ remains a consummate act of faithless unbelief, all the same.
Jesus models faithful kingdom living when he goes to the cross without attempting to defend himself. He explicitly tells every would-be follower that we all must be as non-violent and ready to die as he was.
“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.” (Mark 8:34-35)
Not only did Jesus not try to defend himself, neither did he defend his disciples, knowing full well that they too might be subject to arrest and execution as his co-conspirators. In fact, Jesus quickly put a stop to Peter’s misguided efforts at defending both the Lord and himself, insisting that he wanted nothing to do with violence for any reason at all (reflect on Matthew 26:51-56).
Jesus praises his followers when/if they are ever killed or injured as a result of belonging to him. He promises that they will be blessed many times over in eternity. What sort of Christian is hell-bent-for-leather on making sure that Jesus’ promises can never be fulfilled, not for them, not for others, and especially not for a spouse or child?
The Answer: a fake Christian. An idolatrous Christian. An anti-disciple who has bowed the knee to America’s Golden Calf of guns.
As an avid outdoors-man and hunter, I own a few shotguns. Yet, every sensible citizen will recognize that America, and that includes the American church, has a serious problem not shared by any other country in the world – rampant gun violence.
Looking west, people fill Pennsylvania Avenue during the “March for Our Lives” rally in support of gun control, Saturday, March 24, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Hoping to build on the success of the #Black Lives Matter movement (and here), young people of all ethnicities across the country are marching today in the #Our Lives Matter Campaign (also here). Their commitment to speaking out, activism, demonstration, political engagement, non-violence and civil discourse is inspiring, convicting and hopeful.
Perhaps the need for gun reform in this country will not be pushed onto the
People take part in a march rally against gun violence Saturday, March 24, 2018, in New York. Tens of thousands of people poured into the nation’s capital and cities across America on Saturday to march for gun control and ignite political activism among the young. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)
back burners this time, as it always has been in the past.
As the principle advocates for non-violence in our world, Christians should support and participate in this important moment in our history, expanding the conversation beyond gun control.
Here are a few of my thoughts on the basic principles (in no particular order) that need to be understood for any civil conversation about gun control to move forward
Protestors carry placards and shout slogans during a demonstration calling for greater gun control, outside the US Embassy in south London on March 24, 2018. The London rally, in solidarity with the US movement ‘March For Our Lives’, is one of hundreds of gun control protests taking place globally. / AFP PHOTO / Tolga AKMEN (Photo credit should read TOLGA AKMEN/AFP/Getty Images)
positively.
We need to recognize that the NRA is not a citizens’ organization. It is not defending anyone’s civil rights. The NRA is a lobbying organization that works exclusively for the financial benefit of gun manufacturers.
2. Thus, the NRA will continue to do whatever it can to block new gun control measures. The NRA has changed considerably from the days when it worked with President Roosevelt to pass the first federal gun control laws (the 1934 National Firearms Act and the 1938 Gun Control Act). Those days are long gone.
3. A crucial element in any future success must involve cutting off NRA funding to our elected representatives. Or voting them out of office. This will require lots of effort and grassroots organizing.
4. No sensible person is arguing that there is a single “silver bullet” (pun intended) solution that can end all mass shootings or other violent gun-crimes.
5. But understanding that no “one thing” will solve all our gun violence problems is never a reason for doing nothing at all, as many seem to suggest.
6. Effective solutions will be multi-faceted. Tightening restrictions on gun ownership will be only one element of a much bigger picture. We need a national conversation with a wide range of expertise and experience at the table.
7. Whatever the original intent of the Second Amendment – some argue it was intended to allow citizens to protect themselves from oppressive government; others argue that it was to permit armed militias to defend the government against citizen revolt – the framers never envisioned the type of weaponry being used today.
8. I am sorry, but no civilian has “a right” to own and operate whatever type of lethal armaments they choose. Certainly not if such ownership is free of any and all government regulation or oversight. Remember, there was a time when people could drive cars without a license. Not anymore.
9. No “right” stands in splendid isolation, independent of social responsibility. The 1st amendment does not give me the right to recklessly cream “Fire!” in a crowded theater. Is irresponsible speech more dangerous than an AR-15 equipped with a bump-stock and a high capacity magazine?
10. Yes, all lives matter equally. We can rejoice that a nation-wide movement for gun control seems finally to have begun. Yet, let’s also recognize and confess the latent racism brought to the surface in American society when it requires multiple mass shooting of principally white victims before the issue becomes front page news.
on July 11, 2022.
specifically, they contain stories about the ways various churches are dealing with concealed carry laws in their states and whether they allow guns in church. (You can read my previous posts about gun control and guns in church 
conference room. At the end of his anti-Muslim rant, the visiting pastor/speaker boasted about the fact that he and all his church elders carried their guns to every church activity, both inside and out of the church building, in order “to protect their flock.”
protect themselves and their families if an armed intruder enters the church. But with the new [concealed carry] law in place, who will know if the person is an armed intruder or an armed visitor?…All visitors are now scrutinized, with every visitor being a potential threat. At the same time, to demonstrate their enthusiasm for the new law, some churches are posting signs that say — as an act of outreach — ‘Guns Welcome Here.’
Widen the circle beyond our schools and there have been 
excerpt:
Asking for church elders and deacons to arrive packing heat whenever the congregation gathers for corporate worship is one of the grossest expressions of anti-faith I can imagine.
committed by that tradition in chapter 9 (“Does Kingdom Service Permit Military Service?”) of my new book, 
save all of us faithless believers. But relying on firearms to protect members of the body of Christ remains a consummate act of faithless unbelief, all the same.
