'Dark Knight' Shootings

We pray for the victims and families of those affected by the tragic shootings this weekend in Aurora, CO. A heavily armed gunman shot numerous patrons at a midnight screening of the eagerly-awaited summer film, The Dark Knight Rises. Many people were injured and last reports confirmed at least a dozen were killed by the assailant, including a small child.

Kyrie Eleison. Christe Eleison. Kyrie Eleison.

We grieve with the families who lost loved ones and with those recovering from the senseless violence of this event.

We also want to echo, from a Catholic perspective, the recent words of Fr. James Martin, SJ. In a piece in America magazine, Fr. Jim said this:

That is why I believe that gun control is a religious issue.  It is as much of a “life issue” or a “pro-life issue,” as some religious people say, as is abortion, euthanasia or the death penalty (all of which I am against), and programs that provide the poor with the same access to basic human needs as the wealthy (which I am for).  There is a “consistent ethic of life” that views all these issues as linked, because they are.

All of these issues, at their heart, are about the sanctity of all human life, no matter who that person is, no matter at what stage of life that person is passing through, and no matter whether or not we think that the person is “deserving” of life. 

These shootings would not have happened if the shooter did not have such easy access to firearms and ammunition.  So religious people need to be invited to meditate on the connection between the more traditional “life issues” and the overdue need for stricter gun control.  The oft-cited argument, “Guns don’t kill people, people do,” seems unconvincing.  Of course people kill people; as people also procure abortions, decide on euthanasia and administer the death penalty.  Human beings are agents in all these matters.  The question is not so much how lives are ended, but how to make it more difficult to end lives. 

Pro-life religious people need to consider how it might be made more difficult for people to procure weapons that are not designed for sport or hunting or self-defense.  Why would anyone be opposed to firmer gun control, or, to put it more plainly, laws that would make it more difficult for mass murders to occur?  If one protests against abortions clinics because they facilitate the taking of human life, why not protest against largely unregulated suppliers of firearms because they facilitate the taking of human life as well?    

Well said, Fr. Jim. To be pro-life, we must really, truly be zealous against the commercialisation of death, which includes a virtually unregulated market of guns. That this individual had access to assault weapons, thousands of rounds of ammunition, and highly sophisticated technical equipment is an abomination. This was an unmitigated act of terrorism – even though the American press would not call it such (which may have to do with the lack of a racial or ethnic profile of the perpetrator).

An event of this kind must give us pause to reflect upon the kind of society of we wish to be and what our values are. (Those wishing to defend these sorts of weapons –and concomitantly the damage they inflict when they are employed within the society that permits them – on the basis of the 2nd Amendment, now must respond to the rather salient riposte of actor Jason Alexander.)