Faith leaders urge peace, end to gun violence - U-T San Diego

San Diego Faith Leaders for Peace speak from the core of our religious beliefs to call on all San Diegans to commit to ending gun violence in our communities. As a coalition of Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Unitarian Universalist and other faith leaders in San Diego, we seek to act on the ancient imperatives of all our faith traditions to be peacemakers. Our religions each value human life and liberty as one of the highest faith values. Life is a gift from God, and those who murder human beings commit an offense against the divine.

We assert that the choice to possess firearms with the express intent to acquire the power to kill another human being, even in the case of self-defense, is a moral risk. It is a moral decision that endangers not only the life and health of others, but also the life, health, and spirit of the gun owner.

Legislators will make civil laws, and we support efforts to ban assault-style weapons, to ban high-capacity magazines, and to require universal background checks. But as faith leaders, we issue this moral call for persons to reconsider gun possession and to fully appreciate the spiritual peril that ensues from the decision to kill another human being.

While there are many legal uses of guns, killing another human being to protect one's property, is considered immoral by most world religions. Further, the use of legally owned guns by unauthorized and inappropriate persons has been a major source of human harm, and the gun owner is both spiritually damaged and morally responsible for these outcomes.

Many will ask, why focus on the gun? Focus on the criminals and the mentally ill. We recognize that the oft-repeated cliché "guns don't kill people, people kill people" speaks for many citizens. Nevertheless, it is very difficult to predict which of 315 million Americans will commit murder or suicide. Only a small percentage of all Americans are involved in such violent acts. While mental illness plays a significant role, especially in mass shootings, these persons are also only a tiny fraction of the mentally ill population.

On the other hand, it is very easy to predict what means these individuals will use to commit their murder and suicide – they will use a gun to do it. In 2009, almost 70 percent of the homicides in the United States were committed using a gun (11,078). Additionally, 19,392 suicides were committed with a gun, representing 53 percent of all completed suicides.

Most of the current conversation focuses on mass murders. And many have argued that proposed legislation would not have stopped Sandy Hook. Our concern is with all persons who suffer from gun violence. The overwhelming circumstances of gun violence leading to death are suicides and assaults by intimate partners and other persons known to the victim. The most reliable and effective means of reducing gun violence is to restrict access to guns and ammunition.

The murder-suicide at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., has galvanized the nation toward reducing gun violence like no other event in recent years. The tragedy of children, murdered in their classrooms, cowering behind their brave teachers has cut through all the ambivalence about moving decisively toward new legislation governing guns in America.