Are Mass Shootings a Sin Problem or a Law Problem?

An article in the Christian Post argues that what lies at the root of gun violence is not mental health issues or gun regulations, but the presence of evil in the perpetrator’s heart. Phil, Skye, and Kaitlyn affirm the presence of evil while also weighing the stats about gun laws and mass shootings. What role do laws play in restraining evil, and why do so many American Christians continue to balk at the idea of implementing stricter gun laws? (Full Episode: 686: Shootings, Single Fathers, & the Shadow Side of Ambition with Miroslav Volf)

Phil: The Christian Post just wants you to know we don't have school shootings because of all of the guns and easy gun access, we have school shootings 'cause there's evil in our hearts.

Skye: It's the human heart with a gun. Christian Post has reached out to America. With a column entitled "An Answer to Why the Minneapolis Catholic School Shooting Happened." The author of the column criticizes the notion that mental health issues and gun control are the primary causes of such tragedies.

Instead, the author argues that the root cause of such acts is the presence of evil in the perpetrator's heart. It's not gun violence we need to solve, but rather violence itself. The FBI's crime data repeatedly shows that the majority of gun crimes occur in urban cities with the strictest gun control laws.

Jane of the North tweeted - are you familiar with Jane of the North?

Skye: Is that a cartoon character?

Phil: No, it's a woman in Canada.

Phil: Jane of the North responded saying, “Canadian here, your neighbor with cold winters and sensible gun laws. Did you know we've had 11 school shooting deaths—not this month or this year, but total in history—and absolutely zero deaths in elementary schools. Why? Because gun laws save lives. Listen, it's the guns.”

So Jane of the North and the Christian Post have a very deep disagreement. And here's my point. Here's the only point I'm gonna make and then you can go off. Okay, so we don't have school shootings because of all of the guns and easy gun access. We have school shootings 'cause there's evil in our hearts. Which means, since we have the most school shootings of just about any nation on earth, we must be the most evil nation on earth. So we're more evil than China, we're more evil than Russia, way more evil than Canada or all of Western Europe. Is that the conclusion they want us to come to? Or is there something besides evil that makes school shootings happen?

Skye: I don't think they're interested in a logical argument. They're interested in ending the argument because they're scared of where it might lead.

Phil: And why would the number one Christian news website be scared of where that argument might lead?

Skye: Because it would be politically inconvenient.

Phil: Do Christians need gun access to feel okay?

Skye: Some apparently do. But your point’s a good one. Like, Canada is a far more secular country than the United States.

Phil: But they’re less evil. 

Skye: And Western Europe—

Phil: Much less evil.

Skye: Much more secular than the United States. Places like Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, whatever, they’re outrageously post-Christian and they don't see this kind of gun violence.

Phil: So this combination of loving Jesus and being evil is somewhat unique to America. Would you say?

Skye: And the whole thing about cities—gun violence in cities—is true. There is a lot of gun violence in cities, partly because there's a concentration of people in those cities.

But per capita, the most—I think, it’s been a while since I've looked at this—per capita, I believe states that have the loosest gun laws have the most gun violence. And in a place like Chicago, near where we all live now, which does have a significant gun violence problem, the vast majority of the guns used in criminal activity in Chicago come from Indiana.

Phil: Indiana? Well, that's across the country! That's not anywhere close to Chicago!

Skye: Chicago, for those of you who don't know your geography, borders Indiana, that has very loose gun laws. So you can't say that Chicago's gun laws are ineffective when you can drive a few blocks away, bypass those gun laws, and get access to the firearms that people want for criminal activity. So all those arguments are smoke screens, they’re gaslighting, it’s distraction from what the real issue is.

Phil: Kaitlyn, help me out. Why do Christian news sources feel the need to defend gun rights?

Kaitlyn: Whoa, that's a big question. I think part of the difficulty I have in reading this and even thinking about what Skye was just saying is that it is really unfortunate that because we have to put things in these political boxes, and we have to be opposed to each other on every point, you end up in a place where people set the terms of the debate as: you’re either for gun laws, or you think sometimes people just are evil and do evil things. And it's like—no, both of these things are true. And in fact, one of the things that I think our response can miss, and this piece misses, is: I don't think it's just about gun laws, either. America has a culture around guns that is distinct from other countries.

There have been friends of mine who are serious scholars and journalists who have studied all of the statistics around gun laws and the effectiveness of particular gun laws in different states and nationally in the US, and they have said they're not sure how effective some gun laws in the US that I would really like to see passed would actually be. Not because they're opposed to those gun laws, but because we have such an intense culture around gun ownership in this country.

Skye: And there are already 400 million guns.

Kaitlyn: And there are a lot of guns in this country, right? And so it is—I think we have to be able to both say: there are social, societal, systemic problems, and we should look at whole states, nations, et cetera, to compare why something is a problem in one place and not another. And as Christians, we can also say: there is a limit to how much we can engineer this to stop this.

Evil is in the world. There is sin. There is brokenness. But also that should be a good reason why Christians are the first people to say, “Some things are so grievous, and we want to protect against them so much, that we don't leave it up to just individual conscience. We put laws in place to prevent people from doing the things that we recognize—until Christ comes back—will be things that happen.”

Skye: Okay, I love—that’s exactly the right point, because I'm assuming this author, or the Christian Post in general, would never use this logic. I'm assuming Christian Post would never write an article saying, “Abortion—What are you gonna do? It's just evil. People are evil.”

Phil: But the response is, “But we've already made murder illegal. Abortion is legal, so at least make abortion illegal because murder is illegal.

Skye: But their argument is essentially a case for antinomianism. Why have any laws, if people are just evil? And the ultimate solution to that is changing people's hearts, I'm assuming, through the transformation of the Holy Spirit and regeneration in Christ. If that's really the ultimate solution to evil in the world, then why bother with government at all? Why bother with laws? Why bother with any of these constraints? Because we don't yet live in a perfectly redeemed creation, and we do need laws. We do need government. We do need enforcement. We do need these limitations that contain access to the potential for evil.