By request, here are the words spoken during the pastoral prayer on Sunday, March 28^th, in response to the shooting in Boulder…:

Very aware that I have family members and a few friends who will passionately disagree, I don't care. I don't care if extensive mandatory background checks, mandatory wait times, mandatory safety training, magazine size limits, limits on individual arsenals, registering and licensing every device capable of firing a bullet, using technology to make every gun trackable, banning anything that can be modified into an assault-style weapon makes it harder for you, or me, or anyone, to get your weapon of choice, raises its price, is an inconvenience, or feels like an infringement on “freedom.”  I do not care.

I am aware that none of these things will stop all mass shootings or dissuade all domestic terrorists.  But if they will collectively provide a sufficient hurdle that avoids just one more mass shooting, just one - if just one life is saved from someone getting frustrated at the difficulty of getting that weapon, or having to stop and reload, that is totally ok with me.

Don't tell me I am politicizing a tragedy.  Don’t waste my time with straw arguments about the government coming for your guns.  I'd just like it to be much harder for the next cowardly psychopath to take out his personal pain on the rest of us, or at least lower the body count. Personally, I would be ok with the kinds of gun laws and outright bans they have in countries with 1/100th the gun violence that we have.  But since gun voters clearly don't value human life as much as they value guns, I'll settle for the above.

To be clear, I do not expect any action from our lawmakers. They have repeatedly shown that they are far more afraid of gun voters and the NRA than they are of more dead Americans, even dead children.  But I am not afraid of gun voters or the NRA.  I am afraid of the next cowardly psychopath with an arsenal that was far too easy to obtain.

Peace,

Mike