I am not your old man, but if I were…I would talk with you about the price of violence. We see it on the news. We hear about it every day. Nearly 14000 people have been killed by guns as of May 1st in this year of our lord 2023.
Yis’ga’dal v’yis’kadash – the Hebrew Kaddish for the Dead
The average casket takes up about seven feet of length, so end to end it would cover the distance from my home to the domed capitol of California nearly 18 miles as the crows fly, whether they are fancy and ornate or shabby cardboard boxes awaiting the pyre. But the sadder realization is not all are that size. They are pretty colors with only space for a child. Draped in blues and pinks and yellows with pictures of small faces, in party dresses or wearing ties for go to church picture day.
The children came in all colors, too. Though too many are brown and black, who regularly pay the price of violence, hate and anger around them through no fault of their own. They have been felled in cars and restaurants; at parks and parties; and far more regularly than should ever be in the halls and classrooms of schools where they should be safer than even in their homes.
May those frightened cease to be afraid and may those bound be free. – Buddhist Prayer for the Dying
Before the moment of slaughter, they were full of breath and laughter and concentration. They were quizzical about life and all it would expose them to, not knowing the only exposure that would touch them would be fear and death at the fierceness of a stranger. That stranger would not treat them as humans, but the equivalent of paper targets encircled and marked. At the end, too often, the murderer takes their own life, adding to the toll. Were they despondent at what they had just wrought or afraid of righteous wrath. We can never know. They take the possibility away.
Oh Allah, forgive our living and our dead, those present and those absent, our young and our old – Islamic Prayer for the Dead
Of the 14000, nearly 500 of them were teens and 85 were children…children, with siblings and parents and grandparents and friends and boyfriends or girlfriends – who never recover. They may go on, though that is not true of all, but the stain, blood soaked as it is into our national marrow, never dissolves. It exists always, always, always.
Statistics tell us 60% of gun related deaths are self-inflicted. So, 8,400 people acted violently against themselves. They had access to weapons regardless of their clearly erratic mental health condition. They got hold of a gun and bullets, loaded the weapon, pointed it at themselves and pulled a trigger exploding their heart or head or face. The splattered remains of the fallen strewn about bedrooms or living rooms, or dens or basements leaving the living to handle the mess. Do they ponder such a price as their grip tightens? Do they think about their leavings while they put the barrel to their heads or in their mouths. Do they regret the choice as the already rushing hammer pierces the bullet cap causing the explosion that will take their life and horrifically alter the lives of every person who has ever loved or held them in tenderness and care? They will never see those anguished faces; they are out of the game.
Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her. May she rest in peace. Amen – Catholic Prayer for the Dead
It is often said you can understand a society if you look at where it spends its money. In 2022 Americans bought 16.5 million guns, and those are only the ones we know. An AK-47 costs between $350 to $700 and bullets between 50 and 70 cents, not much of a price to pay for the destruction rendered. A casket for a child costs $50 to 800 depending on how ornate; an adult between $900 and 10,000. Those are only the beginning costs for a fifty-cent bullet from a $500 firearm meant for war and sold to some 18-to 35-year-old bent on slaughter.
This year there have been 648 mass shootings in the US, more than 50% of them in K-12 schools. In 2022, an average of 100 people were killed a day in schools and churches, and shopping malls and hospitals, at banks and places of business: in a Walmart and a July 4th Parade in a quiet suburb of Chicago. The healthcare costs in 2022 were over 1 billion dollars, and that doesn’t account for long term physical or mental health care for victims, families, and witnesses. All for the going rate of 50 cents a bullet.
In 2021, there were 26,328 suicides at the end of a gun, and we already noted in any year that is 60% of gun related deaths. In 2022, 995 children 0-11 years old and 5157 teens were murdered or maimed by guns.
I beseech Thee to forgive the sins of such as have abandoned the physical garment and have ascended to the spiritual world. – Bahai prayer for the Dead
Over and over the answer to this annual slaughter is “our prayers go out to the victims…”, the cost of a politician’s prayer is nothing. It is valueless breath. It provides no comfort, and it has dribbled off the lips of politicians for far too long with inaction as its flag and stanchion. Even paltry actions taken in the past to respond to such savagery have been discarded or abandoned despite moderate success. This while direct contributions to politicians from the NRA were $728,000. Lobbying by this organization and outside groups was more than $18 million. How can the sad and weeping voice of prayers overcome such insurmountable foes. The answer daily is it does not. It even appears some politicians realize the paltry nature of their prayerful drivel and have closed their mouths along with their minds.
I have nothing to give my faithful servant but paradise if I have caused his loved one to die and he is patient – Muslim Du on the Death of a Loved One
Is there nothing to give the faithful for all the losses experienced? There is much we could give them had we the strength of character to act in the interests of the slaughtered and their families. We could obviate their pain by working to prevent it from happening week after week after week to the tune of 100 a day. Those with the most profound pain, those who have lost a child, a parent, a husband, a wife, a friend, a sister, a brother, a classmate, a lover – much as they would like a do-over; want no one, no one, no one else to writhe in the same agony. They want no other soul to keen and rock suckling nothing at an empty breast. The want no one to sit in black at the front of a church silently weeping at the tiny casket on a pedestal holding the shell of their child. We must make amends for the scatter of toys and bottles and baby blankets and photos that will never be used again except as reminders of death.
Eternal rest grant unto him O Lord and let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace. – Baptist Prayer for the Dead
In the end it is never about statistics. In the end it is never about prayer. In the end it isn’t even about the dead and damaged. It is about our responsibility to the living, the unharmed, the unarmed. More, it is about how we feel about the unwarranted and wholesale slaughter of our children and our friends. Close your eyes for a moment and feel the loss of someone you love, really immerse yourself in the violence of such uncomprehending destruction. Your child, your husband, your best friend riven out of your life by a stranger, another friend, by their own hand, leaving you unable to hug that person ever again, hold that child’s hand as they cross the street or comfort them on the fearful first day of school or when they ask “will you be here to pick me up after school; will I be here to be picked up at the end of the day”. Not a single politician’s larceny is worth such a profound loss. Not a single leader’s legacy is worth the cost of one funeral. No solitary platitude or even a bevy of them is even worth the fifty-cent cost of an AK-47 bullet.
In this moment of sorrow the Lord is in our midst and comforts us with his word: Blessed are the sorrowful; they shall be consoled.
There is no consolation. There is only unnecessary death. End it. It is up to us. Amen!