WASHINGTON — If Vincent DeMarco is right — and he’s got a whole bunch of faith leaders and their organizations lined up to work with him — ending easy access to the kinds of high-power guns used in mass shootings can be accomplished with a tried-and-true strategy.
DeMarco, national coordinator of Faiths United to Prevent Gun Violence, believes the financial and political clout of the gun lobby in opposing any gun restrictions can be defeated by the same kind of grass-roots, faith-based strategy that he believes broke through the tobacco lobby’s power, enabling the enactment of government controls on tobacco marketing, and new cigarette taxes to fund children’s health care.
Polls show the vast majority of Americans, including the majority of gun owners, support some restrictions, such as more thorough background checks for gun purchasers and bans on semiautomatic assault weapons, DeMarco said.
“But there are people in Congress who don’t believe that,” he said. “We’re going to make sure they know.”
“We’re going to succeed because our faith leaders are going to make sure they hear” that their constituents support some controls, he added. Just such an effort that DeMarco headed, Faith United Against Tobacco, is credited with lobbying for steeper cigarette taxes and other government controls on the tobacco industry.
As the White House put the finishing touches on President Barack Obama’s executive orders and legislative proposals aimed at restricting access to some weapons and keeping guns out of the hands of people who pose a danger to others, DeMarco on Jan. 15 released a letter to members of Congress. Many of its signers, who included Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh faith leaders, flanked him at the news conference.
In light of the recent killings of 20 children and six adults in Newtown, Conn., as well as mass shootings in Aurora, Colo., Tucson, Ariz., Fort Hood, Texas, Virginia Tech University, Columbine, Colo., and Oak Creek, Wis., “we know that no more time can be wasted,” said the letter from more than four dozen religious leaders.
Signers included Bishop Stephen E. Blaire, of Stockton, Calif., chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, as well as the leaders of Catholic Charities USA, the Catholic Health Association; Network, the Catholic social justice lobby; Pax Christi USA; the Conference of Major Superiors of Men; the Leadership Conference of Women Religious; and Franciscan, Mercy, Dominican and Good Shepherd religious orders.
Another participant in the news conference, Sister Carol Keehan, a Daughter of Charity who heads the Catholic Health Association, said she personally saw in hospital emergency rooms the lethal effects of easy access to guns. She told of gangs that would drop off gunshot-wounded members at the hospital, of in-hospital attempts at retribution and of shootings on hospital grounds.
Sister Carol said assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines “have no valid uses off the battlefield.”
Faith leaders were part of the consultation process over which Vice President Joe Biden presided in the weeks before Obama signed executive orders Jan. 16 and outlined legislation he wants Congress to pass.
That includes: laws requiring background checks on all gun sales; reinstating the ban on assault weapons; limiting the size of ammunition magazines and banning armor-piercing bullets; confirming a new director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and penalizing people who help criminals get guns.
Obama also signed orders calling for efforts by his administration that include: federal research into gun violence and gun safety systems; better sharing of background check information; improvements in how mental health problems are diagnosed and treated; and training and support for improved school security.
In announcing the efforts, Obama said he wasn’t threatening the Second Amendment rights of “responsible, law-abiding gun owners … who cherish their right to bear arms for hunting, or sport, or protection, or collection,” but was protecting more basic rights.
Obama also cited “the right to worship freely and safely, that right was denied to Sikhs in Oak Creek, Wis., (and) the right to assemble peaceably, that right was denied shoppers in Clackamas, Ore., and moviegoers in Aurora, Colo.”
In a meeting Jan. 9 at the White House, representatives of many of the same organizations that signed the Faiths United letter talked about their faiths’ efforts at combatting violence, said Kathy Saile, director of domestic social development for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, who attended.
She said the participants approached the issue with the idea of offering a moral voice to a debate that has included gun-rights activists, producers of violent video games and programming, victims of violence, educators and others. “There was huge emphasis on the protection of life,” she said.
