Murder is a social service?

Among the writings of then-NRA board member Jeff Cooper’s monthly column in Guns and Ammo is his comment on the murder rate in Los Angeles. He wrote, “The consensus is that no more than five to ten people in a hundred who die by gun fire in Los Angeles are any loss to society. These people fight small wars amongst themselves. It would seem a valid social service to keep them well-supplied with ammunition.”

Unfortunately, such statements from prominent members of the NRA’s National Board are not that unusual. “Meet the NRA,” a new addition to the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence website, profiles NRA board members and catalogues their statements, opening a Pandora’s box of racism, misogyny, homophobia, anti-immigrant animus, religious bigotry, anti-environmentalism, political corruption, and insurrectionism. If people of faith are concerned about our neighbors, we should take a long look at the values expressed by the members of the NRA Board of Directors who write our nation’s gun laws.—America and Its Guns: A Theological Expose, page 128

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Words fail me. Murder is a social service? Lord, have mercy on us! Forgive us for our self-centeredness and heal us!
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