Numb -- Spiritually Dead -- Nation

America has a spiritual problem when it protects guns rather than children. Why are we not all calling our legislators and expressing outrage? How can we let the voices of gun dealers and manufacturers drown out the cries of children?
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Ka’Nard Allen hasbeen shot twice in his 10-year-old life. On May 12 he went with his mother tothe annual Mother’s Day second line parade in New Orleans. When two gunmen shotinto the line of participants—men, women and children—Ka’Nard’s cheek wasstruck by a bullet. Eighteen other people were wounded including a 10-year-oldgirl. Less than a year ago, at Ka’Nard’s 10 birthday party in hisfront yard, his five-year-old cousin Brianna Allen was fatally shot by an AK-47,and he was shot in the neck.

Now, with his 11birthday coming up on May 29, Ka’Nard’s mother doesn’t know where to have theparty. He wants to go to a hotel, swim in the pool, and stay overnight, he tolda reporter for the Times-Picayune,but his mother said she can’t afford it. She doesn’t know where to let him playthat will be safe, and he remains at risk because she can’t afford to move.

I have writtenthis before and I write it again now: The psychological and emotional toll ofgun violence on children, whether they are bystanders or victims, can beoverwhelming and last for years.

A recent screeningof 232 New Orleans middle school students who were part of a teen pregnancyprevention program found that 44 percent had someone close to them murdered, 29percent had witnessed an assault with a weapon, and 14 percent had witnessed amurder. More than half the children classified concerns about “personal safety”as a source of worry, more than twice the number who worried about “beingunloved.” “At least a third of our kids are experiencing symptoms of depressionand post-traumatic stress disorder, which on a simple level means it is hard toattend school and do well,” said Dr.Denese Shervington, a psychiatrist who heads the Institute of Women and EthnicStudies that ran the program and conducted the screening.

John C. Raphael,the pastor of a church in the neighborhood where Ka’Nard lives, told PulitzerPrize-winning journalist Julia Cass on assignment for the Children’s DefenseFund that children who regularly hear gunfire and see dead bodies on the streetbecome acclimatized to violence and learn that violence is the way to solveconflicts. “They’re afraid but they can’t escape so they harden themselves tosurvive. They become numb to what should be emotionally disturbing and acceptit as a norm, as the community does.”

As a nation we seemto be hardened and numb to what should be emotionally disturbing when we cannotlegislate the most modest and reasonable measures for national gun safety evenafter children in as seemingly safe a place as Newtown, Connecticut, far froman inner city, can be shot down in school. We are numb when the same child canbe shot one year at his own birthday party and shot again the next year at aMother’s Day parade and both shootings are just another day on our cities’streets. Why are we not all calling our legislators and expressing outrage? Howcan we let the voices of gun dealers and manufacturers drown out the cries ofchildren?

Pastor Raphaelpointed out another consequence of rampant gun violence in places like NewOrleans, Chicago, and Newark: Young men become locked into a situation wherethey feel they have to retaliate to protect themselves and to be respected. Whena culture teaches its children that violence is a way to resolve conflicts, “ifyour brother or friend is shot, you think you have to strike back,” he said.“Sometimes, the family members or friends of the shooter assume you willretaliate and go after you preemptively.”

Retaliation issaid to be the motive for the Mother’s Day shooting. Police said that thebrothers, aged 19 and 24, who are charged with the crime, were part of aloosely organized neighborhood drug gang and were shooting at a member ormembers of a rival group. The shooting was related to two previous ones, policesaid. The childhood experiences of the accused brothers have not been revealed,but it would take numbness to violence to shoot into a crowd with women andchildren.

In PastorRaphael’s view, New Orleans “has a spiritual problem. It is beyond criminal. Itis a spiritual problem when in a high population area you see children and youshoot into them.”

America has a spiritualproblem when it protects guns rather than children. Since 1963, more than 166,000children and teens have died from guns on American soil—more than triple thenumber of U.S. soldiers killed in the Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq wars combined.It is beyond criminal that we allow so many children to suffer and die. It isspiritual deadness.

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