Gun Violence: The Failure of Government

The all-too-predictable reaction to last Sunday's killing of 26 people (and wounding of 20 others) in a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas is to call for or defend against more gun control. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence called for closing the gaps in the gun background check system, while President Trump suggested that better vetting of gun purchases would have made "no difference" and that it was civilians with guns that stopped the perpetrator.

What few seem willing to acknowledge is that the level of gun violence in America is a basic failure of government. The Declaration of Independence asserts that "governments are instituted" to secure "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." In that trilogy, "life" comes first, for without it liberty and the pursuit of happiness are impossible.

Somewhat surprisingly, Ken Paxton, attorney general and chief law enforcement officer in the State of Texas, does not seem to understand this role of government. Asked by a FOX News reporter what he would suggest to prevent such mass carnage in a church, his first response was to call for churches to hire security guards. When pressed for how a small congregation could afford this, he acknowledged that maybe some of its own members would have to provide the needed security. In short, arm yourselves because the State of Texas will not keep you safe. One could be forgiven for wondering if religious freedom, so central a goal in our culture, must depend on parishioners packing guns.

Protecting the lives of its citizens is the predominant responsibility of government. Where it cannot do so, trust in government falls and civil society is threatened. Do we really want an America where the organizers of every social event - concerts, church services, schools, nightclubs, sporting events - are responsible for their own security, irrespective of the cost? Is the only answer to gun violence a society in which more and more people must pack a gun because they can't depend on government to protect them? Do we really want the government's response to gun violence to be to abdicate its core function?

In any society, people will differ on the way they rank moral values. Governments are the vehicle to address those value conflicts; they provide the mechanism to listen to value arguments and make the difficult choices on how to balance competing priorities. In the United States, the right to bear arms too often contends with the right to life. There must be a balance in this value conflict; right now the scale is tipped too far in favor of liberty over life. Gun rights must not trump the right to life.

The solution to this scourge of gun violence, which we should recall is present in approximately 22,000 suicides and 11,000 homicides a year, in addition to mass shootings, will undoubtedly be complex and contested. But it can be addressed, if we have the moral courage to do so. No single or simple solution will do, but doing nothing is to abandon the Declaration's vision and the Constitution's promise of "domestic tranquility." Doing nothing is another blow to Americans' faith in their own government.

Bryan Holcombe and his wife Karla were killed in Sutherland's First Baptist Church, as were their son Marc and pregnant daughter-in-law Crystal and four of their grandchildren - Emily, Megan, Greg and Noah. Theirs is more than an American tragedy. It is an American governmental failure.