Just a short while ago, in the middle of the night, a house a mere 150 metres from where Shirley and I live, was apparently the recipient of forty-four gunshots fired through its windows.

Since nothing like that had occurred in our area at least in our memory, we had assumed we were in a safe corner of suburbia. True no one was killed but I imagine since several more Auckland houses were hit within a few days by similar strikes, the rest of us are entitled to wonder what may seem to be going wrong. Is it just that those Christian principles, which many would hope might represent the New Zealand way of life, no longer count?

Yet here is the puzzle. If we take the US as an example of a nation where belief in God is more frequently invoked than we have come to expect in Aotearoa, including I should add the beliefs amongst the criminals, there is little sign that Church attenders’ beliefs help the death rate. “In God we trust”? Well the trust isn’t working out too well at least according to recent news items.

While the US is quite correct in pointing out America is not the worst in the world for gun deaths (rated 20th), in terms of the frequency of mass killings at schools in developed nations, it is a clear leader. The CNN figures indicate the US has had 288 multiple school shootings since 2009. Compare that with Canada and France, which have each had two cases, Germany has had one and Japan, Italy and the UK have had no cases.

In the US, the Almighty might be entreated for protection but if so, He has other ideas. Don’t forget the gradually increasing average of about 41 thousand gun-deaths per year in the US, not to mention the expected new record for this year. For those genuinely concerned that US weapons are killing civilians, forty-one thousand deaths are very minor when we think for example of the weapons the US sell to unstable regions. These are guns which then wind up killing multiple thousands of civilians.

In the US there is also the fact that the reality of “one nation under God” is remarkably racist with a disproportionate number of black, ‘first nation’ and Hispanic people among the gun victims. There is also a disturbing rejection of Asians. While we might claim the New Zealand figures are less worrying, our own statistics for violence suggest the same directions.

Think for example of what has happened in Yemen or for that matter the regions of any of the civil wars currently underway. By May 25, 145 days into 2022, the United States was clearly worse when it comes to gun safety than all other developed nations and had already scored 213 mass shootings, with 27 of those shootings having taken place at schools. In 2020, the most recent year for which data is available, gun-related deaths were also the leading cause of death for children in the United States. There have been no substantial changes to federal firearm legislation in 10 years despite remembering the 26 children and adults murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012.

Those agitating for reform in the US are fond of pointing out that the National Rifle Association is in effect buying support of a good percentage of the politicians by giving eye-watering amounts to their political campaigns. This may in fact be part of the reason why efforts to tighten up the gun laws seems to lag behind the views of an increasing number of the concerned public.

We note that ex-President Trump has recently restated his answer which is to arm the teachers. Perhaps he is just reflecting the view of many Republicans that young people will be much safer if there are guns to protect them? Yet since some of the perpetrators have been previously assessed as mentally unstable, I would have thought that a rather better case could be made for restricting access to the weapons in the first place. The Second Amendment, born in the American War of Independence, was to ensure the right of all citizens to own and carry guns in the event of attack by foreign forces. That was then. But surely now since the US has one of the best equipped military forces in the world, that Second Amendment, making it possible for all but trained professionals to have access to dangerous weapons seems daft and almost certainly is out of touch with reality.

And finally I want to risk the fury of some of my own country’s church going population to state as bluntly as possible that, just as in the US, praying won’t be enough. Asking God to sort out our issues as we begin to follow the lead of the self-appointed “leaders of the free world” just because they claim they are trusting in God, is ignoring what should be clear to all of us. Jesus’ injunction to love our neighbours as ourselves and using a good dose of common sense to check out the facts might be a better starting point.