I’m trying new things at youth group today. A few weeks ago, for our New Year’s meeting, we talked about how we want to move forward as a group in 2013. One of the suggestions was to look at and talk about current events and social issues. Things that affect our community. In a few hours, I’ll be facilitating an honest talk on the gun debate. It’s been an opportunity for me to read up on arguments from all sides and look at statistics. I’m still figuring out for myself what I think the best course of action to address this issue is, but I know gun violence had been an issue that has touched my community here for years.
I leave you with a letter to the editor in yesterday’s LA Times: “As the nation wrestles with the question of whether to ban assault weapons, people in our inner cities know a simple truth: There are too many guns on our streets, and this can be directly linked to the high numbers of homicides that are sadly a regular part of our lives.
This past summer there were four homicides within a span of 62 days within a square mile of Dolores Mission Parish, just a few miles east of downtown Los Angeles. Since 1980, when the Jesuits came to this parish, we have experienced the deaths of some 200 community members to gun violence.
Though not the only angle on the issue, I have to believe that if there were tighter gun control laws in our country, fewer guns would find themselves on the streets of our inner cities. And more of my parishioners would be alive.
The Rev. Scott Santarosa
Los Angeles”
Adventures With Jon 