As gun violence continues to tear our country apart, the band plays on

After the killings at the Fourth of July parade in Chicago’s Highland Park suburb, one report noted that while the people were screaming and scattering for safety, the band at the parade, evidently not being able to hear the shots over the music, continued playing.

What a tragic symbol that spectacle was that the performers heard nothing and kept on performing without an inkling of the rampage of killing going on around them. The horror and panic covered the area like tear gas but still the band kept playing.

I have no doubt that gun owners and non-gun owners alike were watching the news reports with great anger at the scene. Yet, some cling to the belief that no matter the amount of daily carnage from gun violence it has nothing to do with adopting gun reform. We hear the same obsessive mantra of bizarre lyrics from extremists over and over again. “Guns don’t kill people, people do.”

Let’s acknowledge that legitimate gun owners have no desire to commit such acts of terror. They use their weapons simply to hunt, for target practice or to train to protect their families. But it feels like the argument to stop these killers seems to be drowned out by a different kind of band which loudly plays the music of indifference to any kind of gun-induced crime and fatality.

Such advocates defiantly refuse to own the problem of guns and automatic weapons in the hands of young men who slaughter anyone and everyone with their AR-15 rifles.

In a recent bipartisan effort Congress passed legislation to curb access to guns for people not mentally stable and, furthermore, those who have committed crimes of domestic abuse, from acquiring guns. Red flag laws allow a judge to take away someone’s gun based on the suspicion that they will use it to hurt themselves or others. It appears that extremists on the anti-gun control laws side play the same “Guns don’t kill people, people do” song even louder so that they don’t hear a thing.

Religions have a lot to say about gun control laws. Going back to the biblical prophets, did they not intone verses that called for the holiest of visions of peace when people would beat their swords into plowshares, their spears into pruning hoods, nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they study war anymore?”

One can find at least three biblical prophets — Isaiah, Joel and Micah — who used variations on this famous verse to get the point across that a holy society cannot survive with the focus so heavily on the power of weapons and, therefore, with a population who practically worships the use of such weapons. Is it not such a far leap toward today’s obsession with acquiring guns by invoking the divine right and the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution to own weapons without any restrictions or laws?

One verse in the Torah is of particular interest toward setting limits on the use of weapons and highlights how destructive human nature can be. In Leviticus 19:14 it is written “not to put a stumbling block before the blind.” Judaism has commentaries on this verse that relate to the issue of gun protection. True, many ancient Interpreters over the centuries suggested that the verse was just referring to the blind themselves. There were and are today biblical commentators who advanced the viewpoint that the verse really transcended the traditional understanding and broadened it to include any item that would cause life threatening danger to someone who is not prepared to expect such an attack.

In this regard the advocates who pursue reasonable gun safety laws saw a link in the Torah to their cause. They believe there are many ways when an unsuspecting public can be hurt with a stumbling block which is the weapon such as a gun or automatic weapon as well. This includes situations from unsuspecting children who find a loaded gun in their house all the way to people who are truly morally and mentally impaired and plan acts of mass killings.

And as the killing goes on, most recently in Highland Park or anywhere else, the people continue to die and the public repeatedly calls for greater regulation, but, all one can hear on the other side is a band playing the same lyrics again, “Guns don’t kill people, people do.” This statement sounds like an ongoing and monotonous musical tirade which drowns out the real conversation between differing sides of the gun laws question to figure out a compromise to keep people safe from gun violence.

That heartless and unmerciful platitude of guns not being in any way responsible but people are for mass murders continues to, in effect, protect the criminals while at the same time waves a reckless banner for the gun lobbies. Isn’t it time we all work together to continue the momentum locally to remove the stumbling blocks which cause gun violence in order to save our nation from itself?

This struggle is not using weapons against another nation as the prophets warned. Instead, the vision then and today is to remove stumbling blocks within our own country. When are we going to wake up and finally realize that we ourselves and our guns may be the stumbling blocks who inadvertently and even unintentionally promote gun violence?

Let someone explain and justify this stumbling block to the orphaned 2-year-old whose parents were victims of an AR-15 on the Fourth of July in Highland Park, Illinois.

Rabbi Brad L. Bloom serves Congregation Beth Yam. He attended the University of Wisconsin and lives on Hilton Head Island.