As the nation continues to reel from the horrific violence in Newton, Connecticut, last week, and politicians of all stripes raise calls for more or, alternately, less gun control, I would suggest that neither option will really resolve the issue.  We are looking at a situation that is far more than guns and whether and how we should control them.
     Ultimately, we are looking at ourselves.  We are looking at one of the most violent societies in the world, a society, though it can be one of the kindest in the world, can also be one of the most intolerant, a society, though it can be one of the most generous, can also be one of the most frightened and selfish.  We are looking at an enigma, a society that, despite its efforts to make everyone safe, seems to only succeed in making everyone feel more afraid, a society that although it craves freedom, dearly loves order--at all costs--a society that every year opens the door for increasingly graphic depictions of violence and mayhem while it continues to wring its hands over its effects.  It is a study in contradiction, a study of a society that thinks it knows what it wants, but cannot seem to agree on what that is.  It is a society that doesn't know itself.
     And nothing changes.
     We need a broader conversation, a conversation not about whether we should or should not own or control guns, though that is a conversation that may be worth having, but a conversation about who we are.  Who are we?  What do we want?  More importantly, what do we need?
     Our answer, it seems to me, does not lie with the material alone.  It is necessarily metaphysical.  It is necessarily linked to things bigger than we.  Like God.  Only God knows who we really are.  And only he knows what we really need.  But we have to ask him.
     Though I cannot say with certainty what God will say, I will say this:  the only act of violence that really accomplished its goal was the killing of Jesus on the cross.  Jesus' death is the only violence that really keeps us safe, that really sets us free.  It is the violence through which we should understand everything else, the violence with which we should frame ourselves, our wants, and our needs.  It is the only violence that provides a way out of itself.  Everything else is futility.
     We need a better way.