Why is it so difficult to get the majority of major players in the most influential institutions in America to come right out and say and act on all that we know to be true about guns? The Virginia Tech tragedy was just the latest of many reminders that we Americans are allowing ourselves to be jerked around shamelessly by the National Rifle Association and by the people who allow their votes to be bought by that organization.

Forty years ago when a man went on a killing spree at the University of Texas in Austin and shot forty-five people from atop an observation deck, wounding 31 and killing 14 in addition to his wife and mother, whom he'd killed the night before, I was young enough and naive enough to think Americans would have had enough. I thought church leaders all over the country would say to their congregations, “We can and must stop this madness!” I thought it was obvious that we must make it illegal to buy and own handguns and assault weapons, guns that are made for the sole purpose of killing people.

In my naivete I was willing to concede that rifles made specifically for hunting should be allowed. I was confident that reasonable people would agree that the only guns people should be able to buy and own are those that are used in sport and in hunting. I thought a movement would begin with good people in churches all over America that would spread all the way to Washington and that the majority of politicians would be moved to pass laws that would make it illegal to sell or buy or own assault weapons and handguns. I hoped after Columbine and then again after the Amish school shooting that good people would rise up and insist. But not enough of us did, so here we are again.

We have never had a Federal ban on handguns in this country; but beginning in the Clinton administration, we had a short-lived assault weapons ban. Later, with a clear Republican majority in the House and in the Senate during Bush's first term, the ban was allowed to expire. I had hoped after the last national elections, that Democrats would get the job done; but apparently I am wrong again. Republicans, who have owned the gun control issue for a long time, have spooked many Democrats into silence on the issue. Many Democrats are clearly afraid to take a stand for fear of losing critical votes in the next round of elections. It's not clear to me why so many American are afraid of gun control laws that would make it at least a little harder for assault weapons and handguns to come easily into the hands of people who are predisposed to the kind of violence against us that we witnessed in endless hours of television coverage from Virginia Tech. I know what Karl Rove says, but that doesn't explain anything.

The National Rifle Association owns us, and it seems that not even our spiritual leaders are willing in great enough numbers to speak out clearly on the issue. I remember being urged by my spiritual mentors when I was a young Christian to ask myself a simple, straightforward question whenever I was faced with a moral dilemma. What would Jesus do? What he would do is definitely not one of the mysteries of the Christian faith. We all know what Jesus, Siddhartha Gautama, Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Mother Theresa would do about gun control.