Moms Demand Action mouthpiece “Lucy McBath, featured in the documentary The Armor of Light, argues that the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution does not trump the Second Commandment of the Bible,” the YouTube caption under this video informs us. Yes, well, wikipedia.org informs us that “The Hebrew verb רצח (r-ṣ-ḥ, also transliterated retzach, ratzákh, ratsakh etc.) is the word in the original text that is translated as “murder” or “kill” . . . The Torah and Hebrew Bible made clear distinctions between the shedding of innocent blood versus killing as the due consequence of a crime.”
In other words, the Second Commandment prohibits murder, not lawful killing. But let’s take this another direction. What of gang bangers’ idolatry? Don’t these armed individuals idolize the wealth and power exercised by gang leaders and cultural icons of criminality (e.g., Scarface). Isn’t a larger, more important contributor to “gun violence”? What can be done — in schools, communities and yes, churches — to counter that kind of idolatry?