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| Darlene Sitler (1959-2012) |
The list of dead does not include Darlene Sitler, choir director of First United Presbyterian Church, Coudersport, PA, who was murdered while playing the organ during worship on Sunday, December 2, 2012, twelve days before Sandy Hook. See reports of her death, at the hand of her ex-husband, (here), (here), and (here). Darlene was a local music teacher and by all accounts loved and respected. She was 53 at the time of her death.
The gun control laws now being discussed probably would not have her life as her killer used a handgun and the shooting was without any prior warning that he would do such a thing. But, that does not mean that we as a society should not continue to try to reduce and reduce again the havoc we are wrecking on each other with guns. As is being noted in the current debate over gun control, it is true that guns do not kill. It is also true that violent, angry, demented, or just plain heartless people use guns to kill—by the tens of thousands every year in America.
It already seems clear that in the current political environment only a limited amount can be done to curb gun violence legislatively. That is sad. One fears that it is going to take another Sandy Hook and one after that and perhaps one after that to move legislation along. How much heartache we are going to endure before even a minimum of common sense moves us to begin the task of bringing gun violence under control? The Second Amendment was intended to preserve our right to form militias not provide the opportunity to gun each other down in the streets. Its modern expansion to include exactly that by its more radical "defenders" defies all spiritual as well as humane common sense. Sadly so.
