Guns, God, and the Contradictions We Refuse to Name
We call ourselves a nation of “law and order.”
We call ourselves a “Christian nation.”
We fiercely defend the Second Amendment.
And yet, when children commit gun violence, we try them as adults.
When people use the very weapons we’ve made almost universally accessible, we condemn them.
We say we love guns.
We say we love law and order and punishment.
We say we love Jesus.
We say we don’t want anyone killed by guns.
How contradictory is this thinking?
We defend the right to own guns as if it’s sacred, but treat people—sometimes even children—as disposable the moment they use them. We flood our communities with weapons and then act shocked when violence follows. We worship punishment as justice and confuse control with safety.
And all the while, we drape this culture in Christian language. We hang the cross beside the AR-15 and declare ourselves a “Christian nation” while preaching retribution over redemption, fear over faith, and individual firepower over collective care.
Let me be clear:
I do not condone violence. Killing is not acceptable by any means.
But this contradiction matters—because what we believe about who we are shapes how we live, how we legislate, and how we treat one another.
The truth is, America is not actually a Christian nation.
And we are not merely a nation of “law and order.”
We are, by design, a democratic republic — a nation meant to be of the people, by the people, and for the people.
And yet our laws, our politics, and our public morality often serve weapons more than they serve people.
We cannot endlessly glorify firearms as symbols of freedom, then punish people for using them and pretend it’s justice.
We cannot claim to follow the Prince of Peace while sanctifying the tools of death.
We cannot keep clinging to punishment and fear while ignoring prevention and care.
If we are truly “for the people,” we must finally start acting like it.
That means asking hard questions about who we are and who we want to be.
Will we be a country of war,
a country of Christ,
or finally—
a country of the people?
Because we cannot be all three.
