It seems that gun violence has become an epidemic, one that imposes a pervasive social and economic toll on Greater Charleston. Read the paper, watch the local news broadcasts ”” guns are a commodity in a mindset of violence that simply befuddles us. That broad daylight shootout at Citadel Mall last week is just the latest chapter of a continuing story that always ends without answering the looming questions ”” why the violence, why the guns?

No doubt the National Rifle Association zealots already are drafting their responses. Put your dukes down, guys, this is not an argument on Second Amendment rights. It’s about awareness of how guns fall in the hands of bad people, and the numbing misery gun violence brings when children and young adults sense an obligation to go armed, and then follow a “shoot-first” attitude.

Read it all from the local paper.

The longtime private secretary of the late Pope John Paul II revealed in a film screened Thursday that the pope was lightly wounded in a 1982 knife attack by a priest in Portugal.
Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz made the revelation in “Testimony,” a movie on John Paul’s life that was screened for Pope Benedict XVI and top clergy at the Vatican.

It was known that John Paul was assaulted by a knife-wielding Spanish priest while visiting the shrine of Fatima in Portugal to give thanks for surviving an assassination attempt. He when he was shot by a Turkish gunman in St. Peter’s Square in 1981.

“Today I can say what up to now we have kept secret,” Dziwisz said in the movie. “That priest wounded the Holy Father.”

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The number of teenage murders in London will reach a record level this year as police struggle to cope with the surge in youth and gang violence.

The toll reached 26 with the death of Oliver Kingonzila, 19, at the weekend ”“ the same as the total for the whole of 2007, with three months of 2008 remaining.

Scotland Yard said yesterday that youth violence was its “biggest challenge”, while senior detectives privately conceded that further deaths were almost inevitable.

Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, described the youth murders last year as “completely unacceptable”. But tough enforcement measures, a high detection rate and millions of pounds being spent on antiknife crime initiatives have not stopped the rate of killing rising sharply from 17 in 2006, 16 each in 2005 and 2004, and 15 in 2003.

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Brian McLaren, a leader in the “emergent church” movement, says the three Abrahamic religions ”” Christianity, Judaism and Islam ”” are very dangerous.

“Christians, Muslims and Jews are, in some ways, the most dangerous people on the planet, and probably Christians being the most dangerous because their fingers are closer to the most nuclear weapons,” he told an audience here at Baker Book House.

But a new series of books on ancient religious traditions ”” including an introductory tome by McLaren ”” seeks to find unity in the ancient practices these religions share.

“If (Muslims, Christians and Jews) can find points of contact, maybe it will help us avoid pressing these buttons,” he said.

McLaren, a pastor, speaker and activist, spoke last week about some of his books, including his latest, Finding Our Way Again, which explores a return to ancient practices held in common by these three religions, such as fixed hours for prayer and observance of the Sabbath.

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Studios including Universal, 20th Century Fox and Pathé are failing to include details of the explicit content of films or their age classification on posters and publicity material.

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has sent a warning to the studios reminding them of their obligation.

Its guidelines require that all films which carry the U, PG, 12A, 15 and 18 certificates must display their classification and warnings about sexual or violent content on all promotional material, including trailers.

But inquiries by the BBFC and The Sunday Telegraph have found several new releases being advertised on billboards and in magazines either without their certificate or the warnings, or both.

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A very powerful story–watch it all.

For years, Kevin Jensen carried a pistol everywhere he went, tucked in a shoulder holster beneath his clothes.

In hot weather the holster was almost unbearable. Pressed against Jensen’s skin, the firearm was heavy and uncomfortable. Hiding the weapon made him feel like a criminal.

Then one evening he stumbled across a site that urged gun owners to do something revolutionary: Carry your gun openly for the world to see as you go about your business.

In most states there’s no law against that.

Jensen thought about it and decided to give it a try. A couple of days later, his gun was visible, hanging from a black holster strapped around his hip as he walked into a Costco. His heart raced as he ordered a Polish dog at the counter. No one called the police. No one stopped him.

Now Jensen carries his Glock 23 openly into his bank, restaurants and shopping centers. He wore the gun to a Ron Paul rally. He and his wife, Clachelle, drop off their 5-year-old daughter at elementary school with pistols hanging from their hip holsters, and have never received a complaint or a wary look.

Jensen said he tries not to flaunt his gun. “We don’t want to show up and say, ‘Hey, we’re here, we’re armed, get used to it,’ ” he said.

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APRIL was a cruel and bloody month in Chicago. “We want futures, not funerals!” students shouted at a rally on April 1st. But more funerals followed. The most violent weekend, April 18th-20th, saw no few than 36 shootings””15 of them gang-related””and nine deaths. As Chicago prepares for the summer, when violence usually tends to rise, two questions linger: what has caused this outburst, and what can be done about it?

Some believe the shootings were sparked by warmer weather; others blame mounting economic hardship. But searching for a precise reason is pointless. In many neighbourhoods across America, the threat of violence hangs in the air like humidity, sometimes bursting into a deluge. Overall crime rates are far lower than in the early 1990s. But America had 37% more gang-related murders in 2006 than in 2000, according to FBI reports. Half of Chicago’s murders in 2006 were linked to gangs.

The more important question is whether cities have learned how to prevent further outbursts….

Read the entire article.

At least 30 people were shot over the weekend in Chicago. Six died. Authorities point to the usual culprits ”” gang warfare and easy access to guns. Police had just released statistics showing the city’s murder rate fell in March compared to a year earlier.

listen to it all from NPR.

Look out the window of Charles Steger’s office at Virginia Tech, and you can just see the edge of the simple memorial to the 32 students and faculty who died at the hands of Seung-hui Cho on April 16, 2007.

Most of the time, someone is there, day or night, pausing by one or another of the stones engraved with a name.

So much changed that day last year, including the idea of what it means to be a college president: Steger, president of Virginia Tech, had to quickly shift from academic, fundraiser and booster to crisis manager.

“Even today, you can’t believe it actually happened, you know,” he says about the campus shooting. “There’s something about it.”

Read or listen to it all.

Eight teenagers have been arrested on charges alleging they beat another teen in an “animalistic attack” so they could make a videotape to post on YouTube.

Seven of them remained in juvenile detention today, authorities said. A boy who was charged as an adult had been released on bail.

Victoria Lindsay was attacked on March 30 by six teenage girls when she arrived at a friend’s home, authorities said.

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Boston police are asking parents for permission to search children’s rooms for firearms. Some parents welcome the effort to keep guns out of the hands of youths. Others see it as a clear invasion of privacy.

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Over the weekend, 18-year-old Chavez Clarke became the 22nd Chicago high school student to die violently this year. Clarke was trying to earn extra credits towards his diploma, when he was shot to death after Saturday classes.

The killing triggered student-led protests for tougher gun laws and exasperation among school administrators and police struggling to shield city schools from gang violence.

Makes the heart very sad–read it all.

Diaz replied: “If you’re willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I guess you must really need the money. I mean, all I wanted to do was get dinner and if you really want to join me … hey, you’re more than welcome.

“You know, I just felt maybe he really needs help,” Diaz says.

Diaz says he and the teen went into the diner and sat in a booth.

“The manager comes by, the dishwashers come by, the waiters come by to say hi,” Diaz says. “The kid was like, ‘You know everybody here. Do you own this place?'”

“No, I just eat here a lot,” Diaz says he told the teen. “He says, ‘But you’re even nice to the dishwasher.'”

Diaz replied, “Well, haven’t you been taught you should be nice to everybody?”

“Yea, but I didn’t think people actually behaved that way,” the teen said.

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Kenyans have been asked to forgive one another and reconcile as the country heals from the effects of post-election violence.

Religious leaders also thanked God for saving Kenya from the brink of collapse.

Praying in Parliament, retired Anglican Bishop Peter Njenga said: “You saved us from hatred, danger and ethnic violence that had threatened to tear our country apart. We, therefore, ask you to help us remain united and set aside our differences for the benefit of the country.”

Kakamega Catholic diocese Bishop Philip Sulumeti recognised the heavy burden the more than 200 MPs had on their shoulders in ensuring that the country remained united.

Bishop Sulumeti said Kenyans had experienced difficult moments due to the election violence and regretted the loss of lives and destruction of property.

Read it all.

The Anglican Church has failed the people of Kenya by not speaking with a “prophetic voice” in the wake of the disputed Dec 27 elections, the former Archbishop of Kenya has declared.

“We did not need Tutu to come all the way from South Africa to solve this crisis. We did not need Kofi Annan…

The Church should have been able to solve this problem.

But they are seen as partisan,” Archbishop David Gitari told the East African Standard.

Kenya’s post-election violence has led to the deaths of over 1,000 people and forced over 350,000 from their homes.

Last week the National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK) apologised to the nation for the partisan political divisions within the churches, which had muted its prophetic voice. “Religious leaders failed to stay on the middle path, they took sides and were unable to bring the unity needed when the crisis arose,” NCCK secretary-general Canon Peter Karanja said on Feb 13.

In an interview with the Standard, Dr Gitari recounted the church-led campaign to end one-party political rule in the 1990s. “The Church is a reconciler and a reconciler does not take sides unless he is completely sure the side he is taking is the right one,” he said.

However, we are called “the light of the world and salt of the earth. Whoever does wrong has to be challenged, whether that person is your brother or tribesman,” the retired archbishop said.

Kenya’s Anglican bishops either were “not courageous enough or have taken sides,” he charged. The church’s bishops were split down the middle along tribal lines in the current dispute and “it is wrong.”

They were “failing to be prophetic,” and had lost the public’s trust, Dr Gitari said.

Following a meeting in Limeru last week, the NCCK’s executive council released a statement acknowledging that “Church leaders have displayed partisan values in situations that called for national interest. The church has remained disunited and its voice swallowed in the cacophony of vested interests.”

Kenya’s Christian leaders called for a fresh start. “All have failed, including the church leaders.”

In a statement published on the NCCK’s website, church leaders called for the arrest of those involved in inciting violence as well as the disciplining of police officers who had used excessive force in responding to
the unrest.

They also called for the strengthening of the judiciary, Parliament and the Electoral Commission, and a ban on political parties that pandered to tribal interests and sectarian passions.

–This article appears in this week’s edition of the Church of England Newspaper

Last month, a 15-year-old boy was charged with murdering an 18-year-old North Charleston man off Dorchester Road as he took out the trash.

In December, a 14-year-old boy was convicted of shooting into a car and murdering a 22-year-old North Charleston man in Waylyn four months earlier after someone in the car fired a shot into the air.

On Sunday, a 15-year-old boy was shot in the back and head in the Chicora-Cherokee neighborhood by a group of men thought to be in their early 20s as he and others sat outside. The boy was treated at and released from a local hospital. The shooting came after a fight earlier in the day, according to a police report.

Young people are becoming more involved in crime that often involves young blacks, and community leaders are perplexed by how to stop the escalation of violence. They point to churches and schools helping in the absence of solid family structures in many homes.

“I don’t know if it’s drug-related, but the age group is becoming younger and younger,” said Mary Ward, president of the North Charleston branch of the NAACP. “I have often said that guns are too readily available. We are just having too many of our young people gunned down.”

Read it all from the front page of the local paper.

Jerry Auger finds himself “profiling people” when he’s at a mall or other crowded place to gauge whether they might be dangerous. Victor Cotton tells his kids that if they see people running away from something, they should, too. Barbara Murch rarely goes out alone and always looks for potential threats.
Auger, Cotton and Murch share a sense of vulnerability that was reinforced by shootings this month in places few people consider obvious targets of violence: a shopping mall, a church, a school bus stop.

The cluster of shootings reminded people that they can become victims even in the most benign public places and revived the sort of insecurity that swept the country after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, more than two dozen interviews show.

Three-fourths of Americans followed the news about the latest incidents very or somewhat closely, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll of 1,011 adults last Friday through Sunday found. Three in 10 people said they worry they could be victims of similar attacks.

“Right now in the world, anything can happen to you at any time,” says Cotton, 37, a corrections officer in Lexington, Ky. When he’s with his children, he avoids malls and amusement parks. He’s always on alert. “Nobody gets too close to me,” he says.

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A ranting screed was left on a website between shootings Sunday by the man who police say killed four people at two religious organizations.

Authorities are now investigating the posting, which copies from a manifesto written by Columbine killer Eric Harris before the 1999 high school massacre.

Matthew J. Murray, 24, who police say carried out attacks at the Youth With a Mission dormitory in Arvada and New Life Church in Colorado Springs, left behind final words that are rearranged but otherwise largely word-for-word the same as Harris’ writings.

The writing, first reported by 9News, was confirmed as Murray’s work by investigating authorities. He posted the message at 11:03 a.m. on a website for people who have left organized religion, almost 11 hours after the Arvada shooting and two hours before the Colorado Springs attack.
“You christians brought this on yourselves,” Murray writes in his 452-word harangue. “I’m coming for EVERYONE soon and I WILL be armed to the @#%$ teeth and I WILL shoot to kill.

“Feel no remorse, no sense of shame, I don’t care if I live or die in the shoot-out. All I want to do is kill and injure as many of you as I can especially Christians who are to blame for most of the problems in the world.”

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Jeanne Assam appeared before the news media for the first time Monday and said she “did not think for a minute to run away” when a gunman entered the New Life Church in Colorado Springs and started shooting.

There was applause as Assam spoke to reporters and TV cameras saying, “God guided me and protected me.”

New Life’s Senior Pastor Brady Boyd called Assam “a real hero” because Murray “had enough ammunition on him to cause a lot of damage.”

When asked by a reporter if she felt like a hero, Assam said, “I wasn’t just going to wait for him to do further damage.”

“I give credit to God,” she said.

Assam described how the gunman, Matthew Murray, entered the east entrance of the church firing his rifle.

“There was chaos,” Assam said, as parishioners ran away, “I will never forget the gunshots. They were so loud.”

“I saw him coming through the doors” and took cover, Assam said. “I came out of cover and identified myself and engaged him and took him down.”

“God was with me,” Assam said. “I didn’t think for a minute to run away.”

Read it all.

The YouTube killer who shot dead eight members of his school in Finland before turning his gun on himself had internet contacts with an American teenager who was planning a shooting spree in a high school in Philadelphia, it was claimed yesterday.

The disclosure could turn upside down previous assumptions about the dynamics of school massacres. Until now, teenage killers were regarded as depressed loners whose imagination had been stoked by aggressive computer games. Now it seems that information may have been shared by potential killers over the internet: a virtual community of young people who idolise the 1999 Columbine High School murders.

“It’s highly probable that there was some form of contact between Pekka-Eric Auvinen and Dillon Cossey,” a spokesman for the cyber crime department of Helsinki police said. Dillon Cossey, 14, was arrested last month on suspicion of planning to storm his old school, Plymouth Whitemarsh. Police acting on a tipoff found a 9mm semi-automatic rifle, handmade grenades, a .22 pistol and a .22 single-shot rifle at his home. Less than two weeks later Auvinen, already a member of a shooting club, was buying his first gun ”” a .22 pistol ”” and expressing interest in a 9mm semi-automatic.

Police do not believe this to have been a coincidence. The two youths are thought to have made contact over two MySpace groups, “RIP Eric and Dylan” ”” a reference to Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who killed 12 schoolmates at Columbine ”” and “Natural Selection”.

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It was the day that Finns broke their silence, abandoned their legendary stoicism.

As flags fluttered at half-mast across the nation and candles lit in the icy wind, the survivors of the country’s first chilling school bloodbath tried to talk away their fears.

“Finns usually prefer to maintain a stiff upper lip during an emotional crisis,” said youth worker Jenni Lehtinen in Jokela church, an hour’s drive out of Helsinki. “This time it’s different ”” the kids cannot stop talking, asking where it is safe nowadays if not in their own school.”

As if to underline the new sense of insecurity in this most placid of Nordic societies, two armoured personnel carriers have been parked close to the school. Only the Army and the church, it seems, can reassure these young Finns.

The shooting spree by a disturbed 18-year-old student, Pekka-Eric Auvinen, has stunned the nation. In 20 minutes around noon on Wednesday ”” maths for some pupils, English for others ”” Auvinen used his newly acquired Sig Sauer pistol to kill the headmistress, the school nurse and six pupils. At least a dozen others were injured.

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First the percussive sounds of sniper fire and the thrill of the kill. Then the gospel of peace.

Across the country, hundreds of ministers and pastors desperate to reach young congregants have drawn concern and criticism through their use of an unusual recruiting tool: the immersive and violent video game Halo.

The latest iteration of the immensely popular space epic, Halo 3, was released nearly two weeks ago by Microsoft and has already passed $300 million in sales.

Those buying it must be 17 years old, given it is rated M for mature audiences. But that has not prevented leaders at churches and youth centers across Protestant denominations, including evangelical churches that have cautioned against violent entertainment, from holding heavily attended Halo nights and stocking their centers with multiple game consoles so dozens of teenagers can flock around big-screen televisions and shoot it out.

The alliance of popular culture and evangelism is challenging churches much as bingo games did in the 1960s. And the question fits into a rich debate about how far churches should go to reach young people.

Far from being defensive, church leaders who support Halo ”” despite its “thou shalt kill” credo ”” celebrate it as a modern and sometimes singularly effective tool. It is crucial, they say, to reach the elusive audience of boys and young men.

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Inside the close-knit community, Amish and their neighbors said they have had to find a new normal. “They are getting help from each other. They are getting professional help,” said Herman Bontrager, a Mennonite businessman and spokesman. School was closed Monday so families could visit and take strength from one another. They sang hymns and, led by a police chaplain, prayed together. Afterward, they shared a meal of grilled chicken, potatoes and Whoopie pies.

“There’s no other place that we would rather be than with them,” Pennsylvania Police Commissioner Jeffrey Miller said as he left. “I wanted to share with them that they are never far from our thoughts.”

To many watching and reading news reports of the horror from across the world, how the Nickel Mines Amish responded to the tragedy was the greatest puzzlement. Within hours of the shooting, they reached out to Roberts’ family, offering condolences, hugs and support. In the days that followed, they continued to visit, bringing gifts and food. They invited Roberts’ widow to the girls’ funerals and attended his. They donated money to a fund set up for his family; as $4.3 million in donations poured in from across the world in support of the Nickel Mines Amish, they shared again.

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The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. More than that, it is cooperation in violence.

–Thomas Merton

After a spate of shootings, and with a rising murder rate, the police here are saying gangsta rap is contributing to the violence, luring gang members and criminal activity to nightclubs. The police publicly condemned the music in a news release after a killing in July and are warning nightclub owners that their places might not be safe if they play gangsta rap.

“We don’t want to broad-brush hip-hop music altogether,” said Lt. Skip Arms, a police spokesman, “but we’re looking at a subcomponent that typically glorifies, promotes criminal behavior and demeans women.”

The actions of the police have angered the hip-hop community here, mostly blacks and Latinos, many of whom live in this city because of ties to the Army and Air Force bases here.

“If we were talking about a rock bar or a country bar here, none of this would be happening,” said James Baldrick, who runs a local hip-hop promotions company, Dirty Limelight.

“This city wants to shut down hip-hop,” said Mike Cross, 26, who was outside Eden Nite Club, a popular downtown venue that plays hip-hop, with a group of friends on a recent night. “They don’t want it to survive.”

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I’ve taken fierce pride in being a local. When I travel I’m a junky for talk about the city. Someone will ask “So, how is it down there?” I launch into a litany. There are busted traffic lights, leaky sewer lines, mountains of debris, the skyrocketing murder rate, miles of desolation, and the levees still aren’t fixed. But you should come, I say. It’s like a battered beauty queen. Hard to look at, and messed up even more on the inside, but still so regal and charming. This is where the listener I’ve taken hostage turns away slowly to engage someone less insane.

They don’t understand that I’m in love. I talk to friends about New Orleans like a dysfunctional romance. I gush over it one day, then call up bawling and heartbroken the next. Why can’t it change? Stop being self-destructive and violent? It has so much potential.

Recently, my blinders started to come off. It was building for awhile. My friend Helen Hill was murdered in her home;other friends have been mugged. We don’t go out much any more…

But then there was this hot Friday night last month. I went on the perfect date with New Orleans . Saw live, local music, danced with friends on the stage, then headed home through my neighborhood of craftsman cottages and angel trumpet trees.

A block from my door, I was attacked from behind by a stranger. I escaped, with the help of my roommate. The case is moving forward, so I can’t say much more than that.

Now I’m a jilted lover of the city. I’m angry and confused. Which is the real New Orleans? The one that’s violent and desperate? Or the one that coos softly, and caresses me? The answer, of course, is both.

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The governing body of one of our state university systems is considering a plan to arm professors. In response to the Virginia Tech shootings on 16 April this year, the Nevada Board of Regents has proposed sending professors on a training course, and deputising them so that they can carry firearms on campus legally. “God, guns, and guts make America great”, as the old bumper sticker had it.

Why do we Americans like guns so much? Because we think we live in Mogadishu. Somalis won’t lay down their weapons because they know that if they give up their firearms, but others don’t, they’ll be shot by members of rival clans. If you live in a failed state you can’t count on the government to protect you; so you rely on God, guns, and guts.

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The mother of 11-year-old Rhys Jones cradled her dying son in her arms after he was shot on the streets of Liverpool last night by a youth who rode past on a BMX bike.

Rhys, an Everton fan, had just finished football training and was kicking a ball around with friends in the car park of the Fir Tree pub in Croxteth, when he was gunned down.

Merseyside police has launched one of its biggest murder investigations, drafting in 300 police officers to catch those involved in the killing that has shocked a community hardened to gun crime in recent years. Two youths aged 14 and 18 were being questioned today after being arrested on suspicion of murder.

Detectives have appealed to the criminal community to “examine their conscience” and help.

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Government and religious institutions are ruminating on how to rescue black youngsters from a life of guns and gangs. The government-funded Reach report said they need a new generation of role models, not the rappers who glamorise crime. The Bishop of Manchester, Nigel McCulloch, entered the debate by calling a meeting of Anglican clergy and saying churches need to work together more in this area.

Heather Green works in Manchester, in the area south of the city that saw the killing two weeks ago of Tyrone Gilbert while he attended the wake of an earlier gun victim. She runs the Rainbow Christian Centre in Hulme, which aims to reach the young people the churches tend not to, and recruits current and former gang members to encourage children not to throw their lives away. Green told Sunday about her godson, a former gang member.

Jo Aldred is a bishop in the Church of God of Prophecy. Several months ago he undertook a project to discover what the wider churches are doing to tackle the gun problem.

Listen to it all.