joshgauthier's review against another edition
5.0
Heartbreaking, hopeful, and necessary. Part cultural analysis, part history, part pathway toward the future--Claiborne and Martin appreciate the complexity of the gun debate and do not aim for simple answers. They have feet on the ground, actively turning weapons into tools and pieces of art, and even as they examine the incredibly painful reality in which we find ourselves, they defiantly offer a revolutionary and creative vision for the future that is better than where we stand today.
rachelan555's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.25
The book is comprised of a mix of statistics, history, and testimonies. They take a nonviolent standpoint weaving scripture throughout. Slow and dense read but good.
fistofmoradin's review against another edition
5.0
A lot to ponder.
There is a better way.
This is a great and honestly even handed book. It humbly asks us to stop pretending to have a conversation about violence and gun control and to actually have an honest and humble discussion. It asks us to tell our stories and listen to one another. To stop and consider others before we jump to any political stance.
By the end I was realizing the absolute miracle that it is that I now strive to live at peace with all so long as it depends on me. I was incredibly violent in my younger years. Filled with rage and hate. Jesus has transformed me. He has taken that heart full of fear and anger and filled it with love and peace and hope.
We can live differently.
We don't have to live in fear.
Walk in love and peace.
There is a better way.
This is a great and honestly even handed book. It humbly asks us to stop pretending to have a conversation about violence and gun control and to actually have an honest and humble discussion. It asks us to tell our stories and listen to one another. To stop and consider others before we jump to any political stance.
By the end I was realizing the absolute miracle that it is that I now strive to live at peace with all so long as it depends on me. I was incredibly violent in my younger years. Filled with rage and hate. Jesus has transformed me. He has taken that heart full of fear and anger and filled it with love and peace and hope.
We can live differently.
We don't have to live in fear.
Walk in love and peace.
aarikdanielsen's review against another edition
3.0
This is a really worthwhile read. Drawing on the Old Testament prophets, Claiborne calls us to imagine a different way of interacting with guns, then to live out that imagination. The writing here gets a little repetitive, which keeps me from giving it a higher score. It would have been all the more powerful as a tighter book, maybe 50-75 pgs. shorter. But the ideas here, and the call to holy imagination, are invaluable.
danyell919's review against another edition
5.0
Every word of this book... YES. I have been troubled most of my life with the way Christians have equated guns and gun rights with Christianity. This has never set well in my spirit. I’ve often wondered if there was something wrong with me, something missing? But no - I truly believe it’s been the Holy Spirit leading me toward a strong belief in nonviolence. I’ve always been against the death penalty. I’m not anti-gun, but I AM pro-gun CONTROL. We have a moral, and spiritual, obligation to protect each other in the least violent way possible. There simply needs to be more regulations on guns and who can purchase them and how easily they are accumulated. I can’t read the Bible and think that Jesus was pro-gun. It just doesn’t match up. I think everyone needs to read this book! It’s not “liberal.” It was written by two men who grew up hunting and do still believe it’s okay to have guns for hunting, sport, and protection! The biggest thing this book shows is how the NRA is not held accountable for anything and all they really care about it money, not human life.
bernieanderson's review against another edition
5.0
I loved this.
Jesus and violence are not compatible. I’m fairly certain there will be no automatic weapons in the Kingdom ofHeaven. This is both a heart and a policy issue. This book is another must read for professional Christians. I found this book to be a glass of cold water.
Read this in conjunction with “The Color of Compromise” and you’ll be encouraged — and just maybe changes.
Jesus and violence are not compatible. I’m fairly certain there will be no automatic weapons in the Kingdom ofHeaven. This is both a heart and a policy issue. This book is another must read for professional Christians. I found this book to be a glass of cold water.
Read this in conjunction with “The Color of Compromise” and you’ll be encouraged — and just maybe changes.
lukenotjohn's review against another edition
3.0
I overlapped with Shane a bit during my time with The Simple Way and was actually able to attend one of the "Beating Guns" events in Kensington in 2017. So I went into this with some familiarity around the process and ethos, as well as Shane and Michael's heart towards it all. In all honesty, I was a bit surprised by just how restrained it ended up being, but I recognize that strategic, common-sense wisdom among a lot of Shane's work and policy around gun control more generally. The book is divided into 3 parts, but it reads as two halves. The first is a thorough but easily accessible info-dump of the history of guns in America, with particular attention to the ways they overlap with different demographics like women, those struggling with suicidal ideation, and so on. I was impressed with their consistent attention to the nuances of race and guns, for example the fact that the NRA actually led the charge on the first gun-control reform efforts...because it was targeted exclusively towards restricting Black and Native Americans from owning them. The complicated and non-monolithic perspectives of Black Americans towards gun ownership and the unique impacts that urban communities experience was given substantive focus, but I wish they would have engaged with concerns that gun reform could result in a new evolution of Jim Crow given disproportional policing among Black urban communities.
The second half of the book is much more theological, and blends together a bit more in my memory. The authors incorporate a number of biblical passages to illustrate different arguments (most notably Micah 4:4 "Everyone will sit under their own vine and fig tree, and no one will make them afraid") against guns, and violence more generally. The book definitely expands beyond its core focus to consider America's culture of violence, including a chapter on our wildly inflated military spending and presence, and articulates an entry-level vision for pacifism. It also makes a strong case for the NRA functioning as an idol, promising similar safety, security, and meaning that religion seeks to imbue and competing with genuine Christianity's calls and claims upon disciples of Jesus. In classic Claiborne fashion, there are infographics and images interspersed throughout the book, most frequently a "Memorial to the Lost" honoring the names of victims of various high-profile deaths related to gun-violence.
The book is super solid, and I think intentionally written with moderates in mind. In this fashion, it advocates for common-sense reforms like pursuing smart-gun technology, more stringent prerequisites for gun ownership (seeing as there are currently none), removal of NRA restrictions against research into gun violence, limiting people to only purchasing one firearm per month, and banning citizen ownership of automatic and semi-automatic guns. These are so sensible that, for better or worse, I just felt a bit deflated by them at the end, as if they impeded the climax of the book. It's so bleak to live in a country where reforms as logical as those have to be fought so ardently for, particularly because I know they only go so far in combating the vehement culture of violence that is rooted much deeper.
The second half of the book is much more theological, and blends together a bit more in my memory. The authors incorporate a number of biblical passages to illustrate different arguments (most notably Micah 4:4 "Everyone will sit under their own vine and fig tree, and no one will make them afraid") against guns, and violence more generally. The book definitely expands beyond its core focus to consider America's culture of violence, including a chapter on our wildly inflated military spending and presence, and articulates an entry-level vision for pacifism. It also makes a strong case for the NRA functioning as an idol, promising similar safety, security, and meaning that religion seeks to imbue and competing with genuine Christianity's calls and claims upon disciples of Jesus. In classic Claiborne fashion, there are infographics and images interspersed throughout the book, most frequently a "Memorial to the Lost" honoring the names of victims of various high-profile deaths related to gun-violence.
The book is super solid, and I think intentionally written with moderates in mind. In this fashion, it advocates for common-sense reforms like pursuing smart-gun technology, more stringent prerequisites for gun ownership (seeing as there are currently none), removal of NRA restrictions against research into gun violence, limiting people to only purchasing one firearm per month, and banning citizen ownership of automatic and semi-automatic guns. These are so sensible that, for better or worse, I just felt a bit deflated by them at the end, as if they impeded the climax of the book. It's so bleak to live in a country where reforms as logical as those have to be fought so ardently for, particularly because I know they only go so far in combating the vehement culture of violence that is rooted much deeper.
kathyrandallbryant's review against another edition
5.0
Shane and Mike have partnered together to call an end to the gun violence in the United States of America. They state in the introduction that “this book is not about demonizing gun owners” and it isn’t. I think a gun owner would be able to read this book and see themselves honored and their voice heard. The authors do a very careful balancing act of pointing to the violence of the proliferation of guns in America, without ever blaming individuals for owning guns.
Over the course of eighteen chapters (and three “Consider This” sections where some of the facts are condensed from the main body of the book), Beating Guns journeys from the current situation, the history of gun manufacturing in America and abroad, racial histories, myths, suicides, masculinity as it is tied to gun ownership, and the Second Amendment. Knowing that community healing can best happen after lament, in each chapter is a Memorial to the Lost, a written account of a mass shooting with the specific guns used in the attack and the names of those who died.
The second half of the book is the call for change, for a turn from the violence of mass proliferation of guns, and Shane and Mike place this call deep in scripture. They clearly wrote this with a deep biblical literacy and often point to Jesus and Martin Luther King, Jr. as they address the violence of the fear that surrounds us. They tell stories about people who have turned their guns into garden tools, and stories about their neighborhoods and families as they have changed.
They quote current activists, women and men and children whose lives have been torn apart by gun violence and who have been healed by the liberation from fear of gun violence. From Nobel Peace prize winner, Mairead Maguire, “Of course we were scared. But being scared is different from fear. Being scared is perfectly normal. Fear is when when let being scared stop us from what love requires of us.”
They support the popular bible verse “perfect love drives out fear” (1 john 4:18) with deep exegetical work into why we are afraid and how the fear we have has affected us, and invite the reader to the love that brings hope and freedom.
We need this hard conversation. This is a good book to begin the conversation beyond giving our thoughts and prayers.
I received a free Advance Reading Copy in exchange for my unbiased review. All opinions are my own.
Over the course of eighteen chapters (and three “Consider This” sections where some of the facts are condensed from the main body of the book), Beating Guns journeys from the current situation, the history of gun manufacturing in America and abroad, racial histories, myths, suicides, masculinity as it is tied to gun ownership, and the Second Amendment. Knowing that community healing can best happen after lament, in each chapter is a Memorial to the Lost, a written account of a mass shooting with the specific guns used in the attack and the names of those who died.
The second half of the book is the call for change, for a turn from the violence of mass proliferation of guns, and Shane and Mike place this call deep in scripture. They clearly wrote this with a deep biblical literacy and often point to Jesus and Martin Luther King, Jr. as they address the violence of the fear that surrounds us. They tell stories about people who have turned their guns into garden tools, and stories about their neighborhoods and families as they have changed.
They quote current activists, women and men and children whose lives have been torn apart by gun violence and who have been healed by the liberation from fear of gun violence. From Nobel Peace prize winner, Mairead Maguire, “Of course we were scared. But being scared is different from fear. Being scared is perfectly normal. Fear is when when let being scared stop us from what love requires of us.”
They support the popular bible verse “perfect love drives out fear” (1 john 4:18) with deep exegetical work into why we are afraid and how the fear we have has affected us, and invite the reader to the love that brings hope and freedom.
We need this hard conversation. This is a good book to begin the conversation beyond giving our thoughts and prayers.
I received a free Advance Reading Copy in exchange for my unbiased review. All opinions are my own.