I was jotting down my new year hopes and prayers the other day. You know what made the top of my list? New and tougher gun control laws in the United States of America. It is not only sad and scary, but it is also shameful. So when I started my new year resolution list, I didn't even have to think about it. It was at the top of the list immediately. Listen to this from an article from Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post:

In 2010, guns took the lives of 31,076 Americans. Most of the deaths were suicides; a few were accidental. About a third of them -- 11,078 -- homocides. That's almost twice the number of Americans who have been killed in a decade of war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In Britain, by comparison, the number of gun homicides in 2010 was 58.

Other interesting studies suggest that guns actually make the owner more vulnerable. Yet we are talking about more armed citizens and teachers. An investigative report by Mother Jones magazine found, "Not one of the 62 mass shootings in the United States over the last 30 years has been stopped by armed citizens. More broadly, attempts by armed civilians to intervene in shooting rampages are rare -- and are successful even more rarely. Two people who tried it in recent years were gravely wounded or killed."

A guy named Bruce Maiman who occasionally attended with his wife, the church I served in Rocklin, wrote the following in a special to the Sacramento Bee:

If we conclude, as happens on a daily basis, "Boy, there's somebody who shouldn't be driving," what makes you think that doesn't apply to gun ownership? And we're far more thorough with car ownership than we are with gun ownership.

Let's pray for and work for or support those who are working for tougher gun laws in our country.