Trigger / by Jack Burton

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Our prompt for that particular week was "Trigger". A few days into the week, I was dropping off a borrowed drill at the hardware store on the corner. The kind hearted Venezuelan couple that own the shop asked me if I had heard the news of yet another tragic shooting in The States.
This phenomenon is so confusing to everyone around me. More and more I find I must agree with them. Confused. Sad. It's awful and heart breaking. Why? Why do we continue to allow this to go on? What can we do to end this plague?
I don't have the answer. But the question won't leave me alone.
I’ll tell you a bit about my thoughts specific to writing the song in a moment. But first I feel compelled to just blurt out some of my thoughts on mass shootings and gun control. Bear with me...this is all swirling around in my head.
As a kid who grew up in a small Texas town, I never thought twice about the hunting rifles mounted in the gun racks of so many pick up trucks in our high school parking lot. So, I have heard and can understand many of the arguments and rationales that people make for owning guns. I know so many people who own guns, and I can’t think of any who I worry about using them for violence. And when we moved to Spain I was amazed to learn that many Spaniards are avid hunters and it is legal to own guns. Am I the only one who wrongly thought guns were completely outlawed all over Europe? I feel like that is always part of the rhetoric in the pro gun ownership argument.
Anyway, the main difference seems to be thorough metal screening and licensing processes. I don’t understand why it would be so horrible to implement these things in the US.
Of course, via various traumas a person’s mental state can completely altered in just moments.
Ugh. Man it’s just an awful thing to have to even be thinking about. I get so sad and angry and frustrated that I can’t complete my thoughts. Hence, It’s taken me weeks to write this song description. It’s just too upsetting...thinking of all the families whose lives have been torn apart by deadly violence. It makes me so sad when my kids tell me their friends from back in Texas say they often worry about a shooter coming into their school. And, though we are not prone to make decisions out of fear, it hurts to know that this is a matter which would definitely cross our minds if considering a move back to the states.
So. Mostly this song is about my struggle trying to decide how I feel about the idea of defending myself and my family to the point at which it means I must take somone else's life. It's about my desire to dig into the idea of whether or not I actully COULD defend them. What is the deeper truth here? What about escalation? Is a handgun enough? What if the intruder has an autmatic weapon? Maybe I need something even more powerful? Or would I be a fool to believe that I have control over some assailant who shows up prepared and ready to do violence? Someone is alwasy bigger, stronger, meaner, better trained. Or is this just an excuse to let me hold on to my illusion of control. How many times have we heard "I'll do what I have to do, to defend my family!" I have heard this said many times by my brothers and sisters who follow Christ, people who I know are doing their best to live in the Faith...but, I find myself wondering if we truly think this would be Jesus' response?
All of these things roll through my head and heart as keep working on this tune.
As I said, I obviously don’t have the answer for how to fix on the National/international scale. But we must do SOMETHING!!