When commerce conflicts with our values

We also live in a world where we don’t all agree on what measures keep us safe. This is perhaps most true around the twin issues of policing and access to firearms. There are folks who crave a strong police presence and those who feel safer when police officers keep their distance. There are folks who want to own firearms for personal protection and those who feel unsafe in the presence of firearms.

In Redwood City, we recently had community conversations around firearms as two stores applied for permits to sell guns, and the Redwood City Council and staff spent the next nine months crafting an ordinance to restrict how close such stores could be to sensitive sites like schools, houses of worship and parks.

While a variety of different proposals were explored, ultimately Redwood City staff proposed a 600-foot buffer between sensitive sites and any commercial firearm store and 1,000-foot minimum distance between any two stores. Our Planning Commission asked city staff to explore a 1,000-foot buffer for schools, parks and youth centers. In the end, staff proposed the 600-foot recommendation. The City Council approved it with a 6-1 vote in July and it was finalized on the August consent calendar. With the ordinance in place, we wait and see if retailers seek permits.

 No one had guns when the Bible, either the Christian New Testament or the Hebrew Scriptures, was written. They hadn’t been invented yet and wouldn’t be for some centuries to come. Folks living in the ancient world still had weapons and the prophets still found it necessary to speak out against the use of such tools. The prophet Micah spoke of a time when these instruments of destruction would be stilled, “They will beat their swords into iron plows and their spears into pruning tools. Nation will not take up sword against nation; they will no longer learn how to make war.” Now you can still hurt someone with an iron plow or a pruning tool, but these tools are first and foremost designed for farming, feeding people and human flourishing.

We can’t say the same about firearms. Whether for offensive or defensive actions, these weapons, including those designed for hunting, exist to kill. In the last year, stories of gun violence at Hoover Park, on Redwood Avenue, and most recently near Red Morton Park, have caught our collective attention. Fortunately, no one was killed in any of these instances, but this is not human flourishing.

Because the ability to study guns and gun violence in this country has been severely limited at the federal level we don’t know if a gun store in Redwood City will directly lead to more violence in our community. We do know that our City Council and city staff were careful to craft the retail ordinance so the available retail spaces weren’t clustered in high-needs neighborhoods, suggesting they know such stores aren’t good for neighborhood flourishing.

It is my hope and prayer that in Redwood City and San Mateo County we will keep firearm access in front of our local governments. If and when permit applications come before the city, I hope we will continue to speak up for our values around human flourishing and public safety.

And when the time comes, as it surely will, to reflect on this decision and act again, that we will act in ways that nurture the whole community.  

In the end, I want my children and your children to be safe when they go to school, to the park, or hang out on the sidewalk. I want to live in a world where there are more iron plows and pruning tools than swords and spears. And I want us to continue to find ways to get there together.

The Rev. Katie Goetz serves as pastor of Woodside Road United Methodist Church and is a member of the Peninsula Solidarity Cohort. She has called Redwood City home for almost 15 years and is the parent of two school-age

children.