Statement of Rev. James McIntire

Pastor of Hope United Methodist Church, Havertown, PA

I am a life-long resident of the Philadelphia area, for 20 years I have been a United Methodist pastor, and I currently serve Hope UMC in Havertown, PA. Since September 2001 I have also worked as a chaplain at one of Philadelphia's prestigious children's hospitals. My decisions to become involved in Heeding God's Call and to be at Colosimo's Gun Center in January are based on my desire to end the gun violence which plagues the Philadelphia region. My decisions have been based on compelling pastoral experiences which have touched my life profoundly. Please allow me to share one of those experiences with the court ...

I was called to the emergency department of the hospital on an October night in 2006. "We need you in the ED for a family whose son has just died," the social worker said as I responded by phone to the page. It's not an unusual request. "He was 15 and his name was Kenny," she told me.

I arrived about 20 minutes later at a scene filled with doctors and nurses, family and police. I caught up with the social worker who had paged me and she gave me a few more details. Kenny had been shot in South Philadelphia and the trauma team had worked on him for as long as they could. His extended family had gathered for the vigil and we now needed to pray them into the next stage of grief - pray them a little closer to the reality of what was next, leaving the embrace of the hospital to go home and deal with the tragedy.

The trauma bay door opened electronically when the nurse pressed the button. Past the blue sleeves and badges and handguns of the police officers, I saw the teen, covered in white hospital sheets, stretched out on the gurney. Dad was slumped in a chair next to his son, his right hand patting the young man's shoulder, his right cheek resting on his own forearm. Mom was at the head of the bed, staring in disbelief, slowly shaking her head. Blood stained gauze and discarded emergency medical paraphernalia was strewn on the floor around the bed.

Just moments before I had been introduced to Kenny's Dad who slumped against the wall and stared at the floor. "This is my second son in 5 months to die this way."

I was stunned. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."

Now, as I entered the room, Dad was at the bedside with his dead son. I gathered the family and friends in a circle around the bed. One young woman stood there rocking back and forth, "When is it gonna end? When is it gonna stop? When is it gonna end?" She had her two young daughters with her - they were maybe 10 and 8 - so they could see for themselves what had happened. One little girl sobbed; the other stared in confusion at the dead boy. "When is it gonna stop?," the little girls' mom was crying.

We held hands encircling the bed and I invited everyone into prayer. As I glanced down, I realized there were blood splatters all over the railings of the gurney, evidence of the violent attempt to end Kenny's life, residue of the desperate attempt to save it.

We prayed. How do you pray for a family who has lost a second child to handgun violence? What do you pray down in the valley of anger and grief? Where do you go when all seems useless and despair reigns? Do you pray for revenge? Do you pray for justice? Do you pray "thy will be done"? Do you pray out of anger or fear or complacency because all at that moment seems lost?

As we all left the trauma bay that night, tears and sadness filled the hallways outside the room. I followed the young man's family out the doors as the small crowd made its way back into the confusion of the world in which we live. I pushed the door opener on the wall and the doors out of the emergency department swung open - one out, one in. I followed closely behind the moms and sisters and aunts - and I glanced to the right.

There they were. Walking down the hallway toward us - as dazed and sad and hurting as the family I had just prayed with. A young, Amish couple. You see, it was October 6 and just the day before 5 Amish children - Marian, 13; Anna Marie, 12; Mary, 8; Edna, 7; Naomi, 7 - had been taken from their close knit community by gun violence in Nickel Mines, PA. It was that night that 3 more of those children lay upstairs at the same hospital in intensive care. My heart sank when I saw them. I decided not to approach them, knowing their need for privacy and the need for their spirit to grieve in their own way. I saw them approach and I exhaled a silent prayer for them.

But ahead of me, one of the women from Kenny's family turned to the right, looked through her own tear-filled eyes, and with a compassionate tone that I can't even pretend to mimic, said to the Amish couple, "Oh, how are your girls?"

There was the intersection of hope. There at the crux of hallways outside the hospital emergency department was hope - the intersection of cultures as the violent toll of guns drew us all together that night - the intersection of Amish and African American, the intersection of urban Philadelphia and rural Lancaster County, the intersection of moms and dads, the intersection of children. There was the intersection of God and us. "How are your girls?"

It was at that moment that I knew I had to be not just professionally involved, but also very personally involved, in whatever I could do to stop this epidemic of violence. It was then that God spoke to me and reminded me that this is the prophetic call of every faithful person. It was at that moment - at that intersection - that that revelation flooded my life.

It was that same week that I learned that our legislature would still refuse to adopt a one handgun a month law and that it would not let Philadelphia adopt its own ordinance. I began to realize the absurd reality of living in Pennsylvania - the absurdity of being able to walk into a gun shop and buy as many handguns as one wants so long as you have ID, no criminal record, and no history of mental illness. Those are the guns that end up through straw purchasing in violent hands. I knew then that I had to be one who stands in the gap - who stands between this absurd practice and the violence of our streets.

For 11 years I lived in Germantown and had no idea where to buy a handgun. In 2006 I moved to Delaware County and discovered that I could find guns for sale two blocks from my church - and 2 more stores within 2 miles of my door. In addition, 2 WalMarts are in that 2 mile radius - WalMart, the largest distributor of firearms and ammunition in America which, by the way, has agreed to this very same code of conduct which Mr. Colosimo refuses to sign. Five gun retailers within 2 miles of my church's front door. This is not an inner-city Philadelphia issue - this is a regional problem.

What are we doing? Why can't we love our children enough to adopt laws that restrict ourselves to simply one handgun a month? Why in the name of Kenny and the hundreds murdered in Philadelphia each year can't we live with 12 handguns per person a year? Do I really need more than that?

Two and one-half years later - I am convinced that this is what I can do - what we can do. Heeding God's Call. Ending the straw purchase of handguns. It's a reasonable, faith-filled request. Faith communities asking gun retailers to voluntarily bring an end to at least some of the gun violence in our neighborhoods. We're asking - that's all - just asking for those who sell guns to admit their part in the violence in our neighborhoods and to please help us end it. As a self-identified person of faith, it is also God's prophetic call to Mr. Colosimo - help us end the violence.

We'll keep asking.

We will keep asking ...