If the exercise of your “rights” harms others, then you are not exercising “rights.” What you are doing is evil.

Like many progressives, I’m not big on the idea of any person being evil nor do I believe in a personal devil, with or without red pajamas. I do believe that actions can be evil, beliefs can be evil, and while I prefer to separate person from behavior it is pretty hard to make a case that someone who spends most of their time engaged in evil actions isn’t an evil person.

You may be asking yourself, “How can we tell when an action is evil?” I feel that sometimes we don’t look deeply enough when trying to decide where evil exists. Over the weekend a man was fired from his job went on a shooting spree with an assault rifle in west Texas, killing seven and injuring more than twenty people. Was he evil? I suspect that something in him may have snapped when he was fired, and I don’t believe that people who have a mental breakdown have enough volition to be judged evil. That’s not to say there isn’t evil at work here, however.

Jesus and all the other great spiritual teachers and leaders were quite clear about our obligation toward children and other members of what we today call at risk populations. One of the victims in west Texas was a seventeen month old little girl who was shot in her face. When we fail to protect and care for children and other at risk populations adequately, we are committing evil. There is no appeal to the Second Amendment or any other “right” that justifies such a failure.

If those who continue to insist they have a right to assault weapons in this country want to see evil, all they have to do is find a mirror. Innocents – in fact, all people, but especially innocents – have the right to go about their daily lives as free from danger as possible. The fact that some members of our society want to pretend to be soldiers, cowboys, or terrorists doesn’t override that right. There is no debate to be had.

If you want to see evil, all you need to do is find a meeting of your local chapter of the NRA or find a politician who opposes gun control. It’s just that simple. The question that remains is, when will we wake up and make the necessary changes no matter the cost?