AACC Statement on the Gun Violence
in Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay
Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am faint; heal me, Lord, for my bones are in agony. My soul is in deep anguish. How long, Lord, how long? (Psalm 6:1-3)
On January 21, 2023, 11 were shot and killed (and 9 wounded) in the deadliest mass shooting in the U.S. since the devastating massacre of innocent children in Uvalde, Texas on May 24, 2022. The shooting took place on the eve of the Lunar New Year in Monterey Park, California, a majority Asian city with over 60,000 residents, a suburban Chinatown that unapologetically embraced, celebrated, and served its majority Chinese immigrant community.
While still processing the grief from the Monterey Park shooting, we were stunned by the news of another shooting impacting the Asian American community. On January 23, 2023, 7 farmworkers were shot and killed (and 1 critically wounded) in Half Moon Bay, California, a small coastal city close to San Francisco. Similar to the Laguna Woods church shooting in May of 2022, the suspected shooters in these incidents were also elderly men of Asian descent, suggesting the emergence of new pathologies of violence that we are only beginning to understand.
There were 38 mass shootings in the first 23 days of 2023. What illusions that gun violence is not a problem the Asian American community needs to wrestle with have been tragically shattered. And the all too familiar cycle of “thoughts and prayers, time of mourning, moving toward healing, and repeating the process when the next shooting happens” is an intolerable way to live.
As Christians, our response must start with prayer. We can turn to God to provide mercy and comfort for the victims and their families who are experiencing unspeakable pain. That these types of mass shootings continue to happen with such regularity must prompt Christians everywhere to cry out to God, pleading for Him to grant mercy upon us for we seem trapped in these cycles of inexplicable violence.
On the heels of these back-to-back tragedies in our community, let us take time to process, confess, and acknowledge our collective pains, loss, and fear.
We must also ask God to grant us the courage, conviction, and strength to overcome our feelings of hopelessness and weariness so we can become advocates for restoration, justice, and peace in our communities. May we cling to the truth that our God is merciful and just, that He will not abandon us or leave us. And let us, like the Psalmist, turn from lament to hope, confident that “The Lord has heard [our] cry for mercy; the Lord accepts [our] prayer” (Psalm 6:9).
And from lament and prayer, we must consider how to respond. We encourage you to be open to the opportunities that God is placing in your life as you pray and reflect on how you can become an advocate for restoration and justice.
Will you join us in heeding the call to take action to eradicate the senseless violence that continues to plague not just our community, but our entire nation? Will you join us in becoming advocates for stronger gun safety so they can no longer be used to extinguish life in our schools, homes, businesses, places of worship and spaces we inhabit?
And will you encourage others in the Asian American Christian community to work together to reaffirm the Imago Dei and dignity of all peoples as we seek a safer future for all?
The Asian American Christian Collaborative (AACC) is committed to amplifying the voices, issues, and histories of Asian Americans in the church and larger society while remaining grounded in the historic Christian faith, rooted in Scripture, and in communion with the global Church. To stay updated on what we are doing and how we are responding to these tragedies, sign up for our newsletter at asianamericanchristiancollaborative.com/subscribe and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.