Taylor S. Schumann > Quotes

“If I have to choose whether I will pledge my devotion to the kingdom of God or the kingdom of guns? I choose God, every time.”
― Taylor S. Schumann, When Thoughts and Prayers Aren't Enough: A Shooting Survivor's Journey into the Realities of Gun Violence

“Changing our minds about things, especially deeply held personal and societal beliefs, is really hard. We live in a society that encourages firm and solidified opinions and values. We tend to set our opinions in stone and place them on our shelves as symbols of who we are. The problem with this is that stones can easily become idols. We attack people who change their minds, calling them a "flip flopper" and "inconsistent." Instead, we should honor and respect people who look at information and willing to learn and say, "Maybe I was wrong about this" instead of doubling down on an opinion simply because it's the one they've always held.”
― Taylor S. Schumann, When Thoughts and Prayers Aren't Enough: A Shooting Survivor's Journey into the Realities of Gun Violence

“We were initiated into a club we did not ask to join and could not leave.”
― Taylor S. Schumann, When Thoughts and Prayers Aren't Enough: A Shooting Survivor's Journey into the Realities of Gun Violence

“At this point, not acting on what we know is willful complicity. With every day we allow women to be shot and murdered by an intimate partner, we are sending a clear message to women that we do not care enough to do anything, that we don’t care enough about their pain and their trauma to save women like them. We are saying, “We care more about the right to access a firearm than your right to your life and your safety.” We are saying, “We don’t think domestic and intimate-partner violence are violent enough to warrant infringing on the rights of others.” We are saying these things; we just aren’t using words.”
― Taylor S. Schumann, When Thoughts and Prayers Aren't Enough: A Shooting Survivor's Journey into the Realities of Gun Violence

“I want to end gun violence. I want no one else to have to suffer as a result of this horrific crisis. But what I want even more than that, is for Christians to take up their place in this fight. I want them to finally open their eyes to this injustice all around them, and to show the world we are here and we care and we will work to protect each other. I want us to stop enabling violence and instead seek peace, even if it costs us something. We have the ability to bring the kingdom of God to this earth with our hands and our feet. If the goal of being a follower of Jesus to to be more like him and to invite other people into his kingdom, than this would be a great place to start.”
― Taylor S. Schumann, When Thoughts and Prayers Aren't Enough: A Shooting Survivor's Journey into the Realities of Gun Violence

“The phrases, "I'm sure you'll come out stronger," "Well, if anyone can handle it you can," and their cousin "Everything happens for a reason" rarely help anyone other than the person offering them. They are an easy, low-risk way to avoid having to sit with their idea that sometimes we can't handle things, and sometimes awful things happen for no reason at all.”
― Taylor S. Schumann, When Thoughts and Prayers Aren't Enough: A Shooting Survivor's Journey into the Realities of Gun Violence

“It is hard and heavy work to reconcile your faith with your circumstances when your life looks different than you thought it would.”
― Taylor S. Schumann, When Thoughts and Prayers Aren't Enough: A Shooting Survivor's Journey into the Realities of Gun Violence

“There are many things that can be done to reduce the rates of police shootings, such as implicit bias training, de-escalation training, community policing, and more accountability for officers. However, these things can only help so much when police officers know that anyone they come into contact with might have a gun on them...In every encounter with a civilian, an officer may fear the presence of a gun. This fear changes their behavior, just like it would for any one of us--leading them to be more guarded, more fearful, and more defensive.”
― Taylor S. Schumann, When Thoughts and Prayers Aren't Enough: A Shooting Survivor's Journey into the Realities of Gun Violence

“e can make masters out of anything. We are professionals at making and upholding idols, which is why God made it one of the Ten Commandments. And we have certainly made masters out of our country and out of firearms. When we choose to remain silent and complicit in the 40,000 deaths of our neighbors every year due to gun violence, all in the name of an individual right that has nothing do do with our calling as believers, and then we yell and we scream and we cling desperately to guns when someone so much as mentions the word "reform"--that's a master. That's not Jesus.”
― Taylor S. Schumann, When Thoughts and Prayers Aren't Enough: A Shooting Survivor's Journey into the Realities of Gun Violence

“In America, we have made the love of guns and love of country interchangeable, and if you don't love guns, then you don't love your country. We've gone beyond that though, and created an ideology where guns, country, and God are all intertwined and somehow of equal importance.”
― Taylor S. Schumann, When Thoughts and Prayers Aren't Enough: A Shooting Survivor's Journey into the Realities of Gun Violence

“If gun violence isn't already personal to you, then make it personal. Picture the faces of someone you love when you read the numbers. This conversation means nothing if a number is just a number--it has to be personal. It's going to be uncomfortable and hard--but important things often are.”
― Taylor S. Schumann, When Thoughts and Prayers Aren't Enough: A Shooting Survivor's Journey into the Realities of Gun Violence