In the early hours of yesterday morning, 29-year-old Texas native Joshua Jahn opened fire on a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Dallas, Texas, killing one detainee and injuring two others before killing himself. At least one bullet casing was engraved with the phrase “anti-ICE.”
Ironically, Jahn’s mother, Sharon Jahn, has expressed strong anti-gun views in past social media posts, where she criticized Texas Republican leaders for their support of gun rights and blamed them for gun violence. These old posts have resurfaced following her son’s crime.
While conservatives are responding to Sharon’s anti-gun views in a variety of ways, Glenn Beck decided he would write her a letter. On today’s episode of “The Glenn Beck Program,” he shared his heartfelt yet constructive response.
Glenn’s letter reads:
I write to you with a heavy heart, reflecting on the events of yesterday at the Dallas ICE facility, where your son Joshua took the lives of two migrants, wounded another, and then ended his own life. I honestly cannot imagine the depth of your grief losing your son in such a devastating way. We’re all losing too much — too many children, too many friends, too many shared dreams. I read your words from a few years ago just this morning, expressing frustration with the gun laws and the pain caused by violence. To me, it shows, one, a mom who cared deeply about the world her son was growing up in. You asked very pointed questions of leaders, holding them accountable for the tools of violence, and today, with respect and with kindness, I would just ask you to reflect on similar questions for yourself.Did the gun in your son’s hand kill those people, or was it your son’s choice to pull the trigger? Did the gun that ended his life — was that the gun’s decision or your son’s decision? And I wonder as you grapple with your own anger towards systems and policies whether that rage, dare I ask, might it have shaped Joshua’s path? May it have shaped his own anger, his own ideology, his own actions? I know you don’t seem to understand, but our rights, including the Second Amendment, were born from a time when people feared unchecked power — authoritarianism — which is, I think, what you’re afraid of, or your son was afraid of: governments that silence, oppress, decide who can live or die. And I don’t know you at all, but I can’t believe that you and I are that different in our hope that our children never face that kind of world. We both see it on the horizon, but at least one of us seems to recognize that it could happen from either side. But one side is really encouraging it, fomenting the hate and the killing here. But it’s not the gun. Never has been. Guns have been in America’s story from the very beginning. In the 1960s, a kid, an 8-year-old, could go be sent by his father to go buy bullets without question. But the society wasn’t fractured. And when assassination shook us then, we didn’t turn to banning guns. We turned to healing the hate. That time period was followed by the Jesus Revolution. It brought people together, and for a moment, we found common ground again. We need to do that. I don’t hold any anger toward you. I really feel for you as a parent. And I don’t hold any anger on your son. You both have paid now an unimaginable price, caught in a tangle of rights and responsibilities in a society struggling to find love and compassion. But my hope is that you can find peace, forgive yourself and others, and perhaps one day work toward unity.We have to come back to shared principles: our universal rights given not by government but by something greater. And together we can honor those — honor all of them, including your son — that we have lost by building a world where love and not hate shapes our future.
To hear Glenn’s delivery, watch the episode above.
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