JERSEY CITY, N.J. (CNS) -- Sacred Heart Catholic School in Jersey City reopened Dec. 12, with a heavy police presence outside, two days after deadly gun battle took place at a kosher supermarket across the street from the school.

As someone who — thanks to his mother������Ƶapp birth in Scotland and her emigration to Canada — enjoys both British and Canadian citizenship, never have I felt more of a “resident alien” living in the United States than when it comes to the issue of guns and the so-called right to bear arms which gets invoked after every atrocity, such as the Aug. 31 shootings that left seven dead in Odessa, Texas.

Over the Labour Day weekend, there sure were a lot of U.S. politicians conveying their “thoughts and prayers” for the victims and their families of the latest mass shooting, but no visible action on doing anything about the American gun epidemic.

WASHINGTON -- In this American age of violence, where 165 shootings happened this year alone, where politicians scream at each other across the aisle about gun laws and Second Amendment rights without even the common ground of mutual respect, religious leaders, scholars and TV personalities alike notice a more insidious problem with American culture.

In a fine interview following the recent synagogue killings in Pittsburgh, Ottawa������Ƶapp Rabbi Reuven Bulka offered wisdom that went far beyond the specific act of terrible bloodshed.