Bishop says tighter gun laws will help build culture of life

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styrgwillidar said:
Yet again he doesn’t explain the real world examples of:

PRC
Soviet Union
Cambodia
Armenia
Germany

And how their tough gun laws and deaths in the 100s of millions were consistent with the Culture of Life?

When a bishop actually addresses those points it will lend credence to their arguments.
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I don’t know why these bishops can’t see that under Socialism, there’s a tiny elite ruling class, and then there’s an everybody else class. The church will get squashed. China is successful due to the overflow from our Capitalism.
 
ManOnFire said:
I don’t know why these bishops can’t see that under Socialism, there’s a tiny elite ruling class, and then there’s an everybody else class. The church will get squashed. China is successful due to the overflow from our Capitalism.
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Not arguing with your point, but the subject is Bishop Blaire’s statement advocating gun control, not about the general attitude about economics.

The following thread: “Is conservatism usually on the wrong side of social justice?” may be more to your liking.
 
Ender said:
I am surprised at the number of bishops who cannot separate practical from moral concerns and at the number of Catholics who take their political opinions seriously.
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The second statement should not be surprising because most Catholics (not here) understand that the bishops answer to God, not conservatives as to what they believe is a matter of moral concern. If God lays a matter on the heart of a bishop to address to the flock, he would be a moral coward to be intimidated by either the left or the right into staying out of a matter due to its political nature.

I do not necessarily put much validity in the opinion that a matter such as this is not a moral issue. Those that put forth that opinion do not like what the bishop said. It is human nature to judge things according to our desires.
 
pnewton said:
The second statement should not be surprising because most Catholics (not here) understand that the bishops answer to God, not conservatives as to what they believe is a matter of moral concern. If God lays a matter on the heart of a bishop to address to the flock, he would be a moral coward to be intimidated by either the left or the right into staying out of a matter due to its political nature.

I do not necessarily put much validity in the opinion that a matter such as this is not a moral issue. Those that put forth that opinion do not like what the bishop said. It is human nature to judge things according to our desires.
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Here is the actual letter.

The real problems are as follows:

First, Bishop Blaire exceeded his competency in sending that letter out on USCCB letterhead. In doing so, there is an implication that he is speaking on behalf of all US bishops (and all US Catholics). He is not. Per Motu Proprio Apostolos Suos, he does not have that authority. (I cited the exact norms upthread). He would have been perfectly within his authority had he sent the same, exact letter on his own episcopal letterhead.

Second, Bishop Blaire did not cite any sources from the authentic Magisterium as a teaching point in his letter. He has one citation, the USCCB statement “Responsibility, Rehabilitation, and Restoration”. This letter did not receive a recognito from the Holy See; therefore it does not constitute authentic Magisterium either.

Don’t get me wrong: we would be foolish to totally disregard such a statement, even if it is not part of the Magisterium. But it is not something that must be accepted with Divine and Catholic Faith, nor is it something where religious submission of the intellect and will is required. In this broad statement on crime and punishment, there is a very small section that talks about firearms:
All of us must do more to end violence in the home and to find ways to help victims break out of the pattern of abuse.35 As bishops, we support measures that control the sale and use of firearms and make them safer (especially efforts that prevent their unsupervised use by children or anyone other than the owner), and we reiterate our call for sensible regulation of handguns.36
The footnotes state:
35. Cf. Committee on Marriage and Family and the Committee on Women in Society and in the Church, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, When I Call for Help: A Pastoral Response to Domestic Violence Against Women (Washington, D.C.: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1992).
  1. However, we believe that in the long run and with few exceptions (i.e., police officers, military use), handguns should be eliminated from our society. “Furthermore, the widespread use of handguns and automatic weapons in connection with drug commerce reinforces our repeated ‘call for effective and courageous action to control handguns, leading to their eventual elimination from our society.’” U.S. Catholic Bishops, New Slavery, New Freedom: A Pastoral Message on Substance Abuse (Washington, D.C.: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1990), 10.
    Sadly, I don’t see any reference back to authoritative Magisterial documents that support that position. Frankly, I don’t see anything that contradicts Luke 22:36
[bibledrb]Luke 22:36[/bibledrb]

Here’s the point…I allow the Faith to inform my ideology. I have changed my opinion on several issues over the years because of this. If there is some Authentic Magisterium (either Ordinary or Extraordinary) that supports the USCCB position as outlined in footnote 36 above (and to which Bishop Blaire is alluding), please educate me.

But in the meantime, it is His Excellency’s opinion. Nothing more.
 
I’m still not sure what is worse -the gay threads or the gun control threads. 🤷

I’m bored…
 
matt1985 said:
Having shot an ar 15 at a gun range I would say I agree. An AR 15 is very dangerous. One can have a possibility of surviving a gunshot from a smaller weapon, but ar 15 and ar 15 variants carry too much fire power. I went to a range with my friend’s friend and had a good time. I just think that given how many actual lives are at stake because of the availability of these types of weapons, they should be banned and taken away.

Let assault weapons be rented at gun ranges and be returned if people need to shoot for fun. There is no need for an assault weapon or variant at home.** Perhaps guns need to be rented out to hunters and shooters at ranges rather than kept at home.** I think this is a compromise people can live with.
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Interested readers can look up on YouTube … an AR-15 is one of the easiest weapons for a petite woman to fire. It is compact, has almost no recoil and with a large magazine is the perfect home defense weapon.
 
Obama wants gun control but I’d be wary and wouldn’t trust him since Obama’s mentor is bomber Bill Ayers, a man who praised Charles Manson and dedicated a book to Sirhan Sirhan, the assassin of Robert Kennedy.
 
BroomWagon said:
Obama wants gun control but I’d be wary and wouldn’t trust him since Obama’s mentor is bomber Bill Ayers, a man who praised Charles Manson and dedicated a book to Sirhan Sirhan, the assassin of Robert Kennedy.
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AR -15’s are also the weapon of choice for ditty boppers.
 
Prodigal_Son1 said:
Bishop says tighter gun laws will help build culture of life

Another bishop connects a ‘culture of life’ to more restrictive gun laws. The article states the bishop represents a bishop’s Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development.
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He’s right too. I think the Bishop, like me, has very basic math skills: how many people die by gun violence every year vs how many people’s lives are saved using guns (police and military personnel aside, of course). It should be very easy to find that research, but wait…is there something holding up those studies?
 
Monte_RCMS said:
Interested readers can look up on YouTube … an AR-15 is one of the easiest weapons for a petite woman to fire. It is compact, has almost no recoil and with a large magazine is the perfect home defense weapon.
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That’s true.

My rather petite daughter-in-law has become a very good shot with an AR-15, but she really doesn’t like any other rifle. It’s also light in weight, which, for some women, really is a necessity.
 
seekerz said:
He’s right too. I think the Bishop, like me, has very basic math skills: how many people die by gun violence every year vs how many people’s lives are saved using guns (police and military personnel aside, of course). It should be very easy to find that research, but wait…is there something holding up those studies?
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Here’s an interesting article, even though the ‘researchers’ will disagree with each other. One has been quoted from a gun rights perspective more than once, and he said:
“I’m pretty confident that whatever the number is, it did go down … because overall crime went down,” said Gary Kleck, a Florida State University criminologist whose 1990s research, widely cited by gun rights activists, concluded that Americans drew their firearms in self-defense up to 2.5 million times a year. That translates to about 3 percent of all gun owners during the course of a single year.
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But the drop in crime means there are far fewer occasions now for Americans to use guns for self-protection, Kleck said, making it likely that the number of annual self-defense usages of guns "should be about half as big now as they were back then, 20 years ago."
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Gun debate revives questions about self-defense
 
seekerz said:
He’s right too. I think the Bishop, like me, has very basic math skills: how many people die by gun violence every year vs how many people’s lives are saved using guns (police and military personnel aside, of course). It should be very easy to find that research, but wait…is there something holding up those studies?
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Actually there are several, the only reason they seem rare is the government doesn’t like to fund studies that contradict their claims and people don’t like to read studies that show their claims are wrong.

gunowners.org/sk0802htm.htm

Several studies are cited showing how many lives gun owners save and crimes they have prevented.

Meanwhile the studies that claim gun control stops crime and saves lives are truly missing.
 
I’m not getting involved in this debate…and yes I do own guns…one thing puzzles me…I’ve seen…heard and read comments from so called personalities…and ordinary citizens… that the 2nd ammendment is a ‘God given right’…what ‘God’ are we talking about and when did he specifically bestow we Americans with this singular grace
 
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