Bishops remain focused on 'responsible restrictions' on gun ownership

[meme1961]

We have several instances of the first. Show sources for the actual times that weapon was used as a moral good.

I thought you were out of the discussion?

Just a few weeks after the Newton shooting, a boy protected himself and his 12 year old sister by firing on two intruders, wounding one. So much for “keep weapons out of the hands of children”, and “keep them safely locked up.”

That is just one instance of hundreds of thousands (you read that right, 100s of THOUSANDS) of times every year that an American citizen uses a gun in self-defense.

 

[meme1961]

So, after 9/11, we shouldn’t have increased national security laws, because we already had laws on the books?

The topic of the thread is referencing the bishops focus on responsible restrictions on gun ownership. They spoke clearly and we don’t need ‘interpretations’. We can accept what they say, or not.

Agreed. We can accept their moral teaching, and as they are our Bishops, we MUST. We are not obligated to agree with, nor support their policy decisions.

Weirdly enough, this exact question (what authority do the Bishops have) was a topic on EWTN last night. As you might imagine, I listened with more than my usual interest and the expert gave pretty much the same answer as I did. The newadvent site goes into greater detail on the matter, if you are interested

 

[meme1961]

Don’t dig so far back. You’ve gone back to the Nazis, the 80s, and 90s. Look at 2012 alone. The theater, the mall, the school, and then the first responders. All shooters used an AR15.

Except, of course, that using an AR-15 in the commission of a crime is extremely rare. Your statistics are so heavily cherry picked as to be useless.

 

[meme1961]

The difference between us is that you seem to feel those ‘numbers’ are justified, so that you can keep your guns with as little controls as possible; including owning, and leaving easy access of, the ‘weapon’ of choice for most of those recent shooters, over the years, especially more recent years. For me, that is an unacceptable body count of innocent victims.

But you are being irrational. The question is not the number of people killed in mass shootings. The question is “How many people will die”, period.

If your proposed solution stops one mass shooting, but results in thousands more diffused and un-reported murders, will you be happier with that much higher body count?

If to stop one mass murder you must allow 1,300 women to be raped, are you happy with the result? (And no, these numbers are made up . . . they are taken from historical data from the most closely related Western countries who went the route of near total gun confiscation).

You focus on the extremely rare (mass shootings accounted for aprox. %0.05 of all murders in the country in very worst “mass murder” year on record), propose solutions that will almost certainly do nothing to prevent the next mass murder, but that are just about guaranteed to result in the deaths of people that might otherwise have lived.

Is this what the Bishops want? More innocent deaths?

 

[meme1961]

That’s it? Two ‘bad guys’ stopped, two morally goods. How many times have those ‘weapons’ been used in morally wrongs, and what is the body count currently at?

BTW, it’s acceptable to call them ‘assault rifles’ in those instances, but not when a mass shooter goes on a spree?

Edited to add: oh, you added a third while I was responding. Keep searching and maybe we can call it justified once we have as many bad guys stopped, as we do mass shootings and victims.

Your turn to do some work . . . How many times was a gun used to stop a crime last year, as reported by the FBI?

The answer will shock you, as it entirely ends the discussion. If even one percent of those victims would have died, you still lose the discussion my an order of magnitude, if you actually and in reality want to play this game of “body count.”

 

[Prodigal_Son1]

But you are being irrational. The question is not the number of people killed in mass shootings. The question is “How many people will die”, period.

If your proposed solution stops one mass shooting, but results in thousands more diffused and un-reported murders, will you be happier with that much higher body count?

If to stop one mass murder you must allow 1,300 women to be raped, are you happy with the result? (And no, these numbers are made up . . . they are taken from historical data from the most closely related Western countries who went the route of near total gun confiscation).

You focus on the extremely rare (mass shootings accounted for aprox. %0.05 of all murders in the country in very worst “mass murder” year on record), propose solutions that will almost certainly do nothing to prevent the next mass murder, but that are just about guaranteed to result in the deaths of people that might otherwise have lived.

Is this what the Bishops want? More innocent deaths?

The spin you seem to add isn’t exactly correct, according to what is trying to be prevented. One mass shooting prevented is worth the effort, with more efforts put forth until two mass shootings are prevented, and so on. Is anyone happy if one mass shooting occurs? No, and it’s not really fair to depict it as someone’s desire, when the desires are for no needless deaths to occur, even one.

Reality is, this is not a total gun confiscation being discussed. We’re discussing, as the bishops stated, reasonable controls. As a gun owner, and possible future to own more guns, I have no qualms about stricter registrations, and background checks, including through private sales. My guns are secured, so as not to fall in the wrong hands. I don’t ‘stockpile’ ammo. In summary, I don’t see reasonable controls as anymore than minor inconveniences that can be interpreted as being responsible.

 

[Prodigal_Son1]

Except, of course, that using an AR-15 in the commission of a crime is extremely rare. Your statistics are so heavily cherry picked as to be useless.

‘My’ statistics are not even statistics yet, they are so current. The most recent mass shootings are what caused these discussions, and aren’t cherry picked. While the incidents of the AR15 being used are not as numerous as other guns, the body counts are much higher when they are used.

 

[Prodigal_Son1]

I thought you were out of the discussion?

Just a few weeks after the Newton shooting, a boy protected himself and his 12 year old sister by firing on two intruders, wounding one. So much for “keep weapons out of the hands of children”, and “keep them safely locked up.”

That is just one instance of hundreds of thousands (you read that right, 100s of THOUSANDS) of times every year that an American citizen uses a gun in self-defense.

It is an instance with a ‘good’ outcome; however, would all children have been as capable? Surely you’re not suggesting that one incident is cause for all children to have access to guns?

Now, if the children are capable, and well trained, the guns could be considered secured. No one is suggesting that a gun must be locked at all times. They should be secured when not in use. The spin is only to incite more to support a view, but is not what is a part of ‘reasonable’ controls. The same spin is being applied as, ‘how am I supposed to defend when my gun is locked up?’ When you’re home, or if you have a permit, the gun is in use. When you’re in a position the gun is not in your possession, or being used as home defense, it should be secured.

 

[Prodigal_Son1]

I thought you were out of the discussion?

For the most part I am. I join in now and again when I see what appears to be the same arguments, from posters who haven’t read through and seen the same points responded too already. It seems to be a very circular discussion otherwise.

 

[SamH]

Except, of course, that using an AR-15 in the commission of a crime is extremely rare. Your statistics are so heavily cherry picked as to be useless.

So rare in fact that the numbers have to be carried several decimals to even register. Meanwhile it remains a favorite of law enforcement, competition shooters and hunters alike.

Why are people so upset that civilians are finally stepping up to a 60 year old rifle design? It’s not like this thing has laser beams or molecular destabilizing features.

 

[JMJSHJ]

The spin you seem to add isn’t exactly correct, according to what is trying to be prevented. One mass shooting prevented is worth the effort, with more efforts put forth until two mass shootings are prevented, and so on. Is anyone happy if one mass shooting occurs? No, and it’s not really fair to depict it as someone’s desire, when the desires are for no needless deaths to occur, even one.

Reality is, this is not a total gun confiscation being discussed. We’re discussing, as the bishops stated, reasonable controls. As a gun owner, and possible future to own more guns, I have no qualms about stricter registrations, and background checks, including through private sales. My guns are secured, so as not to fall in the wrong hands. I don’t ‘stockpile’ ammo. In summary, I don’t see reasonable controls as anymore than minor inconveniences that can be interpreted as being responsible.

Like yourself I like to insert myself every once in a while. Regarding your suggestions about changes with regard to stricter registrations, background checks including private sales, how do you know that these regulations aren’t already on the books but perhaps not being enforced and in which states are they even required.

 

[Prodigal_Son1]

Like yourself I like to insert myself every once in a while. Regarding your suggestions about changes with regard to stricter registrations, background checks including private sales, how do you know that these regulations aren’t already on the books but perhaps not being enforced and in which states are they even required.

There are no background checks, or registration requirements, for private sales, in the majority of states. That’s being referred to as the ‘gun show loophole’, in some instances. State laws will vary, and I don’t know each and every state’s legislation, in reference to registration; however, background checks are another story. I don’t know of a state that requires background checks of guns sold through private sales.

The lack of enforcement might not be due to law enforcement being lax. There’s no way to know, if no one speaks up about a private sale. It would be applicable on discovery; e.g. if a gun were used in a crime and was traced back to an owner who didn’t require the registration changed at the time of sale.

The same problem applies where they have a ‘cooling off’ period. That’s where you decide to purchase a gun, from an authorized dealer, but must wait for a period to take possession. Most private sales are, ‘here’s the cash,’ and ‘here’s your gun.’ Those laws vary, depending on the state, and the type gun being purchased.

Any of this is open to correction, if anyone feels inclined to share.

 

[pnewton]

That’s it? Two ‘bad guys’ stopped, two morally goods.

He asked for links and Brendan gave them. One should not ask for something then criticize the person kind enough to respond to a request. As to the numbers, who is to say? Moral statistics do not exist. However, it should be obvious on the face that guns can be used morally.

On the other hand, we have no need to instruct the bishops in theology. They understand that most weapons can be used morally or immorally and yet they see the need for control. Responsible restrictions do not aim to deter guns. They aim to deter the wrong people getting the weapons used to commit heinous acts. It may or may not be that the availablity of the AR15 (insert any other weapon) to these people is a greater danger than any good such a weapon might provide to someone. At the very least we ought to consider that once a weapon is purchase by a responsible person, he is unable to rid himself of it in an irresponsible fashion, or to be irresponsible in his control over such a weapon.

 

[Brendan]

I don’t know of a state that requires background checks of guns sold through private sales…

According to the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, 6 states (CA, CO, IL, NY, OR, RI) require background checks on all firearm sales. Several more require them for handguns.

… six states (CA, CO, IL, NY, OR, RI) require universal background checks on all firearm sales at gun shows. Three more states (CT, MD, PA) require background checks on all handgun sales made at gun shows. Seven other states (HI, IA, MA, MI, NJ, NC, NE) require purchasers to obtain a permit and undergo a background check before buying a handgun. Florida allows its counties to regulate gun shows by requiring background checks on all firearms purchases at these events.

csgv.org/issues-and-campaigns/gun-show-loophole

 

[JMJSHJ]

For what its worth, I think that mental issues are something that while difficult to protect against, still needs to be addressed. It has been said that people who have mental issues show no warning signs until afterwards but I don’t believe that is always the case. We have to understand that we are looking at from the outside looking in but for those who have mental issues they have a circle of people that are far more aware of these issues than anyone here or in society in general. An example is Adam Lanza. His mother knew him well enough to try to have him committed. I look forward to hearing how secured or lack of secured his Mother’s weapons were and if there is any reasonable steps that can be taken to prevent mentally unstable people from acquiring them. I also like to know how Adam Lanza found out about the attempted committal and if in the future other situations like this alternative living arrangements can be done to prevent something like that again.

 

[pnewton]

For what its worth, I think that mental issues are something that while difficult to protect against, still needs to be addressed.

Even if this issue can not be legistlated very much, it can still be addressed. The danger of the mentally unstable, expecially young people, getting hold of guns needs to reverberate in the head of every gun owner.

 

[meme1961]

The spin you seem to add isn’t exactly correct, according to what is trying to be prevented. One mass shooting prevented is worth the effort, with more efforts put forth until two mass shootings are prevented, and so on. Is anyone happy if one mass shooting occurs? No, and it’s not really fair to depict it as someone’s desire, when the desires are for no needless deaths to occur, even one.

Reality is, this is not a total gun confiscation being discussed. We’re discussing, as the bishops stated, reasonable controls. As a gun owner, and possible future to own more guns, I have no qualms about stricter registrations, and background checks, including through private sales. My guns are secured, so as not to fall in the wrong hands. I don’t ‘stockpile’ ammo. In summary, I don’t see reasonable controls as anymore than minor inconveniences that can be interpreted as being responsible.

Total gun confiscation isn’t being tried, but it is being discussed, and has been discussed in the past. In the past, it was decided that total confiscation was politically impossible, so instead, a strategy of slowly applying more and more “reasonable” controls would be employed instead, alongside a steady pressure to modify the culture to view gun owners as dangerous lunatics, all of whom are inches away from a melt down, and by this denying them the public space.

Yet, guns are not moral agents. This has already been proven. Therefore, no amount of “gun control”, reasonable or unreasonable is going to prevent evil or create good.

None the less, since you believe that guns are moral agents; that gun control will prevent the loss of innocent life, why haven’t you destroyed or surrendered all of your weapons? If guns are the evil, not the man, then by your reasoning, and according to your beliefs, you shouldn’t own any.

If you reply by telling me that you, personally, don’t intend to murder any children, then you will have destroyed your own argument, root and branch. The vast, vast majority of gun owners would never use them to commit a crime, and huge numbers of them will in fact use them to prevent crime (you have yet to do your half of the work, I gently remind you). So restrictions on good people are a restriction on the moral goods they might otherwise have created.

So, yes, you do “want” more innocent deaths, if you “want” and support measures that would disarm people, thus leading directly to an increase in the preventable death of innocents.

The “want” wasn’t intended as a description of a conscious primary desire, it was intended to illustrate the principle of emergent properties. If you take an action, you are responsible for the consequences of that action, to that degree your action was related to the outcome. If the results are truly unforeseeable, then you are off the hook, as God does not expect us to be able to see what he can see. But if the results of your action are foreseeable, then in choosing that action, you choose all of the outcomes, not just the one you want.

A gun safe isn’t perfect. Thus to the degree that it is penetrable, by your beliefs you are risking the lives of innocents. Again, you live in contradiction to your own argument.

But by my proof, the gun is morally irrelevant. The only moral actor in the equation is me, thus the “reasonable restrictions” should be imposed by me, on myself. “Don’t shoot innocent children”, sez I to myself, and I don’t. So whether I own an assault rifle, an AR-15, or the much deadlier “hunting rifle”, or a sword and a collection of truly awesome Trident cooking knives is irrelevant. The only possible outcome of “reasonable” gun control on me and all the people like me is to increase the number of innocent deaths by making it easier for evil men to create moral wrongs.

Oh, and by the by:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster

Worst school mass murder in history. No gun used.

To summarize a long posting: Yeah, but it won’t prevent even one innocent death.

 

[Prodigal_Son1]

Total gun confiscation isn’t being tried, but it is being discussed, and has been discussed in the past. In the past, it was decided that total confiscation was politically impossible, so instead, a strategy of slowly applying more and more “reasonable” controls would be employed instead, alongside a steady pressure to modify the culture to view gun owners as dangerous lunatics, all of whom are inches away from a melt down, and by this denying them the public space.

Yet, guns are not moral agents. This has already been proven. Therefore, no amount of “gun control”, reasonable or unreasonable is going to prevent evil or create good.

None the less, since you believe that guns are moral agents; that gun control will prevent the loss of innocent life, why haven’t you destroyed or surrendered all of your weapons? If guns are the evil, not the man, then by your reasoning, and according to your beliefs, you shouldn’t own any.

If you reply by telling me that you, personally, don’t intend to murder any children, then you will have destroyed your own argument, root and branch. The vast, vast majority of gun owners would never use them to commit a crime, and huge numbers of them will in fact use them to prevent crime (you have yet to do your half of the work, I gently remind you). So restrictions on good people are a restriction on the moral goods they might otherwise have created.

So, yes, you do “want” more innocent deaths, if you “want” and support measures that would disarm people, thus leading directly to an increase in the preventable death of innocents.

The “want” wasn’t intended as a description of a conscious primary desire, it was intended to illustrate the principle of emergent properties. If you take an action, you are responsible for the consequences of that action, to that degree your action was related to the outcome. If the results are truly unforeseeable, then you are off the hook, as God does not expect us to be able to see what he can see. But if the results of your action are foreseeable, then in choosing that action, you choose all of the outcomes, not just the one you want.

A gun safe isn’t perfect. Thus to the degree that it is penetrable, by your beliefs you are risking the lives of innocents. Again, you live in contradiction to your own argument.

But by my proof, the gun is morally irrelevant. The only moral actor in the equation is me, thus the “reasonable restrictions” should be imposed by me, on myself. “Don’t shoot innocent children”, sez I to myself, and I don’t. So whether I own an assault rifle, an AR-15, or the much deadlier “hunting rifle”, or a sword and a collection of truly awesome Trident cooking knives is irrelevant. The only possible outcome of “reasonable” gun control on me and all the people like me is to increase the number of innocent deaths by making it easier for evil men to create moral wrongs.

Oh, and by the by:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster

Worst school mass murder in history. No gun used.

To summarize a long posting: Yeah, but it won’t prevent even one innocent death.

All points responded to in previous posts. Please feel free to see points countered through any of these threads of a similar topic.

 

[meme1961]

For what its worth, I think that mental issues are something that while difficult to protect against, still needs to be addressed. It has been said that people who have mental issues show no warning signs until afterwards but I don’t believe that is always the case. We have to understand that we are looking at from the outside looking in but for those who have mental issues they have a circle of people that are far more aware of these issues than anyone here or in society in general. An example is Adam Lanza. His mother knew him well enough to try to have him committed. I look forward to hearing how secured or lack of secured his Mother’s weapons were and if there is any reasonable steps that can be taken to prevent mentally unstable people from acquiring them. I also like to know how Adam Lanza found out about the attempted committal and if in the future other situations like this alternative living arrangements can be done to prevent something like that again.

Logically (as has been proven) since guns are morally irrelevant, then the only “reasonable control” that will provide benefit is “reasonable controls” on people.

Thus the entire discussion should be about how to make more people moral, and more people more moral, not about inanimate objects.

This helps illustrate the irrational beliefs of gun control supporters . . . in truth, “gun control” is actually “people control” (control of what people may purchase and own) and it falls disproportionally on the population, having a hugely greater effect on the morally healthy, than the morally ill.

Thus the “gun control” argument devolves to: “Let us increase the number of controls on good people, who aren’t killing anybody anyway!”, while the NRA proposal is to add controls on those people who are the most likely to commit mass murder.

I support the most rational action: “Go to the entire world and preach my Good News in all” (make more people moral), and “care for the sick” (same goal, different tactic). If we cannot cure the sick, we should protect them and ourselves from harm.

 

[meme1961]

He asked for links and Brendan gave them. One should not ask for something then criticize the person kind enough to respond to a request. As to the numbers, who is to say? Moral statistics do not exist. However, it should be obvious on the face that guns can be used morally.

On the other hand, we have no need to instruct the bishops in theology. They understand that most weapons can be used morally or immorally and yet they see the need for control. Responsible restrictions do not aim to deter guns. They aim to deter the wrong people getting the weapons used to commit heinous acts. It may or may not be that the availablity of the AR15 (insert any other weapon) to these people is a greater danger than any good such a weapon might provide to someone. At the very least we ought to consider that once a weapon is purchase by a responsible person, he is unable to rid himself of it in an irresponsible fashion, or to be irresponsible in his control over such a weapon.

Yet the Bishops do not have the authority to order this, and being an expert in theology does not translate into being an expert in all things.

In short, they are aiming wrong. See my other post on the moral irrelevance of guns, then see my post on “reasonable controls on guns” vs. “reasonable controls on people.”

In short, the entire gun control agenda is “aimed” at preventing good people from doing things they are adamantly opposed to doing; wouldn’t dream of doing in a thousand years.

It is exactly the kind of silly proposal that hysterical thinking generates. This administration knows that this is silly, and they signal that by trying to move faster than a reasoned discussion on the subject can be had. They want, in short, a fait accompli, not a reasoned, reasonable discussion that results in reasoned, moral laws.