Commentary: Is Gun Control a Christian Issue?

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I am often asked, “Is gun control a Christian issue?” After all, some might ask, if we are truly pro-life should we not also be as adamant about gun control as we are about abortion control? Is the gun control debate simply one that we should ignore?
First, let me in full disclosure say that I hold to traditionally conservative views on the Second Amendment as a personal and individual right. Like every other constitutional right, this right is not unlimited or all expansive, to be sure. We rightly do not allow private citizens to own surface-to-air missiles, for example. But I’m suspicious of gun control measures as naïve and ineffective, if not counter-productive, preferring to combat gun violence with strict enforcement of laws against gun crime and murder rather than with measures to impede the ability of law-abiding citizens to own weapons.
That said, I recognize that there are many, including orthodox evangelical Christians, who disagree with me on my general opposition to more gun control. This should not divide us.
Read more at christianpost.com/news/is-gun-control-a-christian-issue-154187/#djiKYCUlYwOlMOYv.99
 
I would be very strongly inclined to say that the matter of governmental regulation of the use of firearms is a matter of prudential judgment and that there is room for a range of morally permissible positions.
 
The Pope had some commentary…

“It makes me think of … people, managers, businessmen who call themselves Christian and they manufacture weapons. That leads to a bit a distrust, doesn’t it?” he said to applause.

He also criticized those who invest in weapons industries, saying “duplicity is the currency of today … they say one thing and do another.”

reuters.com/article/us-pope-turin-arms-idUSKBN0P10U220150621
 
The issue of gun control is not a religious issue but rather a constitutional one. The Founding Fathers were clear to include in the Bill of Rights a provision for having and bearing arms so that tyranny could be easily uprooted and so that the rights of the citizens could be defended and not infringed upon by a government that had gone rogue.

Now, is there a need to diligently check who is receiving these weapons due to the high rate of mental illness, hatred, and evil that goes through this country and the world? The answer is a resounding “yes!” However, the right way to do such things is not using executive orders and taking rights away from the common people. All that needs to be done is to place all mental health documentation and personal histories into background check databases for when people purchase guns and ammunition, even from gun shows and from online sources. Then, the bad and unstable people won’t be able to get them from good retailers. Secondly, guns have to be taken off the streets with good policing so that the bad and unstable people won’t be able to get them from other bad and unstable people off the books.

The only thing that we, as Catholics, need to worry about in this regard is protecting the sanctity of life at all stages: God’s beautiful creation of human life in His own divine image.

May God bless you all abundantly and forever! 🙂
 
The Pope had some commentary…

“It makes me think of … people, managers, businessmen who call themselves Christian and they manufacture weapons. That leads to a bit a distrust, doesn’t it?” he said to applause.

He also criticized those who invest in weapons industries, saying “duplicity is the currency of today … they say one thing and do another.”

reuters.com/article/us-pope-turin-arms-idUSKBN0P10U220150621
But yet he still keeps the Swiss Guard around, and provides for their training and weapons.

Even the ceremonial guards are armed with handguns, and there are dozens more who are on duty at any given time, armed with assault rifles

All of which were purchased with Church money.
 
While **not **much of a conservative on the issue of guns – I believe that “feeling empowered” is not worth turning a society into a killing ground – the fact is that gun control at the local level doesn’t work.

The guns are physically there. They are not going away. And without setting up barricades and checkpoints at state borders, they can easily be moved from places without gun control to places that have it.

Clip size is another meaningless issue. The dead do not care how many rounds are left in the gun.

Hard thinking is needed to stem the violence. And reflex calls to arm everybody, or to disarm everybody, don’t cut it.

ICXC NIKA.
 
The issue of gun control is not a religious issue but rather a constitutional one. The Founding Fathers were clear to include in the Bill of Rights a provision for having and bearing arms so that tyranny could be easily uprooted and so that the rights of the citizens could be defended and not infringed upon by a government that had gone rogue.

Now, is there a need to diligently check who is receiving these weapons due to the high rate of mental illness, hatred, and evil that goes through this country and the world? The answer is a resounding “yes!” However, the right way to do such things is not using executive orders and taking rights away from the common people. All that needs to be done is to place all mental health documentation and personal histories into background check databases for when people purchase guns and ammunition, even from gun shows and from online sources. Then, the bad and unstable people won’t be able to get them from good retailers. Secondly, guns have to be taken off the streets with good policing so that the bad and unstable people won’t be able to get them from other bad and unstable people off the books.

The only thing that we, as Catholics, need to worry about in this regard is protecting the sanctity of life at all stages: God’s beautiful creation of human life in His own divine image.

May God bless you all abundantly and forever! :)/QUOTE

No one is proposing coming around and confiscating everyone’s guns. As President Obama said, despite those who twist his words, it can’t be done precisely because we do have the 2nd amendment right. And Presidents of all stripes issue executive orders. This one less than some.
 
The issue of gun control is not a religious issue but rather a constitutional one. The Founding Fathers were clear to include in the Bill of Rights a provision for having and bearing arms so that tyranny could be easily uprooted and so that the rights of the citizens could be defended and not infringed upon by a government that had gone rogue.

Now, is there a need to diligently check who is receiving these weapons due to the high rate of mental illness, hatred, and evil that goes through this country and the world? The answer is a resounding “yes!” However, the right way to do such things is not using executive orders and taking rights away from the common people. All that needs to be done is to place all mental health documentation and personal histories into background check databases for when people purchase guns and ammunition, even from gun shows and from online sources. Then, the bad and unstable people won’t be able to get them from good retailers. Secondly, guns have to be taken off the streets with good policing so that the bad and unstable people won’t be able to get them from other bad and unstable people off the books.

The only thing that we, as Catholics, need to worry about in this regard is protecting the sanctity of life at all stages: God’s beautiful creation of human life in His own divine image.

May God bless you all abundantly and forever! 🙂
No one is proposing coming around and confiscating everyone’s guns. As President Obama said, despite those who twist his words, it can’t be done precisely because we do have the 2nd amendment right. And Presidents of all stripes issue executive orders. This one less than some.
 
Hard thinking is needed to stem the violence. And reflex calls to arm everybody, or to disarm everybody, don’t cut it.
Exactly…though current politics and populism will not allow any hard thinking. 😦
 
“. . . But now, he who has a money bag, let him take it, and likewise a sack; and he who has no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one” (Lk. 22:36). Keep in mind that the sword was the finest offensive weapon available to an individual soldier—the equivalent then of a military rifle today."
Mind you, not an assault rifle. Assault rifles are heavily regulated.
keepandbeararms.com/information/XcIBViewItem.asp?ID=1061

There are similar passages in the Old Testament regarding self-defense and arms.
 
Yes, it’s a Christian issue. As Jesus said, “Every one who does not own sword should own one,” and then he went on to say, “And assault weapons shall be defined as anything automatic, because the Democrats are verily true, and I prophecy in the US in 2016 that will represent a relatively small amount of the commercially available arms. I declare that a gun clip ought to declare no more than five additional rounds, and that while background checks should be extensive, they shall be expedited and done through privatized agencies.”

And did not Ezekiel say, “The only gun free zone shall be for you those towns of sanctuary in the hills?”

Yea, verily, the holy writ said, “When comparing the efficacy of various gun control programs, it is important to take into consideration the type of place where the legislation was introduced, and the displacement to different types of violence.”

I hate this kind of question. Jesus didn’t tell us what to do.

And I hate how crazy vague people are on arms control. People say, “let’s do something!” and then either define “something” as something that wouldn’t have stopped the conversation’s precipitating violence, or they tell you they want to put in place something that already exists, or they just don’t tell you what they want because they don’t know.
 
Gun control is an issue, but whether it is specifically Christian, I just don’t know.

Self-defense and “the right to self-defense” seems both a Christian issue, being a natural (divine) right, and a political issue, although politics is on the weaker ground.

As for the specific tools of self-defense, obviously there are limits - nothing that harms more people than it protects may be one; “overkill” is another. I don’t see that guns are more of a problem here than other things - machetes, butcher knives, and axes are not uncommon in China, Hawaii, and the “Mideast”. I see many people who have a baseball bat on hand for self-defense, and certainly many people have been bludgeoned to death. I suppose any means of self-defense could be used as an unrighteous act of offensive violence. Where is the line to be drawn, and why there?
 
You must not follow Mark Shea on Facebook.
Nope. I don’t need to follow anyone on FB to know that where I live, which is in the US, we do not live in a police state where the federal govt goes door to door to confiscate every American’s guns. I even heard Ted Cruz, who I don’t follow either, say he won’t be going door to door to round up immigrants either. For that very reason as well. But that he will have other means to identify and deport them. I don’t see how you round up every gun though unless you go door and door and search every nook and cranny in every home in America. Realistically ain’t gonna happen.
 
The gun control issue is not about public safety, it is about political power.
 
But yet he still keeps the Swiss Guard around, and provides for their training and weapons.

Even the ceremonial guards are armed with handguns, and there are dozens more who are on duty at any given time, armed with assault rifles

All of which were purchased with Church money.
I have a suspicion that if he got his way he would dismantle the Swiss Guard.
 
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