Gun Totting Catholic? Disagree with The Church on Gun Control

[Zooey]

maryjk:

When seconds count, the police are just minutes away.

A couple of years ago, I had a loony outside my house, screaming that he was going to kill me, because "[Zooey] ha all ready killed me twice this week. You think I don’t see you outside in the night, chewing at the roots of trees, bringing them down on my house, I see you, lady!!!".
The cops took** an hour & a half** to get here. And I’m not even out in the sticks here…Just a street over from Main Street.
(I didn’t bother to call the times when he came over & urinated on my house…. By the time they got here for that kind of thing, I would have been dead of old age).
His threats to kill me warranted “prompt response”. Yeah. Sure…
Sheesh.

 

[shipwrkd]

Please explain.
I am hoping you don’t think that police show up in seconds, when called. Instead that the police take even longer.
Most police response times are in minutes, not hours.

I have it on good authority, my son the Cop, that any time statistics are averages. Responds time will vary from state to state, community to community and even shift to shift. It’s NEVER seconds and usually more then a few minutes. In a rural area, where there’s a good distance involved, it could be hours. Same thing goes for “line of defense”. If your at home, you can incorporate several lines of defense, but if your alone on the street and can’t possibly out run an assailant, it becomes your first line of defense.

Just as a clariication, what is present in most Swiss homes is a FULLY AUTOMATIC assault rifle. Generally a SIG SG 510 or 550.

Aw,man. Your making me envious. I’d ALMOST consider moving there just to get my hands on an SG550.

 

[Brendan]

They are also required to do military service every year until the age of 40 - the 2 go hand in hand (literally!) gun + service.

Yep, 2 weekends every year.

Try buying a handgun in Switzerland!

Those are also for sale, read the BBC article. Half a million private handguns in a country with a population of about 7 million. So one for every 14 people.

Now some Cantons restrict the carrying of those hanguns, while others have no prohibitions

 

[FromTheAshes777]

Regardless of the results of the debate on gun control, which is an interesting and important debate don’t get me wrong…I think we can establish that the Church doesn’t officially condemn self defense, the use of deadly force in the act of self defense when necessary, or the use of firearms in that action.

We only have a personal political opinion published by the U.S. Bishops. I don’t think anyone, including them, have made a claim that these statements are infallible statements on faith/morals. Catholics can disagree with this and still remain just as faithful as a Catholic who decides they do agree. Would we all agree on that point? Regardless of our feelings on gun control?

 

[Mickey_Finn]

Please explain.

I am hoping you don’t think that police show up in seconds, when called. Instead that the police take even longer.

Most police response times are in minutes, not hours.

I think my hometown shoots for* same day *response.

 

[Zooey]

I think my hometown shoots for* same day *response.

Sounds like around here…

 

[maryjk]

Sounds like around here…

I have called 911 twice in the past year. Once after witnessing a car accident, with no injuries. They arrived within 10 minutes.

And once for a medical emergency. Everyone was here well within 12-15 minutes. With the first person responding within 5-8.

Our response times are great. Unless you have an intruder or someone face to face that wants to do you harm. Then, even 5 minutes will be too late.

 

[shipwrkd]

Regardless of the results of the debate on gun control, which is an interesting and important debate don’t get me wrong…I think we can establish that the Church doesn’t officially condemn self defense, the use of deadly force in the act of self defense when necessary, or the use of firearms in that action.

We only have a personal political opinion published by the U.S. Bishops. I don’t think anyone, including them, have made a claim that these statements are infallible statements on faith/morals. Catholics can disagree with this and still remain just as faithful as a Catholic who decides they do agree. Would we all agree on that point? Regardless of our feelings on gun control?

I believe this is spot on and we all should go back and read the Original Post. We can’t fix police responds times or gun control here. We won’t even be able to change individual “Catholic” opinion. All we are able to do is try to clarify and understand “Church” position on the matter. No one in this thread has shown the Church to be against self defense, whether that be with a gun, sword or blow from one’s hand. That said, I have to admit that the other opinions can sure raise one’s testosterone level. npatrol:

 

[Zooey]

I have called 911 twice in the past year. Once after witnessing a car accident, with no injuries. They arrived within 10 minutes.

And once for a medical emergency. Everyone was here well within 12-15 minutes. With the first person responding within 5-8.

Our response times are great. Unless you have an intruder or someone face to face that wants to do you harm. Then, even 5 minutes will be too late.

Wow.
Well, I’m glad for you…but it sure isn’t that way around here…

 

[Mickey_Finn]

I have called 911 twice in the past year. Once after witnessing a car accident, with no injuries. They arrived within 10 minutes.

And once for a medical emergency. Everyone was here well within 12-15 minutes. With the first person responding within 5-8.

Our response times are great. Unless you have an intruder or someone face to face that wants to do you harm. Then, even 5 minutes will be too late.

You do have some good response times.

 

[Ridgerunner]

We only have a personal political opinion published by the U.S. Bishops.

Not even that. The USCCB is essentially a lay bureaucracy which has some bishops on some committees. They don’t go out and get the opinion of every bishop or even a majority vote on every position statement they put out. It is a great mistake to equate every utterance of somebody at the USCCB with the opinion of “the bishops”.

 

[austenbosten]

Regardless Hitler, Stalin and Mao were all vehement anti-Catholics and all supported gun-control.

So I’m going to side with the Founding Fathers who didn’t believe in creating a Protestant tyranny as was imposed in England during the 16th Century resulting in mass Catholic persecution…and in the right for men to bear arms for means of survival, food-gathering, personal and national defense.

Guns don’t kill people, Men with evil in their hearts kill people, and I fear a big government that strips people of the right to defend themselves more than a gun-nut. Remember a gun nut can only murder as much as his gun has ammo and he has breath in his body. A government on the other hand can annihilate the world with the push of a button.

262,000,000 people were murdered through democide (murder by government) in the last century. I fear a tyrannical gov’t more than a gun-nut, guess what happens to government when they no longer fear their people.

 

[partypilot1]

Jesus apostles carried swords, how would that be any different?

 

[LilyM]

To suggest that the Nazis didn’t invade Switzerland because of the Swiss guns is stretching the truth.

The Nazis very likely didn’t invade Switzerland because all those nice private and secure Swiss banks were great places to stash all the loot they gathered from the rest of Europe, and those Swiss banks wouldn’t play nice if they invaded.

 

[LilyM]

Jesus apostles carried swords, how would that be any different?

How often did He tell them to USE those swords? How did He reach when Simon the Zealot offered 50,000 fighters to rally to His cause? Or when Peter was silly enough to actually draw a sword on someone?

 

[triumphguy]

Yep, 2 weekends every year.

Those are also for sale, read the BBC article. Half a million private handguns in a country with a population of about 7 million. So one for every 14 people.

Now some Cantons restrict the carrying of those hanguns, while others have no prohibitions

No it’s not… It’s like 6 weeks a year until the age of 40 and training on weekends.

I used to live there and would watch the men drilling on the school playground on Saturday mornings.

Also every family has to keep emergency provisions.

This was all to deter invasion from larger countries, not because they thought everyone should be able to carry guns as a perk.

The real reason why there is less crime is because it is such a homogeneous and ordered society.

As an aside:

Italy have had 600 years of disorder, weak government, and financial crises, and haven’t won a war yet they have given the world some of the best art, sculpture, music, poetry, opera, cars, and motorbikes in the world.

Switzerland has had 600 years of peace, order and good government and all they’ve given the world is the cuckoo clock!

(Can’t remember where I read the above)

 

[LilyM]

No it’s not… It’s like 6 weeks a year until the age of 40 and training on weekends.

I used to live there and would watch the men drilling on the school playground on Saturday mornings.

Also every family has to keep emergency provisions.

This was all to deter invasion from larger countries, not because they thought everyone should be able to carry guns as a perk.

The real reason why there is less crime is because it is such a homogeneous and ordered society.

As an aside:

Italy have had 600 years of disorder, weak government, and financial crises, and haven’t won a war yet they have given the world some of the best art, sculpture, music, poetry, opera, cars, and motorbikes in the world.

Switzerland has had 600 years of peace, order and good government and all they’ve given the world is the cuckoo clock!

(Can’t remember where I read the above)

Interesting point. Whilst the Swiss are required to be armed, they are also required, by the sounds of it, to maintain a fairly rigorous schedule of training in how to use that weapon. Sounds like military-type training no less, aimed at showing people how to use weapons in defensive combat (ie how to shoot when someone is shooting back at you, which is very different to targets/clay pigeons/tin cans/animals who aren’t shooting back).

How many of the US’s brave armed citizen … umm … crowds (I was going to say something more derogatory but decided to be charitable) … can say that they train like the Swiss - and are moreover trained for defensive combat?

 

[bearer]

To suggest that the Nazis didn’t invade Switzerland because of the Swiss guns is stretching the truth.

The Nazis very likely didn’t invade Switzerland because all those nice private and secure Swiss banks were great places to stash all the loot they gathered from the rest of Europe, and those Swiss banks wouldn’t play nice if they invaded.

You really are a piece of work, Lily. Truth be damned, you just cannot bring yourself to admit that arms keep the peace, can you?

The Germans did plan to invade Switzerland; the plans were named Operation Tannenbaum. In a memorandum on the proposed invasion, SS General Hermann Böhme, who worked on plans for the invasion, wrote that because Switzerland was a nation of rifleman, any such invasion would be too costly in terms of German lives.

 

[austenbosten]

To suggest that the Nazis didn’t invade Switzerland because of the Swiss guns is stretching the truth.

The Nazis very likely didn’t invade Switzerland because all those nice private and secure Swiss banks were great places to stash all the loot they gathered from the rest of Europe, and those Swiss banks wouldn’t play nice if they invaded.

No, Hitler wanted to invade Switzerland and he had it planned since 1940, Hitler had demanded plans to invade Switzerland all part of his “Greater German Reich” as German-speaking people lived in Switzerland. Hitler in-fact hated Switzerland and called it “a pimple on the face of Europe” because it stuck out like a sore-thumb. Amongst Hitler’s empire, laid a tiny, democratic nation.

However in order for Hitler to take Switzerland, he had to devote 500,000 men. Not to mention holding Switzerland would have been a nightmare, as guns were rampant and every citizen was armed (by law!).

Today Switzerland is one of the safest places to live…No one messes with the Swiss, not even the Swiss (they have one of the lowest crime rates in Europe) you know why?? Because every Swiss is armed to the teeth and has military training, go try and pull a gun there…you will be met with 50 different guns.

I agree with bearer, you are really beginning to stretch it.

 

[LilyM]

Interesting point. Whilst the Swiss are required to be armed, they are also required, by the sounds of it, to maintain a fairly rigorous schedule of training in how to use that weapon. Sounds like military-type training no less, aimed at showing people how to use weapons in defensive combat (ie how to shoot when someone is shooting back at you, which is very different to targets/clay pigeons/tin cans/animals who aren’t shooting back).

How many of the US’s brave armed citizen … umm … crowds (I was going to say something more derogatory but decided to be charitable) … can say that they train like the Swiss - and are moreover trained for defensive combat?

The damned truth is that both sides engaged in all sorts of deliberate misinformation about military strategy. As all good armies do.

Those ‘plans’ to invade Switzerland could have been as real as the fake Allied ‘plans’ for D-day that fooled the Nazis into sending forces to the wrong part of France.

Another damned truth is that Hitler was bonkers, and known by his staff to be such (some of them tried to assassinate him, remember). So on occasion they probably humoured him while not taking him seriously. So those ‘plans’ could all have been in his head.

Another damned truth is that there was no way they were ever going to admit to anyone ‘oh yeah, we have a lot of war loot stashed in Switzerland and that’s why we’re not invading …’ - I mean may as well give whoever reads that the account numbers and passcodes while you’re at it!