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jwinch2
Guest
No, it isn’t. Stop dodging the question. You have made claims, repeatedly. Its time for you to back them up or to acknowledge that you are wrong.
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jwinch2
Guest
Perhaps you might explain to me why the NRA’s proposal to put armed officers in schools is being interpreted as “we need more guns”. Now, for the record, I don’t think the timing was right to make such a proposal, I liked the Second Amendment Foundation’s proposal to help fund a study on the causes and contributing factors of mass violence and their promise to work with the administration to take action based on the actual evidence, much more prudent.
That being said, based on the reports I have seen, there are currently 11,000 schools in the United States which have armed security officers, to include the overwhelming majority of schools that the children of the members of congress and the administration attend. At every university I have worked at, there are armed campus police officers all over campus.
Why exactly is this a problem? Why exactly is this unsafe? Why is it perfectly safe for their kids to have armed protection, but not for ours. Why do guns protect people when they surround the President’s children, but they are dangerous and must not be anywhere near my niece?
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FightingFat
Guest
I’m not dodging anything. I think the Catechism is pretty clear, but you disagree with that.
Certainly the USCCB is clear: “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.”
“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.”
Perhaps you were unaware, but By the Magisterium we mean the teaching office of the Church. It consists of the Pope and Bishops. Christ promised to protect the teaching of the Church : “He who hears you, hears me; he who rejects your rejects me, he who rejects me, rejects Him who sent me” (Luke 10. 16).
…
The day to day teaching of the Church throughout the world, when the Bishops are in union with each other and with the Pope, and present something as definitive, this is infallible. (Vatican II, Lumen gentium # 25).
So does the Pope agree with the Bishops? Yes.
The Vatican’s position is also very clear: the Vatican has been pushing for decades for limitations not just on conventional weapons of warfare, such as tanks and missiles, but also for stricter limitations on the illegal and legal sale, trade and use of small firearms and weapons.
In fact, The Vatican’s justice and peace council is working to update its 1994 document, “The International Arms Trade,” to further emphasize the importance of enacting concrete controls on handguns and light weapons. The current document calls on every nation and state “to impose a strict control on the sale of handguns and small arms.”
If you want a paragraph of the Catechism saying “guns are banned” in order for you to recognise what the Church is teaching on this I would say that’s wilful ignorance and there is a paragraph of the Catechism dedicated to that: 2089 Incredulity is the neglect of revealed truth or the wilful refusal to assent to it.
Now I’m not saying the Church says you can’t own a gun. Just that the Church (and therefore we should also be) is ordered towards a culture of peace, not one of violence. And it teaches that guns constitute a contributory element to that violence.
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Arandur
Guest
You cannot have unilateral disarmament of a nation. You cannot have unilateral disarmament of a populace. Either invites violence and oppression. This is the consistent lesson of ALL of human history.
The more peaceful our world becomes, the more we will be able to reduce implements that can do violence. Doing so before is an offencse against justice because it does not allow defense against injustice. It is a dereliction of our duty to defend the innocent and protect the weak.
Yes, we need regulations. We need controlled sale, storage requirements, safe use training, and more enforcement and crack down on illegal and dangerous use and proliferation. And yes, it would be nice to live in a world where no one had to worry about any violence. But bans cannot exist until we have a world with no violence–essentially, after the Second Coming of Christ.
With any of the gun restrictions proposed, does anyone really believe they would have helped at Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech, Columbine, Aurora, Fort Hood, or others?
I’m not sure I’ve seen one regulation that would have prevented or even reduced the likelihood of those occurring. They all seem to attack factors that were not involved, and are tantamount to punishing the good, law abiding citizens and encouraging and enabling criminals and evil aggressors. In other words, they backfire, making our society more dangerous, not less. Surely we don’t want that.
What’s so “insane” about having armed guards in schools? We have armed guards in McDonald’s. We have them at banks, retail stores, etc. We value our money and property more than our children (which is obvious, given abortion; this is just another symptom). So we leave our children defenseless but protect our things. People of that philosophy should have no decision-making power whatsoever; they are unfit for public office.
The only thing that can ultimately stop a violent aggressor is a defender capable of using sufficient violence to scare off, detain, or stop the aggressor. Chivalry, anyone?
So yes, we should have armed guards in schools, before we have them anywhere else. More than one, and with sufficient aides–camera surveillance, hardened entry points and controlled access, and escape routes. We can have our “Gun Free Zones” in schools (and hospitals and elsewhere), and we don’t need armed teachers or staff, IF AND ONLY IF we have authorized armed personnel present to fulfill that role.
Remember, when seconds count, the police are minutes away. Someone MUST be present on site at all times to deter or end a threat.
And in a country of 300+ million people this side of heaven, there will ALWAYS be threats, criminal elements, deranged individuals. They are impossible to stop and control completely–except at the point and moment of their aggression. I’d much rather have someone there to defend our children than have the cops get there to sort out the bodies afterwards–because in each of these mass shootings, that’s about all they’ve been good for.
Oh, and one of those articles recently posted said:
It’s the old bully principle. Bullies are cowards. Criminals are bullies. They look for easy targets, and back down when there is resistance. Resistance is the ONLY thing that prevents violence.
Seriously people, do you deny Original Sin and the Fallen State of Man? Only in a world that is not Fallen can we have total pacifism.
Jesus was no peacenik hippie.
The more peaceful our world becomes, the more we will be able to reduce implements that can do violence. Doing so before is an offencse against justice because it does not allow defense against injustice. It is a dereliction of our duty to defend the innocent and protect the weak.
Yes, we need regulations. We need controlled sale, storage requirements, safe use training, and more enforcement and crack down on illegal and dangerous use and proliferation. And yes, it would be nice to live in a world where no one had to worry about any violence. But bans cannot exist until we have a world with no violence–essentially, after the Second Coming of Christ.
With any of the gun restrictions proposed, does anyone really believe they would have helped at Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech, Columbine, Aurora, Fort Hood, or others?
I’m not sure I’ve seen one regulation that would have prevented or even reduced the likelihood of those occurring. They all seem to attack factors that were not involved, and are tantamount to punishing the good, law abiding citizens and encouraging and enabling criminals and evil aggressors. In other words, they backfire, making our society more dangerous, not less. Surely we don’t want that.
What’s so “insane” about having armed guards in schools? We have armed guards in McDonald’s. We have them at banks, retail stores, etc. We value our money and property more than our children (which is obvious, given abortion; this is just another symptom). So we leave our children defenseless but protect our things. People of that philosophy should have no decision-making power whatsoever; they are unfit for public office.
The only thing that can ultimately stop a violent aggressor is a defender capable of using sufficient violence to scare off, detain, or stop the aggressor. Chivalry, anyone?
So yes, we should have armed guards in schools, before we have them anywhere else. More than one, and with sufficient aides–camera surveillance, hardened entry points and controlled access, and escape routes. We can have our “Gun Free Zones” in schools (and hospitals and elsewhere), and we don’t need armed teachers or staff, IF AND ONLY IF we have authorized armed personnel present to fulfill that role.
Remember, when seconds count, the police are minutes away. Someone MUST be present on site at all times to deter or end a threat.
And in a country of 300+ million people this side of heaven, there will ALWAYS be threats, criminal elements, deranged individuals. They are impossible to stop and control completely–except at the point and moment of their aggression. I’d much rather have someone there to defend our children than have the cops get there to sort out the bodies afterwards–because in each of these mass shootings, that’s about all they’ve been good for.
Oh, and one of those articles recently posted said:
This person is ignorant of a long history and well-established thought that it is exactly the equal capability of violence/defense that keeps and has always kept civility. People are civil and secure when they know they have little to fear–that they can defend themselves with sufficient force that they need not feel threatened by intimidation. Meanwhile, the ONLY restraint on intimidation and violence is risk of violent response.
It’s the old bully principle. Bullies are cowards. Criminals are bullies. They look for easy targets, and back down when there is resistance. Resistance is the ONLY thing that prevents violence.
Seriously people, do you deny Original Sin and the Fallen State of Man? Only in a world that is not Fallen can we have total pacifism.
Jesus was no peacenik hippie.
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aicirt
Guest
In your original post or the one I answered, you said no citizen has ever taken out a shooter. I answered that the areas you cited were NO GUN ZONES. If guns had been permitted, the crazy would not have targeted that site.
We need to implement the laws we have. We also need to use the common sense God gave us. And the Constitution gives us the right to defend ourselves.
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Actaeon
Guest
Not the point. If in a just war a soldier throws a hand grenade at his attackers, this is a just action. If a man shoots innocents with his gun, this is an immoral action.
The only point here is that the “RAGLAGERGAR! NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARE WHAT GUN NUTS WANT” argument is utterly stupid and hyperbolic because the amendment does nothing to establish a right to ARMAMENT, only arms.
I was only doing away with a silly point that has no place in an adult conversation about the subject
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Paddy_Walker
Guest
where precisely did all those crazies get their arms? i’m talking about the mass attacks on schools.
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Bill1940
Guest
There is a right to self-defense. It doesn’t come from a human constitution. It comes from God, as a natural law. To deny the means is to deny the right. Reasonable law is one thing but most of what is prescribed by the political left is unreasonable and designed to subjugate and control the people. An unreasonable law is an unjust law, and as Saint Augustine said, an unjust law is no law at all. I know the story of an old man who drove from Northern New England to go duck hunting with his son in New Jersey. He had his shotgun in a soft case in the back of his station wagon. During a routine traffic stop, he was arrested and charged with a felony in New Jersey because of a state law requiring a hard case if not in a trunk of a car. If anyone thinks that’s just, I suggest you get a vintage Nazi uniform in your size and strut up and down before a mirror, so you can see on the outside what you look like on the inside.
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dshix
Guest
Criminals have no difficulty getting arms from many places; the black market, other nations (if near a border) from gang leaders, and even by walking right into a gun store if their criminal identity is still quite hidden.
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Actaeon
Guest
Um… what?
Apparently someone hasn’t read about the Pearl High School shooting, in which the shooter was leaving the high school to go to the middle school and resume shooting when he was subdued by the principle…
Or aparently not the en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_School_of_Law_shooting that was stopped by two students (who, yes, happened to be off duty police officers… but they were NOT on duty and used their personal firearms to stop the shooter)
Or maybe not the Muskegon shooting stopped by a store owner with a shotgun, or the Santa Clara Gun Store murders prevented by a clerk (and who knows how many more murders prevented by keeping him from leaving the store with the gun and ammunition), or the Anniston Shoney’s shooting where an armed citizen stopped 3 robbers from taking 20 people hostage at gunpoint, or the Golden Food Market Shooting which was stopped by an armed citizen when the shooter tried to reload, or the armed citizen who helped police to stop a shootout in an RV park in the Early Texas Peach House shooting.
Or perhaps you didn’t hear that the recent Clackamas Town Mall shooting in Portland, OR, (a few days before Sandy Hook) stopped when the shooter saw a private citizen aiming for him, retreated to a hallway, and then killed himself…
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wondrousgnat
Guest
As stated previously one New Years Eve someone took out my picture window. Who is offering to pay my repair bill?
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Arandur
Guest
I don’t recall exactly, but the Columbine shooters used .22 rifles (+homemade pipe bombs and some other weapons). This was during the assault weapons ban. Only the most radical people are suggesting anything that would have had a chance of stopping Columbine–that would have required complete confiscation of all firearms of any type, and successfull rounding up and collection of all of these–which is utterly impossible (and not to mention would start a civil war).
Virginia Tech I think was a handgun case, don’t know enough details to say much.
Sandy Hook, there is some doubt about whether the AR-15 was used or left in the car; seems handguns were used, though he had a shotgun, too. These were taken from the shooter’s mother (whom he killed). Thus, they were stolen. However, she was culpable in that she should have had all her firearms and ammo securely locked up because she had someone she knew was mentally unstable in her house. Contrary to what some people said, she did NOT do all that she could for her son or to prevent the situation. In such a situation, she really shouldn’t even have had guns in the house, even locked up. And she could have done more for his mental health, and kept him away from violent influences through games and media.
Any, the point in Sandy Hook is that none of the proposed gun laws would have done anything to stop that, either. If he had neither rifle nor handguns, he had a shotgun–which could well have been much deadlier than what he did use. And no one is considering banning or confiscating shotguns. He also was plenty smart enough to have done what the Columbine shooters did and made bombs, which also would have been more destructive.
The Aurora shooter rigged his apartment with homemade bombs. If he did not have his rifle, he could well have used these and killed even more people. Guns are actually less destructive than some of the alternatives these people have access to, but they think of guns first because that’s what the media puts in front of them all the time, making guns sexy.
It is disarming people that makes them vulnerable. I was in Colorado when a church shooting was stopped by armed volunteer security guards. There have been several incidents this year in the news of shootings stopped by people armed and prepared to resist, and home invasions in my own home town–some stopped by the same, others not stopped because the people were defenseless.
So you tell me, should we disarm the good people and leave them as defenseless targets, relying on the police to show up on the scene afterwards, just in time to sort out the corpses?
Or should we attempt to confiscate all firearms of any kind, knives, bats, and potential explosives to make it harder for people to kill each other? I’ll admit, if we could disarm everyone and somehow make it very difficult for criminals to get hold of any weapons, we would have a safer society. I just don’t think that’s possible, practical (ridiculously expensive), or could happen without a civil war. And in the end, we’d have a government quite ready to oppress its helpless people, and we’d have weak individuals easily bullied by strong individuals. Is that a better society?
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Glomung
Guest
All authority that the government has is derived from the populace it serves.
If I do not have the right to bear lethal arms in my own defense, neither does the government.
If I do not have the right to bear lethal arms in my own defense, neither does the government.
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marywarfield
Guest
Yes I read this link as well. I still fail to see where the “Church is solidly against gun ownership”. If the Church is “solidly” against anything, it should not be hard to find. You see what I am disputing is the idea that the Church is solidly against it. Not whether the Church encourages,discourages, wishes it wasn’t necessary.
Perhaps this will illustrate my point. Here is an example of the Church being “solidly” against something.
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
2271 Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law:
You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish.75
Okay from this, without ANY discussion of moral theology, going to Catholic Answers forum and reading blogs, without checking to see what St. So and So said in 1519, I can simply read this very simple paragraph and determine the Church is solidly against abortion.
Now, if you can find a similar statement i.e. Since such and such century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured handgun, and gun ownership willed as an end or a means is gravely contrary to the moral law or You shall not kill anyone with a handgun and shall not cause anyone to perish by handgun, THEN I will agree with you that the Church is solidly against gun control.
Until then, no, there is NOTHING SOLID TO IT.
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jwinch2
Guest
I asked a Dominican friar who recently finished a stint teaching at the Angelicum in Rome whether the Church had a position on gun ownership and here was his response:
In addition, the USCCB document, which was written in 1978 and is often thrown around in this thread, does not say that the goal is to eliminate handguns, it states that the prevailing wisdom of the time was that in order to eliminate gun crime, you needed to eliminate handguns. Obviously, we have had many research articles and studies conducted since 1978 which show that opinion to be inaccurate.
When we get clear teaching from Rome on the issue, when the Holy Father stops surrounding himself with armed guards due to immorality of gun ownership, or when Catholic priests and bishops stop being private owners of guns themselves then I will start buying the idea that the Church is officially against gun ownership.
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Tony2255
Guest
usccb.org/news/2012/12-219.cfm
*The Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, in their document, “The International Arms Trade (2006),” emphasized the importance of enacting concrete controls on handguns, for example, noting that “limiting the purchase of such arms would certainly not infringe on the rights of anyone.”
In their memory and for the sake of our nation, we reiterate our call made in 2000, in our statement, Responsibility, Rehabilitation and Restoration: A Catholic Perspective on Crime and Criminal Justice, for all Americans, especially legislators, to:
1.Support measures that control the sale and use of firearms
2.Support measures that make guns safer (especially efforts that prevent their unsupervised use by children and anyone other than the owner)
3.Call for sensible regulations of handguns
4.Support legislative efforts that seek to protect society from the violence associated with easy access to deadly weapons including assault weapons
5.Make a serious commitment to confront the pervasive role of addiction and mental illness in crime.*
St. Clare of Assisi:
vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2010/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20100915_en.html
In the Convent of San Damiano, Clare practised heroically the virtues that should distinguish every Christian: humility, a spirit of piety and penitence and charity. Although she was the superior, she wanted to serve the sick sisters herself and joyfully subjected herself to the most menial tasks. In fact, charity overcomes all resistance and whoever loves, joyfully performs every sacrifice. Her faith in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist was so great that twice a miracle happened. **Simply by showing to them the Most Blessed Sacrament distanced the Saracen mercenaries, who were on the point of attacking the convent of San Damiano and pillaging the city of Assisi. **
Do what you will. For me I’ll trust in the Holy Eucharist.
*The Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, in their document, “The International Arms Trade (2006),” emphasized the importance of enacting concrete controls on handguns, for example, noting that “limiting the purchase of such arms would certainly not infringe on the rights of anyone.”
In their memory and for the sake of our nation, we reiterate our call made in 2000, in our statement, Responsibility, Rehabilitation and Restoration: A Catholic Perspective on Crime and Criminal Justice, for all Americans, especially legislators, to:
1.Support measures that control the sale and use of firearms
2.Support measures that make guns safer (especially efforts that prevent their unsupervised use by children and anyone other than the owner)
3.Call for sensible regulations of handguns
4.Support legislative efforts that seek to protect society from the violence associated with easy access to deadly weapons including assault weapons
5.Make a serious commitment to confront the pervasive role of addiction and mental illness in crime.*
St. Clare of Assisi:
vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2010/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20100915_en.html
In the Convent of San Damiano, Clare practised heroically the virtues that should distinguish every Christian: humility, a spirit of piety and penitence and charity. Although she was the superior, she wanted to serve the sick sisters herself and joyfully subjected herself to the most menial tasks. In fact, charity overcomes all resistance and whoever loves, joyfully performs every sacrifice. Her faith in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist was so great that twice a miracle happened. **Simply by showing to them the Most Blessed Sacrament distanced the Saracen mercenaries, who were on the point of attacking the convent of San Damiano and pillaging the city of Assisi. **
Do what you will. For me I’ll trust in the Holy Eucharist.
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Arandur
Guest
So… regulate to reduce accidents and inappropriate access ( whatever that may be) and address the root cause of the violent society. Conspicuously absent: a notion of a ban on ownership or use in self defense.
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Sarcelle
Guest
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Robert_Sock
Guest
Where does Christ’s command, “turn the other cheek,” come into play with the right to bear arms? Sounds to me that we should learn to focus on Christ’s teachings instead of becoming gun-crazy!
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Brendan
Guest
Do you mean the same Christ who inspired David fire off large caliber projectiles into Goliath’s skull? Is that the Christ you are referring to?
- Status