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Guns and Quotes
The most recent mass-shootings have grabbed the attention of the country. I have lots of thoughts on this issue, but I think sometimes it is better to quote others than to give my own rant. My early morning routine helps me organize my thoughts for the day. I probably spend an hour each morning, reading through Catholic Twitter to get my news – I usually browse through around 20 accounts. There were three quotes I read over the past few days on Catholic Twitter on the horrible shootings in El Paso and Dayton that really struck me. One quote has really annoyed me, another quote I posted in the Ricochet Catholics Group, and the final quote I posted at the Firing Line Group. @bossmongo suggested that I should share this final quote on the Member Feed and I thought I should add the others as well.
I’ll start with the final quote first. It comes from John Zmirak, from his article Nazi Gun Control: Three Words that Go Together. He ends his interesting take on an old argument for 2A rights with this:
The issue of gun rights turns, finally, on a question about human nature — about common citizens like you and me. Are we responsible adults made in the image of God, with the primary right and responsibility of caring for ourselves and our dependents? Or are we dim-witted, passive sheep, who must look to our protectors in the government for food, protection, and guidance in our everyday decisions? May we defend ourselves and our loved ones when confronted with threats of violence, or is it our duty to surrender passively, then wait for the police to come tag their bodies? Are we free citizens, who may arm ourselves in self-defense and when absolutely necessary resist acts of tyranny? Or are we helpless peasants?
I don’t think I can find anything to argue against there. I can answer each of those questions very easily.
As we survey the carnage and the responses to that carnage from last weekend, let’s take a minute to look at the second quote, that I posted in the Ricochet Catholics Group. It is from Mother Teresa:
The greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion, which is war against the child…Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want.
Boy howdy do we live in a violent, murderous society. We see legislatures cheer when abortion is made legal at any time during pregnancy; and even sometimes after birth. Well over 2000 babies per day are killed by abortion. After the Columbine shootings in 1999, Archbishop Charles Chaput (archbishop of Denver at the time) said this (for those keeping count, this is a bonus quote, it is not the quote that annoyed me):
When the most dangerous place in the country is a mother’s womb and the unborn child can have his or her head crushed in an abortion, even in the process of being born, the body language of that message is that life isn’t sacred and may not be worth much at all. In fact, certain kinds of killing no longer even count officially as “killing.” Certain kinds of killing we enshrine as rights and protect by law. When we live this kind of contradiction, why are we surprised at the results?
Indeed. Why are we surprised?
This isn’t a problem government can solve. This is a problem left to us.
So what was it that infuriated me? It was this, from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), as tweeted out by Fr. Thomas Petri, OP:
We call on committees… to formulate policies…. to address a social disease….
Ugh, @USCCB Just ugh. https://t.co/jrhmvhzqih
— Fr. Thomas Petri, OP, STD (@PetriOP) August 5, 2019
So this is where we are. This is what we get from our leaders. Committees to formulate policies, so as to address a social disease. Pathetic. At one point in time, the Catholic bishops held some moral authority. Maybe they still do with the lefties, but with me, I am shaking my head.
Going back to the first quote – it is a quote in essence about freedom. Freedom requires responsibility. Freedom is not a license to do what we want, but the right to do what we ought.
Pope St. John Paul II, pray for us.
St. Gabriel Possenti, pray for us. (Yes, we bad-ass Catholics have a patron saint of handguns)
St. Teresa of Calcutta, pray for us.
Published in Guns
Maybe the USCCB should have some of the Hillsdale professoriate come and lecture the bishops on how their right to practice the faith depends on our right to bear arms. That might be edifying.
Another quote – this one from my bishop.
Thanks. It’s our side that is again weak and easily stampeded. What the so called far left is doing and why is as obvious as who they are even though it’s politically incorrect to call them what they are, Nazi’s and Socialists. Their political stripe doesn’t have a lot of imagination and large portions of the population are easily led. Fortunately we’re doing well economically but all economies have ups and downs. Moreover, the thugs have media, some narrow powerful corporate leadership and a widespread academic cheering section. They focus on assault rifles and some on our side seem to agree that we have to do something about them. Does anyone possibly think that with a victory on semi automatic weapons that would be the end of it? We must remember who we’re dealing with and develop strategies to gradually take power away from them and return it to ordinary citizens in their towns and neighborhoods.
I think what bothers me most about all of this is the total silence about the carnage in Chicago, Baltimore, St. Louis…
No vigils. No impassioned speeches from a candlelit AOC. No calls for new laws and presumably their intrusive enforcement. No condemnations of the culture that inspires, encourages and enables the killers which, in the case of inner-city violence, isn’t a matter of secret signals and dog-whistles but is completely out-in-the-open.
Is no one embarrassed by, if nothing else, the racism?
I would think that Pope John Paul II would agree with these quotes – a failure of moral teachings, non-violence, the protection and support of families, the sanctity of life in all its forms. The world is going over the cliff and the voices of the faithful, especially those in charge are too quiet. What happened is a symptom. When you have a culture that is getting more and more violent and anti- faith and family, where drugs are being legalized, guns and other weapons available at any corner store, you’ll keep having what we saw. While I don’t think military style assault weapons have a place in a civil society, no one hunts with those or would carry in a purse for protection, someone deranged and full of hate will find a way, legally or illegally, to get their hands on these. Until we fix the bigger picture, the symptoms will become a fatal disease that nothing will cure.
Mentioning that poor black-Americans have a terribly high rate of homicide opens yourself up to being called a racist. If you really want to talk about this issue you inevitably have to talk about black men killing other predominantly black people in poor black communities. You can’t not be accused by racism by the left if you do that.
The vigils in Chicago seem to merit local coverage only. I don’t know about the other cities.
The main thrust of the local vigils/protests is that is the lax gun laws of other jurisdictions that are causing the problem.
Left unexplained is exactly why the other jurisdictions are not suffering worse or even the same levels of violence.
I wonder whether part of the overreaction to mass shootings is a deliberate attempt to divert attention from the truth about relatively high homicide rates among black Americans.
Well the media is terrible at everything.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbKLkg-5sGY
Don’t be so hard on the bishops. Have you forgotten the very words of Jesus, in the Gospel according to Robert?