This is part I of a longer discussion.
Over the course of the last few weeks I've received several notices from the USCCB urging me to support the Democrats' gun control bill. Considering that gun control is a matter of prudential judgement (meaning Catholics in good standing can come to vastly different conclusions), rather than a matter like abortion, which is an inherent evil, and considering how many more statements on gun control I received than on abortion, it got me to thinking and researching the matter more deeply.I have come to the conclusion that, rather than being a matter of prudential judgement, gun control is actually a sin against Justice. It is also opposed to the pro-life cause. Not only should the bishops not be urging their flocks to support it, they should be advocating the opposite. Let me explain.
What is Justice? Justice is one of the four cardinal virtues, Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance. We don't often hear of the other three, but there is a lot of talk (mostly complaining about a lack of) justice. Justice is the principle by which we give to each person what is due him.
Christ left us the commandment to love our neighbour. In this commandment, everything that concerns justice is also contained. There can be no love without justice. Love “surpasses” justice, but at the same time it finds its verification in justice. Even a father and a mother, loving their own child, must be just in his regard. If justice is uncertain, love, too, runs a risk.
To be just means giving each one what is due to him. This concerns temporal goods, of a material nature. The best example here can be remuneration for work or the so-called right to the fruits of one’s own work or of one’s own land. But to man is due also his good name, respect, consideration, the reputation he has deserved. The more we know a man, the more his personality, his character, his intellect and his heart are revealed to us. And the more we realize—and we must realize!—with what criterion to “measure him” and what it means to be just towards him.
It is necessary, therefore, to deepen our knowledge of justice continually. It is not a theoretical science. It is virtue, it is [a]capacity of the human spirit, of the human will and also of the heart. It is also necessary to pray in order to be just and to know how to be just.
We cannot forget Our Lord’s words: “The measure you give will be the measure you get” (Mt 7:2).
To see why gun control is inherently unjust, first let's talk about what guns are (at least of the purpose of this discussion). Firearms (aka guns) fall into a broader class which we call weapons. A weapon is something which can be used to inflict damage. A weapon can be used for evil (to attack) or good (to discourage an attack, or defend against attack). Therefore weapons are morally neutral (excluding for the moment weapons which have no legitimate defensive use).
The most basic weapon is the human body. Humans instinctively use their hands, feet, knees, etc. to attack or defend. The basic premise is that you put energy into your fist (for example) and that energy is transferred to the object it strikes, causing pain and damage to that object.
The human body has very little range, and so other weapons were designed to increase that range. Contact weapons like knives, swords, clubs, and projectile weapons like rocks, knives, spears, arrows and firearms. A firearm, in principle, is basically rock throwing, only the rock is small and it is thrown very fast.
The thing that makes a firearm different from rock throwing, and fundamentally different from all the other weapons mentioned, is that its effectiveness to attack or defend does not depend on the strength of the user. And that fact is what makes them unique in the sense of Justice, and the reason why gun control is the goal of despots everywhere. As the old adage goes "God made men, Sam Colt made them equal."
Gun control advocates base their arguments on two principles, both of which are false. The first is that the world would be safer and more peaceful without guns. Anyone who has studied history can tell you that the world was objectively more violent and dangerous before the invention of guns. Modern liberals like to think that somehow people today are "more evolved" than those of a few hundred years ago, but even modern history shows that when one group of people has power over another the result is never good. Consider the Armenian Genocide Stalin's Russia, the the Holocaust, the Rwandan Genocide and abortion.The defenseless are still being killed in great numbers.
The second false principle is that guns have no good use. Again even a brief look at history shows that to be false. Guns have been used to defend against aggressors since they were invented. In the US today, guns are used between 1 million and 3 million times a year to defend against criminals. Those numbers are based on a 2012 report, ordered by president Obama, so you know they are not biased in favor of firearm owners.
To quote civil rights activist Carol Ruth Silver, "Access to firearms gives women, for the first time in history, the capacity to live independently and apart from men in safety and freedom." Consider the case of a 120 pound woman and her 240 pound would-be male attacker. Or an elderly or disabled person. Access to firearms makes them the equal of that attacker. And usually that is enough to dissuade the attacker. In fact, 95% of the time when a firearm is "used" to defend against an attacker, no shot is fired. The mere display of a firearm causes the criminal to rethink whether he wants to go up against even odds of being hurt or killed.
And so, even if gun control worked so well that it magically removed all the guns, it would be an injustice against the innocent, and against the physically weaker, or poorer members of society. The strong would prey on the weak with impunity.
More in Part II...
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