More on Gun Laws

James Martin, S.J.:

Of course, violent people use guns in violence. We can’t prevent people from being violent – apart from a miracle of God’s grace – but we can prevent said violent people from having access to guns.

Christians should be leading the way toward the revision of gun laws in the USA. Do I hear an Amen?

This priest is pushing to say this: Not what does the Constitution provide a right for, but how does the cross compel us to live?

But our revulsion over these crimes, and our sympathy for victims, may be more than an invitation to prayer.  Such deep emotions may be one way that God encourages us to act.  Simply praying, “God, never let this happen again” is insufficient for the person who believes that God gave us the intelligence to bring about lasting change.  It would be as if one passed a homeless person and said to oneself, “God, please help that poor man,” when all along you could have helped him yourself.

These shootings would not have happened if the shooter did not have such easy access to firearms and ammunition.  So religious people need to be invited to meditate on the connection between the more traditional “life issues” and the overdue need for stricter gun control.  The oft-cited argument, “Guns don’t kill people, people do,” seems unconvincing.  Of course people kill people; as people also procure abortions, decide on euthanasia and administer the death penalty.  Human beings are agents in all these matters.  The question is not so much how lives are ended, but how to make it more difficult to end lives.

Pro-life religious people need to consider how it might be made more difficult for people to procure weapons that are not designed for sport or hunting or self-defense.  Why would anyone be opposed to firmer gun control, or, to put it more plainly, laws that would make it more difficult for mass murders to occur?  If one protests against abortions clinics because they facilitate the taking of human life, why not protest against largely unregulated suppliers of firearms because they facilitate the taking of human life as well?