Posted on 05/20/2015 5:54:14 AM PDT by OK Sun
A couple of weeks ago a toddler shot himself in the head after finding a gun under the pillow of his parent's bed. Just days later a police officer accidentally shot his mother at a family wedding while adjusting his jacket. Last year, a nine-year-old girl was being shown how to use an automatic weapon and accidentally killed her instructor. In Idaho a two-year-old boy was shopping at Walmart with his mother and three other children, when he found a gun in his mother's bag; he pulled the trigger and killed her.
Some would argue that these tragic stories are reason enough for people to rethink their attachment to firearms, but apparently not. Not all American Christians are pro-guns of course, but there is a sizeable number who are. One of the more outspoken evangelical proponents of gun ownership is theologian Wayne Grudem, whose arguments I will critique here.
The Second Amendment to the American constitution states: "A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Grudem argues that the reason the Second Amendment was added to the constitution was "to provide another protection against tyranny – to make it harder for any potential dictator or would-be king to take control of the entire nation against the will of the people." This concern is probably not at the heart of the individual gun control debate at the moment as the right to bear arms against a tyrannical dictatorship is a different question as to whether Christians need to own guns now in a stable democratic environment. ...
(Excerpt) Read more at christiantoday.com ...
From the examples given it sounds like stupid people should not own guns.
Sort of a meandering and unfocused piece. The author seems to want to straddle the fence; he needs to come down more firmly on one side or the other, IMO.
“A stable Democratic environment”
I’m still laughing over that one. Ah well. Back to the reloading press.
That was the one I was reaching for too. Sounds like the messiah doesn’t have a problem with self defense. And why doesn’t he? Because Jesus, above all else being both human and God at the same time intmately understands human nature.
CC
Poorly written. I don’t agree with the author, but I could write a better argument for his position than this.
This is totally ignored by the “Christians should do _______ crowd” Just before he went to the Cross, Jesus asked of his Disciples, “Does everyone have a sword? If not, let him sell his cloak and buy one.” A sword in those days was equivalent to a gun now. After the question, he explained his reason for the question.
Actually, the Right to own arms is always centered around the potential need to defend against tyranny. As far as "stable democratic environment' goes, none is. At best there is a balance, precariously maintained between the interests of the populace and the government, and that balance can be disturbed rapidly by a number of factors. Stability is at best, a short-termed illusion throughout history.
It would be pure folly to assume 'it can't happen here', thus, defense against tyranny is always foremost.
In the absence of an armed populace, how long does the writer think stability would be maintained? Only 70 years ago, Britain felt the eyes of a conqueror lusting to invade. Even now, it is infiltrated by multiculturalists who would gladly rule and defile that 'stable democratic environment' with their particular brand of (theocratic) totalitarianism.
The counter argument of course (to self defense) is that it could make gun violence more likely as attackers could increasingly assume their victims are armed
Yes... because we don't want to hinder the goals of someone who wants to attack you. By "Krish's" logic, the assumption an intended victim might be armed is somehow MORE likely to result in violence. Tell that to the family of PVT Rigby, the unarmed British soldier who was beheaded last year on a London street. Did his NOT having a weapon on him lessen the likelihood of violence to anyone other than the muslim swine that killed him?
I noticed none of the examples in the article were about someone protecting themselves or their families with a firearm -
I guess that just never happens.
Maybe Krish should ask some Armenian Christians what they think.
Really? The right to self-defense necessarily means the right to effective self-defense. Even after formal training in attack/defense against a banana (see, for example, Monty Python), fruit is no match for a firearm/lion/weight. Criminals will have firearms, even in countries that ban firearms, and decent people have a God-given right to defend themselves. FedGov doesn't have to provide Glocks to Americans, but no one has a right to prevent us from buying the firearms of our choice.
Disarmament and genocide math.
http://jpfo.org/filegen-a-m/deathgc.htm
The question is without Merritt.
I found Grudem's website (who's from Phoenix, by the way), but haven't found the specifics.
Really? Again they apply an insanely high standard to firearms, but they would never apply the "harm no one" standard to Obamacare as it harms millions of Americans. A sensible person with a firearm can and often does intervene either without harming innocents or with far less harm to innocents than would have been inflicted in the absence of an armed citizen.
Unfortunately, nothing. Modern theology should be Scripture.
Did not Jesus say at the last supper to “sell your cloak for a sword?”
.....Or at the present time, some Iraqi Christians also.
Whoa. Right there he's implying he thinks there may not be but he's "willing" to spot us that one. How nice. This tells me right up front this guy is a disconnected fruit.
... this does not necessarily mean the right to own a gun. There will always be limit to the expression of this right that would include a whole range of military hardware; even Grudem recognises that the private ownership of a "machine gun or anti-tank rocket launcher or an anti-aircraft missile launcher" are unnecessary.
Reductio ad absurdum much?
The counter argument of course is that it could make gun violence more likely as attackers could increasingly assume their victims are armed...
Or, instead of assuming you could look at facts and find just the opposite is true. When would-be criminals believe their victims may be armed, crime rates fall. When strict gun control is enacted and would-be criminals realize their potential victims are relatively defenseless, violent crime increases. This has been seen over and over again in virtually every single place that has enacted or repealed strict gun control.
... not to mention that increased gun ownership means increased gun accidents.
Or not. Accidents usually stem from lack of training, people doing stupid things with firearms. Increasing peoples' exposure-to and training-with firearms reduces this risk.
But the counter arguments are, firstly, that if guns were more highly regulated then it would be a lot harder for potential mass murderers to get hold of guns in the first place.
Yeah, and if only illegal drugs were made, well, more illegal they would be a lot harder to come by too. {snort} This entire paragraph is based on an utterly false premise.
"Police officers go through hours of specialized training to help them discern when the use of deadly force is justified. As we know from not a few front-page tragedies involving police shootings, despite such rigorous training, even the best-trained officers don't always get it right.
Ah, a variation on the appeal to authority fallacy. Even the police get it wrong. Yes, they do. They are human, so are the rest of us. Which would you rather have, a helpless victim, or at least the chance of getting it right? Actual statistics show that you are more likely to be accidentally wounded by police during an armed response to a shooting incident than you are by an armed private citizen intervening. Honestly that one was a surprise to me too, but the facts don't lie.
I believe that an argument can be made for the ownership of guns for sporting and recreational purposes, with the requisite licensing and monitoring.
Oh how nice of you to deign to allow us to exercise our rights - as long as you have enough control. Jack**s.
Then he launches into a completely apples and oranges comparison with Canada, not even citing similar numbers. Muddled thinking is, well, muddled thinking I guess.
In short, this guy is an idiot. Not name calling, he really is an idiot.
Really? We have seen governments turn far uglier even than FedGov at its worst in the USA today. A prerequisite before government can oppress the people without restriction is licensing and registration that allows government thugs to disarm the citizenry. One of the most unchristian things we could do would be to permit this sort of registration, knowing that the only purpose of such government tracking of all weapons would be confiscation and stomping out all resistance to future tyranny. The number of innocents who die because of a disarmed citizenry is far higher than the numbers who die from morons who store/use their firearms in an unsafe manner. A Christian has a moral obligation to prevent those deaths.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.