America And Guns

[OraProMe]

I was wondering what the whole deal with guns in America is? It seems to be a much bigger issue in America than other Western countries. I really don't know a lot about the issue so was wondering if someone could explain what the deal with Americans and guns is. A satirical news program in Australia once said that in some states of America the republicans were protesting against a decision to not allow mentally disabled people to carry guns. What the......

Do you guys consider it a right for a man to own a gun? My international politics teacher spoke about this at length a while ago but he's very left-wing so I was wondering what some of you guys think about the issue. Why the big deal about fire arms?

Edited November 9, 2009 by OraProMe

[Nihil Obstat]

I think it's a bigger issue in the US than elsewhere mostly because it's very explicitly in their constitution, and they've always had it. Nobody in Canada considers it their right to own a gun, probably simply because it's always been restricted.

[OraProMe]

Why on earth was it put in the constitution? Why is it still in the constitution? I'm sure times must have changed...

[BG45]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' date='08 November 2009 - 08:06 PM' timestamp='1257725173' post='1998483']
I think it's a bigger issue in the US than elsewhere mostly because it's very explicitly in their constitution, and they've always had it. Nobody in Canada considers it their right to own a gun, probably simply because it's always been restricted.
[/quote]

Mainly this that Nihil said.

My personal favorite is the type of person who hears the words "gun control" and automatically thinks people who advocate "gun control" want to ban all guns. For instance, I believe in gun control. Do I think people have a right to defend themselves with a gun? Sure, why not, the Second Amendment seems to say it's okay. Do I think a person needs an AK-47 assault rifle or an Israeli made Uzi sub-machine gun to do so? Not so much. Do I have family members who disagree with my opinion as to the latter in my extended family...most definitely.

Edit:
[quote]Why on earth was it put in the constitution? Why is it still in the constitution? I'm sure times must have changed... [/quote]

To the first, British rule, Revolutionary War/War of Insurrection, volunteer based armies, etc. To the second; ask a room full of people that question and you'll get a large and varied amount of answers ranging from "society glorifies violence" to "why change a good thing that's worked all these years" to "the NRA and like minded groups pay millions to hundreds of millions of dollars to lobbyists to make sure it stays that way".

This is just a personal opinion, but even if we did outlaw private possession of firearms except in extreme circumstances, like the United Kingdom, people would still die to: A) Illegal Guns B)Other weapons. Americans tend to like their individual liberties a bit much to be told by the government they must present identification before buying a pizza cutter because it can be used to stab a man.

Edited November 9, 2009 by BG45

[KnightofChrist]

[quote name='OraProMe' date='08 November 2009 - 07:10 PM' timestamp='1257725405' post='1998487']
Why on earth was it put in the constitution? Why is it still in the constitution? I'm sure times must have changed...
[/quote]

Because it is a unalienable Right to defend the lively hood of person, family and property. From Government, fellow citizens, and invading armies.

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='OraProMe' date='08 November 2009 - 08:10 PM' timestamp='1257725405' post='1998487']
Why on earth was it put in the constitution? Why is it still in the constitution? I'm sure times must have changed...
[/quote]
Because using the broadsword to defend kith and kin is a bit outdated.

[Veridicus]

[quote name='OraProMe' date='08 November 2009 - 07:10 PM' timestamp='1257725405' post='1998487']
Why on earth was it put in the constitution? Why is it still in the constitution? I'm sure times must have changed...
[/quote]

They're wouldn't be an American Consitution had pre-US colonists not had guns with which to defend their ideals of liberty. Perhaps the founding fathers realized how perniciously government can take away your rights. I've never really studied it, and perhaps it sounds "outdated" or "fundamentalist", but I think the right to bear arms is a guarantee that a citizen is never just a face to be stepped on and a people can stand up to its government...just like the founding father's did in the Revolution.

Obviously no one wants the horrible bloodshed of a war, but the availability of gun ownership by the populace may be another safeguard against a government that wants to take their rights away.

I do not own a gun btw.

[CatherineM]

Winfield Hancock who was a Union General at Gettysburg was elected president of the National Rifle Association in the 1880's. He said, "The object of the NRA is to increase the military strength of the country by making skill in the use of arms as prevalent as it was in the days of the Revolution."

When WWII broke out, a large percentage of men weren't fit for duty because of the affects of malnutrition during the Great Depression. It led to the start of the school lunch program in the US. Today, 50% of all highschool seniors are unfit for duty due to being overweight, and 25% due to hearing damage from iPods and the like. I was raised in a time and place where it was considered our duty to learn how to use a rifle, a sword, a bow, and ride a horse.

When you come right down to it, a country's security is in the capability of individual citizens to defend it. If foreign troops were to come up my street, I would gladly take a spot on the roof and pick off as many as I could. At least I would had I been allowed to bring my rifle into Canada.

[elizabeth09]

[img]http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1358/1079313492_f08c45c575.jpg[/img]

[OraProMe]

[quote name='KnightofChrist' date='08 November 2009 - 07:13 PM' timestamp='1257725617' post='1998490']
Because it is a unalienable Right to defend the lively hood of person, family and property. From Government, fellow citizens, and invading armies.
[/quote]

"From Government"

But in America the government is elected by the citizens (the people with the right to the guns) so why would they need protection from something they chose? Not to mention a democratic government has limitations to its power and we have human rights. Obama can't come into your house, tear down your crucifix and abduct your wife.

"fellow citizens,"

Most Western countries don't give citizens the right to own guns without restriction and they don't suffer from higher crime rates than America. I include my own country in that. In fact don't you think that allowing citizens to have easy access to guns may just be creating a problem? I'm thinking of the large number of class room massacres America has had in the last decade.

"invading armies."

Isn't that why you have an army? I mean especially America! You are numerically and technologically superior to all other foreign armies so if your military can't protect your country from invaders then I doubt civillians with guns could.

[OraProMe]

[quote name='elizabeth09' date='08 November 2009 - 08:50 PM' timestamp='1257731409' post='1998564']
[img]http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1358/1079313492_f08c45c575.jpg[/img]
[/quote]

I'm not criticizing. I'm interested/confused.

[elizabeth09]

Well, there were some bad images when I type in America And Guns, and then I thought that just the Amercian Flag with out the guns. I was going to do the guns, and then thought not to do it.

[Norseman82]

[quote name='OraProMe' date='08 November 2009 - 08:58 PM' timestamp='1257731923' post='1998571']
"From Government"

But in America the government is elected by the citizens (the people with the right to the guns) so why would they need protection from something they chose? Not to mention a democratic government has limitations to its power and we have human rights. Obama can't come into your house, tear down your crucifix and abduct your wife.

[/quote]

One would think not, but things are not always as they seem.

The first amendment protects freedom of speech and religion, yet courts in California and New York are forcing Catholic Charities to provide contraceptive coverage. So much for the first amendment, eh?

And speaking of "eh?", in Canada, the human rights commission is fining a clergy member for publishing the Catholic Church's position on homosexuality because it constitutes "hate speech". In the US, there are "hate crimes" laws that are being passed that make sodomites a protected class. How much longer before civil suits will be filed for "incitement to violence" against those who merely quote the Bible?

So, to sum it all up, the second amendment protects the first.

[Era Might]

In my opinion, the problem with American society is not so much the Second Amendment. Rather, the problem is that American Christians are among the most vocal defenders of the Second Amendment.

[quote]You have heard that it was said, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth."

But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; and if any one would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well; and if any one forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to him who begs from you, and do not refuse him who would borrow from you.

--Matthew 5:38-42[/quote]
Note that Our Lord does not speak here of [i]rights[/i]. The Christian vocation ultimately transcends recourse to [i]rights[/i], even when those rights are naturally legitimate. It is sad that American Christians are more known for the Second Amendment than they are for "turning the other cheek." We have become so fixated on a natural [i]right to live[/i] that we have lost our sense of the supernatural [i]vocation[/i] to non-violence. We are so fixated on a natural [i]right to property[/i] that we would shoot a man rather than "let him have your cloak as well" (Matthew 5:40).

As I said, the problem with American society, in my opinion, is not so much the Second Amendment in itself. Rather, the problem is that Christians are not an eschatological witness against the Second Amendment. "You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trodden under foot by men" (Matthew 5:13).

[Jesus_lol]

[elizabeth09]

Second Amendment is the right to bear arms.

http://whoistherealbarackobama.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/070618_sacredright2.jpg.

But see what you mean, Norseman82

Edited November 9, 2009 by elizabeth09

[KnightofChrist]

[quote name='Era Might' date='08 November 2009 - 09:55 PM' timestamp='1257735333' post='1998602']
In my opinion, the problem with American society is not so much the Second Amendment. Rather, the problem is that American Christians are among the most vocal defenders of the Second Amendment.


Note that Our Lord does not speak here of "rights." The Christian vocation ultimately transcends recourse to "rights," even when those rights are naturally legitimate. It is sad that American Christians are more known for the Second Amendment than they are for "turning the other cheek." We have become so fixated on a natural "right to live" that we have lost our sense of the supernatural vocation to non-violence. We are so fixated on a natural right to property that we would shoot a man rather than "let him have your cloak as well" (Matthew 5:40).

As I said, the problem with American society, in my opinion, is not so much the Second Amendment in itself. Rather, the problem is that Christians are not an eschatological witness against the Second Amendment. "You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trodden under foot by men" (Matthew 5:13).
[/quote]

Your position is distributing. Because of the way you misuse scripture. It is well established teaching of Mother Church that everyone has the right to self-defense. The second amendment is the right of self-defense with use of arms.

-------------------------------------------

[url="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13691a.htm"][b]Defense of life and person[/b][/url]

Everyone has the right to defend his life against the attacks of an unjust aggressor. For this end he may employ whatever force is necessary and even take the life of an unjust assailant. As bodily integrity is included in the good of life, it may be defended in the same way as life itself. It must be observed however that no more injury may be inflicted on the assailant than is necessary to defeat his purpose. If, for example, he can be driven off by a call for help or by inflicting a slight wound on him, he may notlawfully be slain. Again the unjust attack must be actually begun, at least morally speaking, not merely planned or intended for some future time or occasion. generally speaking one is not bound to preserve one's own life at the expense of the assailant's; one may, out of charity, forego one's right in the matter. Sometimes, however, one may be bound to defend one's own life to the utmost on account of one's duty of state or other obligations. The life of another person may be defended on the same conditions by us as our own. For since each person has the right to defend his life unjustly attacked, what he can lawfully do through his own efforts he may also do through the agency of others. Sometimes, too, charity, natural affection, or official duty imposed the obligation of defending others. A father ought, for example, to defend the lives of his children; a husband, his wife; and all ought to defend thelife of one whose death would be a serious loss to the community. Soldiers, policemen, and private guards hired for that purpose are bound in justice to safeguard the lives of those entrusted to them.


[b]Defense of property[/b]

It is lawful to defend one's material goods even at the expense of the agressor's life; for neither justice nor charity require that one should sacrifice possessions, even though they be of less value than human life in order to preserve the life of a man who wantonly exposes it in order to do an injustice. Here, however, we must recall the principle that in extreme necessity every man has a right to appropriate whatever is necessary to preserve his life. The starving man who snatches a meal is not an unjust agressor; consequently it is not lawful to use force against him. Again, the property which may be defended at the expense of the agressor's life must be of considerable value; for charity forbids that in order to protect ourselves from a trivial loss we should deprive a neighbor of his life. Thefts or robberies, however, of small values are to be considered not in their individual, but in their cumulative, aspect. A thief may be slain in the act of carrying away stolen property provided that it cannot be recovered from him by any other means; if, for example, he can be made to abandon his spoil through fright, then it would not be lawful to shoot him. If he has carried the goods away to safety he cannot then be killed in order to recover them; but the owner may endeavor to take them from him, and if the thief resists with violence he may be killed in self-defense.

[b]Honor[/b]

Since it is lawful to take life in the legitimate defense of one's material goods, it is evidently also lawful to do so in defense of chastity which is a good of a much higher order. With regard to honor or reputation, it is not lawful to kill one to prevent an insult or an attack upon our reputation which we believe he intends, or threatens. Nor may we take a life to avenge an insult already offered. The proceeding would not be defense of our honor or reputation, but revenge. Besides, in the general estimation honor and reputation may be sufficiently protected without taking the life of the offender.

[b]Sources[/b]
Zigliara, Summa Philosophica, III, I, iii; St. Thomas, Summa Theolgica, II-II, Q lxvii, a. 7; Billuart, Cursus Theolgiae: in II-II St. Thomae, d. X, a. V.

[elizabeth09]

Same thing pretty much. We can hadle guns at anytimes.

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='OraProMe' date='08 November 2009 - 09:58 PM' timestamp='1257731923' post='1998571']
"From Government"

But in America the government is elected by the citizens (the people with the right to the guns) so why would they need protection from something they chose? Not to mention a democratic government has limitations to its power and we have human rights. Obama can't come into your house, tear down your crucifix and abduct your wife.[/quote]

If you give someone power, what is to stop him from abusing it? What limits a 'democratic' State if it decides it doesn't really care whether you want them in power or not? As the French say, "Constitutions are made of paper. Bayonets are made of steel."


[quote]
Most Western countries don't give citizens the right to own guns without restriction and they don't suffer from higher crime rates than America. I include my own country in that. In fact don't you think that allowing citizens to have easy access to guns may just be creating a problem? I'm thinking of the large number of class room massacres America has had in the last decade.[/quote]

No State in the world gives anyone the right to keep and bear arms. God gave us life. God gave us liberty. God gave us the right to defend life and liberty with the best physical means in existence. My owning any defensive weapon I like does not infringe your rights. My right to self-defense with the best means in existence is not dependent upon a piece of parchment with words scrawled upon it by long-dead men, and neither is the existence of my right dependent upon its recognition by any man or body of men.


[quote]
Isn't that why you have an army? I mean especially America! You are numerically and technologically superior to all other foreign armies so if your military can't protect your country from invaders then I doubt civillians with guns could.[/quote]

In a speech in the Constitutional Convention, James Madison (who did not want a Bill of Rights because it might lead people to believe they were the only rights they had, yet who wrote the Second Amendment) said this: "A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty.The means of defence against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Through out all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people."

During the time of the revolution and subsequently, the writing of the Constitution, the citizens of Rutland, Vermont got together and said what they, and the majority of people believed: [font="Verdana"][size="2"]“A regular standing army . . . will be principally composed of the refuse of society, who are destitute of property, and whose idleness and dissipation denies them [/size][/font][size="2"]existence in any other way." [/size](In other words, they join the military because they lead dead-end lives, and feel the need to have every facet of their lives regimented by other men.)

Thomas Jefferson said these things: you can see for yourself what he thought of keeping a standing army, such as the one we have now, a regular army so widely revered in modern America.

[b]"It is more a subject of joy that we have so few of the desperate characters which compose modern regular armies. But it proves more forcibly the necessity of obliging every citizen to be a soldier; this was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free State. Where there is no oppression there can be no pauper hirelings."--Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1813. ME 13:261[/b]

[b]"There are instruments so dangerous to the rights of the nation and which place them so totally at the mercy of their governors that those governors, whether legislative or executive, should be restrained from keeping such instruments on foot but in well-defined cases. Such an instrument is a standing army." --Thomas Jefferson to David Humphreys,1789. ME 7:323

"I do not like [in the new Federal Constitution] the omission of a Bill of Rights providing clearly and without the aid of sophisms for... protection against standing armies." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787. ME 6:387

"Nor is it conceived needful or safe that a standing army should be kept up in time of peace for [defense against invasion]."--Thomas Jefferson: 1st Annual Message, 1801. ME 3:334

"Standing armies [are] inconsistent with [a people's] freedom and subversive of their quiet." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply to Lord North's Proposition, 1775. Papers 1:231

"The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force." --Thomas Jefferson to Chandler Price, 1807. ME 11:160
[/b]
[b]"It is nonsense to talk of regulars. They are not to be had among a people so easy and happy at home as ours. We might as well rely on calling down an army of angels from heaven." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1814. ME 14:207[/b]

[b]"There shall be no standing army but in time of actual war."--Thomas Jefferson: Draft Virginia Constitution, 1776. Papers 1:363[/b]

[b]"The Greeks and Romans had no standing armies, yet they defended themselves. The Greeks by their laws, and the Romans by the spirit of their people, took care to put into the hands of their rulers no such engine of oppression as a standing army. Their system was to make everyman a soldier and oblige him to repair to the standard of his country whenever that was reared. This made them invincible; and the same remedy will make us so." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 1814. ME14:184

"Bonaparte... transferred the destinies of the republic from the civil to the military arm. Some will use this as a lesson against the practicability of republican government. I read it as a lesson against the danger of standing armies." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Adams, 1800. ME 10:154 [/b]
[url="http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1480.htm"]Jefferson on the Standing Army[/url]

Another period quote, from Elbridge Gerry. "What, sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty." Rep. of Massachusetts, I Annals of Congress at 750 (August 17, 1789).

So remember, whenever you speak of the "need" for a standing army, you are contradicting the men who founded this United State, who, despite their flaws, were very wise, and understood immutable human nature.

~Sternhauser

Edited November 9, 2009 by Sternhauser

[Marie-Therese]

Ora, the Second Amendment was originally included to protect the ability of the private citizenry to maintain means of defense of his home and homeland. To quote from the Second Amendment, "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." The American perspective is that individual liberty is paramount; even though we have a standing army, it is a volunteer force, and ultimately the individual is responsible for his/her own protection. Even though the Amendment was largely crafted to accommodate the formation and maintenance of state militias (which were the norm during the Colonial period), Constitutional law has long held that the protections extended to the individual as well as the entity (i.e. militia).

As for me, I believe that it is critical to maintain an ability to protect my home and family from intruders, and though I wish no harm on any person, if my family is threatened I will kill without question. I do own guns. It is not, as Era mentioned, a knee-jerk reaction against being robbed, or a lack of Christian charity. In a world full of Satan's minions, it is not unreasonable to believe that there will be a good possibility that someone would attempt to harm my child. I myself have been robbed at gunpoint. To stand by defenseless while someone harmed my family would not only be a dereliction of duty, it would go against what even the CCC has to say about self defense (see 2264).

My 2 cents.