Christian Viewpoint On The Gun Debate

[FireDragon76]

The Christian point of view is "Thou shalt not kill". I'm personally a pacifist, but I support gun ownership for self defense. Killing isn't the intent.


Political platforms are strange like that. It would seem more logical to me that the pro-lifers should vehemently oppose the death penalty, for instance, whereas pro-choice types should support the death penalty. Even one innocent life taken is too many, in my opinion, and there have been situations where innocent people were wrongly accused and put to death.

The gun debate is similar unless one frames gun ownership as defensive rather than offensive. When criminals can obtain guns illegally, law-abiding citizens need legal access to guns in order to protect their lives and property.

Then again, maybe the criminals will give up their guns if we ask them nicely enough. Just be sure to say "pretty please" when asking.

An AR-15 isn't particularly good for home defense. A shotgun or pistol is much better. The AR-15 is not a personal defense weapon, it's too big and cumbersome for use inside a home, and the rounds present more risk of over-penetration than a pistol or shotgun. It's something that started out being sold to hobbyist as a byproduct of the Cold War, but after the Gulf War, there started to be a cult following around it because people were familiar with the weapon, and it started to have a certain cachet associated with it because of the military connections.

 

[Aldebaran]

Few are talking about bankrupting an industry. Just stopping the sale of unregistered and unlicensed aussault weapons isn't going to bankrupt the gun manufacturing industry.

It's also not going to stop mass shootings. As the MSM always likes to point out in their reports, the shooter purchased the weapons legally.

 

[Aldebaran]

An AR-15 isn't particularly good for home defense. A shotgun or pistol is much better. The AR-15 is not a personal defense weapon, it's too big and cumbersome for use inside a home, and the rounds present alot of risk of over-penetration. It's something that started out being sold to hobbyist as a byproduct of the Cold War, but after the Gulf War, there started to be a cult following around it because people were familiar with the weapon, and it started to have a certain cachet associated with it because of the military connections.

How is a shotgun less cumbersome than an AR15 for home defense? Far more recoil from the shotgun, not to mention needing to rack the slide between shots, which is easy to forget under the stress of the situation. Practice is essential, and the shotgun's recoil can make that unpleasant, especially for women and smaller-statured men.

 

[Niels]

More accurately, "Thou shalt not murder" which is why King David didn't get in trouble for killing Goliath or his "tens of thousands", but did when he had Uriah killed.

I thought about phrasing it as thou shalt not murder, which may carry more of the original intent, but apparently the original word "retzach" can apply to causing death in other ways. However, not in the context of war it seems.

An AR-15 isn't good for home defense. A shotgun or pistol is much better. The AR-15 is not a personal defense weapon, it's too big and cumbersome for use inside a home, and the rounds present alot of risk of over-penetration. It's something that started out being sold to hobbyist as a byproduct of the Cold War, but after the Gulf War, there started to be a cult following around it because people were familiar with it and it started to have a certain cachet associated with it.

Although I don't know much about the specifics, I do know that the AR-15 can be customized for different scenarios. Depending on the kind of home you're defending, and the kind of weapons the local criminals possess, it might be useful for home defense. Probably not great for concealed carry though.

In most cases a pistol should suffice. Better yet, avoid the confrontation altogether. It seems to me that guns should be a last resort.

 

[FireDragon76]

It's also not going to stop mass shootings. As the MSM always likes to point out in their reports, the shooter purchased the weapons legally.

It would be a measure to reduce their severity.

The kinds of injuries that the cops and trauma surgeons saw after the Pules shooting were horrific.

 

[Aldebaran]

I thought about phrasing it as thou shalt not murder, which may carry more of the original intent, but apparently the original word "retzach" can apply to causing death in other ways. However, not in the context of war it seems.


Although I don't know much about the specifics, I do know that the AR-15 can be customized for different scenarios. Depending on the kind of home you're defending, and the kind of weapons the local criminals possess, it might be useful for home defense. Probably not great for concealed carry though.

In most cases a pistol should suffice. Better yet, avoid the confrontation altogether. It seems to me that guns should be a last resort.

For me personally, I actually prefer a 9mm carbine. It's much like an AR, but doesn't have the big muzzle blast which would be deafening indoors. It also uses the same ammo as common pistols.
For maneuvering around inside a home, and keeping a hand free to enable opening doors or holding a phone while calling police, a pistol is more practical (and the only option when carrying). Not as easy to hit your target accurately though.
When it comes to home defense, I believe a firearm is a good first option, but actually firing it at someone should be the last resort. Telling the intruder to surrender or get out would be first. If he raises a firearm at you, or charges at you with a knife, then you've come to your last resort.

 

[Aldebaran]

It would be a measure to reduce their severity.

The kinds of injuries that the cops and trauma surgeons saw after the Pules shooting were horrific.

Same could be said of the 6 killed at the Christian school in Tennessee. The weapon used there was a 9mm carbine which shoots with only about 1/3 the power of an AR15. Capacity isn't as high either. It's basically just a 9mm pistol with a 16" barrel.

 

[JosephZ]

The weapon used there was a 9mm carbine which shoots with only about 1/3 the power of an AR15.

The shooter fired two weapons at the school. An AR15 (126 rounds) and a Kel Tec SUB 2000 (26 Rounds). The children were shot with an AR15.

Fusco said they were in constant contact with the paramedics driving the first three children to the hospital with gunshot wounds from an AR-15. Extra staff from the Vanderbilt adult and VA hospital came to the pediatric ER to help handle any other patients that were injured.

Even with all resources they needed, Fusco said it was already too late to save three shot children, Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and Will Kinney, when they arrived at the ER.

“I wish that we could’ve done more to help,” Fusco said. “I wish that we were able to do something for these children, and I am just so terribly sorry.”

“It’s just a gruesome way of injuring a child,” Fusco said about AR-15 wounds. “Just a tragic and devastating thing to see. I can’t imagine what the family and the community is going through.”

‘We just had no chance’: Doctors recount effort to save Covenant School victims

Three children and three adults were killed in the Covenant School mass shooting on Monday morning.

www.wsmv.com

Capacity isn't as high either. It's basically just a 9mm pistol with a 16" barrel.

A Kel Tec SUB 2000 will accept 30, 31, and 33 round magazines. Also, a 16" barrel will produce a higher muzzle velocity than a 9mm pistol with a 4 or 5 inch barrel, making it more accurate and deadly.

 

[Aldebaran]

The shooter fired two weapons at the school. An AR15 (126 rounds) and a Kel Tec SUB 2000 (26 Rounds). The children were shot with an AR15.

Fusco said they were in constant contact with the paramedics driving the first three children to the hospital with gunshot wounds from an AR-15. Extra staff from the Vanderbilt adult and VA hospital came to the pediatric ER to help handle any other patients that were injured.

Even with all resources they needed, Fusco said it was already too late to save three shot children, Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and Will Kinney, when they arrived at the ER.

“I wish that we could’ve done more to help,” Fusco said. “I wish that we were able to do something for these children, and I am just so terribly sorry.”

“It’s just a gruesome way of injuring a child,” Fusco said about AR-15 wounds. “Just a tragic and devastating thing to see. I can’t imagine what the family and the community is going through.”

Thanks for that correction. In the stories I've seen on TV, they always showed the Kel Tec, but not an AR for some reason.

‘We just had no chance’: Doctors recount effort to save Covenant School victims

Three children and three adults were killed in the Covenant School mass shooting on Monday morning.

www.wsmv.com

A Kel Tec SUB 2000 will accept 31 and 33 round magazines. Also, a 16" barrel will produce a higher muzzle velocity than a handgun with a 4 or 5 inch barrel.

It does put out more power, but not much. A 9mm pistol with a 4" barrel produces around 350 foot lbs. of energy, while the same ammo in a 16" carbine produces around 400 foot lbs. An AR15 produces 1150 foot lbs. For reference, a 12ga. shotgun puts out about 1900 ft. lbs. of energy when shooting 00 Buckshot.

 

[JacksBratt]

I would like to point out that many of the people who want more gun control are the same people who want to allow abortion.

And....... defunding the police?

 

[Eschatologist]

I come down firmly on the side of thou shall not kill. That's about it. Someone should be able to own a gun for whatever reason they want to but they shouldn't use it to kill anyone. But more on point:

Luk 22:35 And He said to them, “When I sent you without money bag, knapsack, and sandals, did you lack anything?” So they said, “Nothing.”

Luk 22:36 Then He said to them, “But now, he who has a money bag, let him take it, and likewise a knapsack; and he who has no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one.

The meaning of that is that at first they weren't sent out very far, only within Israel. But now they were being sent farther away so they would need to take provisions with them for the longer journey, including a sword. Flavius Josephus wrote of the Essenes:

For this reason they make trips without carrying any baggage at all—though armed on account of the bandits.

When they traveled they carried swords for self defense.

The original meaning was actually "thou shall not murder." Killing is very much allowed under certain circumstances -- at least when you go back to the Hebrew words.

 

[Eschatologist]

The problem in America is citizens use guns to hunt other citizens. This makes our society less safe. Now America actually sacrifices lives of our citizens in our worship of guns. As a Christian, I am concerned with the unnecessary loss of lives.

We had gun clubs in high schools in the 50s. There were no school shootings.

It isn't guns that are the problem. It's not having sanitariums anymore and having a society with terrible morals.

 

[PsaltiChrysostom]

School shootings since the 1700s which include just under 20 in the 1950s.

History of School Shootings in the United States | K12 Academics

1700s The earliest known United States shooting to happen on school property was the Pontiac's Rebellion school massacre on July 26, 1764, where four Lenape American Indian entered the schoolhouse near present-day Greencastle, Pennsylvania, shot and killed schoolmaster Enoch Brown, and killed...

www.k12academics.com

Once you get to the 1966 University of Texas massacre, then you start seeing more and more mass shootings as the firepower one person could bring to bear increased.

From the late 1980s to the early 1990s the United States saw a sharp increase in gun and gun violence in the schools. According to a survey conducted by The Harvard School of Public Health "15% said that they had carried a handgun on their person in the past 30 days, and 4% said that they had taken a handgun to school in the past year." a sharp increase from just five years earlier. By 1993, the United States saw some of the most violent time is school shooting incidences.

 

[Brihaha]

We had gun clubs in high schools in the 50s. There were no school shootings.

It isn't guns that are the problem. It's not having sanitariums anymore and having a society with terrible morals.

The most discouraging of these "terrible morals" is how Americans cherish their guns over the lives of neighbors who are sacrificed to the gun deity.

If America is suffering from terrible morals and unnecessary gun violence then one would presume we would have the wherewithal to regulate our civilian militia well. As prescribed by our constitution.

 

[dogs4thewin]

The most discouraging of these "terrible morals" is how Americans cherish their guns over the lives of neighbors who are sacrificed to the gun deity.

If America is suffering from terrible morals and unnecessary gun violence then one would presume we would have the wherewithal to regulate our civilian militia well. As prescribed by our constitution.

People who have those good morals are not the people who do mass shootings or otherwise commit violent crimes with their firearms ( other than maybe being too jumpy and using them too soon in self-defense which does come with a prison sentence, usually.

 

[Brihaha]

People who have those good morals are not the people who do mass shootings or otherwise commit violent crimes with their firearms ( other than maybe being too jumpy and using them too soon in self-defense which does come with a prison sentence, usually.

An ever-growing body of research consistently reaches the same conclusion. The only variable that can explain the high rate of mass shootings in America is our astronomical number of guns in America. Meanwhile, suicide by gun is also peaking in America. We are obviously not a pro-life nation. Suicides account for 54% of gun deaths in the United States.

Why Does the U.S. Have So Many Mass Shootings? Research Is Clear: Guns. (Published 2017)

Americans advance a lot of theories for why they have so many more gun deaths than other countries do. The answer is lying in plain sight.

www.nytimes.com

New gun deaths data in U.S. show continued rise in suicides

Gun control policies aimed at stopping gun homicide deaths and mass shootings could also prevent a less visible tragedy: suicide.

harvardpublichealth.org

 

[dogs4thewin]

An ever-growing body of research consistently reaches the same conclusion. The only variable that can explain the high rate of mass shootings in America is our astronomical number of guns in America. Meanwhile, suicide by gun is also peaking in America. We are obviously not a pro-life nation. Suicides account for 54% of gun deaths in the United States.

Why Does the U.S. Have So Many Mass Shootings? Research Is Clear: Guns. (Published 2017)

Americans advance a lot of theories for why they have so many more gun deaths than other countries do. The answer is lying in plain sight.

www.nytimes.com

New gun deaths data in U.S. show continued rise in suicides

Gun control policies aimed at stopping gun homicide deaths and mass shootings could also prevent a less visible tragedy: suicide.

harvardpublichealth.org

so let me asks you this if in fact most gun deaths are by a person's own hand does that not seem to suggest that the soluation to that would be more mental health treatment? Also as out of the bag as this cat is as it were it is not really worth trying to get rid of even certain guns as there are just millions out there. Moreover, the guns used in the most deaths suicide and otherwise are not the ars or other assault style weapons they are handguns; which funny enough already have both the highest age to legally purchase and the lowest interest in adding more regulations to what that tells me is that people have the wrong idea on which regulations would save the most lives if in fact that is the argument you want to use for more regulations.

 

[RDKirk]

An ever-growing body of research consistently reaches the same conclusion. The only variable that can explain the high rate of mass shootings in America is our astronomical number of guns in America. Meanwhile, suicide by gun is also peaking in America. We are obviously not a pro-life nation. Suicides account for 54% of gun deaths in the United States.

Why Does the U.S. Have So Many Mass Shootings? Research Is Clear: Guns. (Published 2017)

Americans advance a lot of theories for why they have so many more gun deaths than other countries do. The answer is lying in plain sight.

www.nytimes.com

New gun deaths data in U.S. show continued rise in suicides

Gun control policies aimed at stopping gun homicide deaths and mass shootings could also prevent a less visible tragedy: suicide.

harvardpublichealth.org

Guns are an efficient tool for suicide and so often chosen, but if you look at suicide rates themselves, you see that all forms of suicide are rising at the same rates...even suicidal car crashes.

The root of the problem is that life in America makes people crazy.

People talk about getting rid of guns in America like mice talking about belling the cat.

But if going through the enormous level of repression of freedom it would take to rid America of guns--and I'm not just talking about the 2nd amendment, but pretty much all of the Bill of Rights would have to be scrapped in that effort--it wouldn't have been worth it not to have even chopped at the root of the problem.

 

[Brihaha]

so let me asks you this if in fact most gun deaths are by a person's own hand does that not seem to suggest that the soluation to that would be more mental health treatment? Also as out of the bag as this cat is as it were it is not really worth trying to get rid of even certain guns as there are just millions out there. Moreover, the guns used in the most deaths suicide and otherwise are not the ars or other assault style weapons they are handguns; which funny enough already have both the highest age to legally purchase and the lowest interest in adding more regulations to what that tells me is that people have the wrong idea on which regulations would save the most lives if in fact that is the argument you want to use for more regulations.

Far too many guns and far too many irresponsible gun owners in America. We can work on both issues in my view. Failure only occurs when you quit trying, which America has done. Your mental health theory doesn't hold much water either. The first article I linked estimated only 4% of American gun deaths were related to mental health issues. Our mental health data in America is in line with data from other wealthy nations. Only our unnecessary gun violence is out of line with other countries.

 

[RDKirk]

Far too many guns and far too many irresponsible gun owners in America. We can work on both issues in my view. Failure only occurs when you quit trying, which America has done. Your mental health theory doesn't hold much water either. The first article I linked estimated only 4% of American gun deaths were related to mental health issues. Our mental health data in America is in line with data from other wealthy nations. Only our unnecessary gun violence is out of line with other countries.

Wait. All the other articles I've read indicate that at least 50% of gun deaths are suicides. Your second article bears that out. I suspect you're reading the first article wrong.

And suicide is always a mental health issue.