Very thoughtful Scot== really the question you raise is who should change the rules. Your argument is basically,
“times have changed” with a pinch of “maybe it was wrong to begin with”. Ok–so isn’t that why we have an amendment process? And isn’t that the better way to change your constitution (even if you don’t like it on this issue, what if it were to take away a right you did care about, or to create a “right” you though conflicted with other values (like privacy rights vs. unborn children perhaps)?
The issue really is what is the proper role of the supreme court versus the amendment process.

I’m always interested in the ‘apparent’ difference in the meaning of the word freedom between the culture I am used to (UK,NZ) and my limited exposure to how I see the US system being structure. Although my understanding is limited, it “seems” to me that in the US freedom means freedom TO DO something (i.e. carry a weapon) whereas my background says that freedom means freedom FROM certain things (i.e. the populace carrying weapons). . I wonder how much this nuance effects how judges/the public view the role of permissive laws such as the constitutional amendments you discuss. . . although I would be WAY off the mark.

Excellent post Scot, as usual. Perhaps some day we can convince you to come visit Ireland; where even the cops don’t carry guns. We seem to be doing alright…

As I understand it the Supreme Court decision was against a total and outright ban. They did not deny a right to restrictions or some controls.
Times have changed – and perhaps the constitution should be changed – but was not the intent in the constitution that an armed populace can resist tyranny whereas an unarmed populace is at the mercy of the powers? The right to bear arms is part of the recognition of the people as the power.

Scot,
I agree 100% with how you said: “No one, so far as I can see, needs to have a handgun, live and loaded, on them in public. No one. But cops.” But this is still only a fraction of the issue: no one in DC was allowed to own a handgun, much less carry one. And is it really a different age from the 17th century?
http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/dccrime.htm

I am really not one who advocates gun ownership rights, but the post and comments so far have concerned me on 2 fronts.
First, there seems to be a lack of recognition of the defensive element of gun ownership. RJS did mention of tyranny concern, but family protection must be included as well. Gun ownership advocates see this issue from a “defense” point of view, not an “offense” point of view.
Second, we need to be very careful with the idea of changing the Constitution (the Bill of Rights no less) with a “times have changed” argument. Before you know it, some may use that same argument to remove the freedom of speech, assembly, and religion.

I think it is true, times have changed. And Scot, I couldn’t agree with you more. As to RJS’ comment, I would hope that people who follow Jesus would be able to find new ways to exercise the power of the people, especially in the resistance of tyranny. I’m not convinced that the best response I could muster to someone’s oppression would be to bear arms against them. Jesus’ call to nonviolence is just too compelling for me.

Very well put Scott. No one needs guns. What gets me is that when people even raise the issue of gun control in cities to protect the public, all the gun owners who use guns for hunting only, who wouldn’t be affected, get all riled up about it. The NRA is too strong.
In the UK even the police don’t usually carry guns (there are some exceptions) – here’s a couple of stories of off duty British Police officers tackling crime whilst on holiday in New York!
From 1999: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/293285.stm
From 2004: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/leicestershire/3958359.stm

Scot, the other side of the coin that is your title (“I don’t care if it is law, it just seems so wrong”) is a line from a long-ago Christian comedy album called Tiptoe Through the Tithers: “It must be the will of the Lord ’cause it seems so right to me.” Both points of view don’t reflect much prayer having gone on regarding whatever subject is being talked about.
Jump to conclusions, that’s the ticket.
Some of the writings of the Founding Fathers indicate that the right to keep and bear arms, in addition to easing the forming of a militia, puts government leaders on notice that the populace will resist government-imposed tyranny as well.
If that is shocking, you don’t know your history.

Bob,
Not that the point isn’t known, but the point is that times have changed. Do you think we should bear arms to prepare ourselves to resist tyranny?

Scot-
Since then, what has changed regarding the potential threat of tyranny?

As a Christian, I will not carry a gun. This is not naive but central to my faith. I wish more Christians would stand up to the destructive “violence solves all problems” ideology of our culture. We could be visible witnesses to another way of living. Like the early Christians (or Mother Teresa in the 20th century: can you imagine her toting a gun for “self defense”?), we could dare to show would love would do. Jesus died, in part, to model for us that love and forgiveness are more powerful than hate and physical violence. Without trying to amend the Constitution (which I believe is impossible in this polarized age) we many Christians could begin living in a way that shows alternatives to violence, starting with rejecting the pervasive and glamorized gun culture. The witness of the Amish after the schoolhouse shooting was quite powerful.

Diane #12-
“Without trying to amend the Constitution (which I believe is impossible in this polarized age) we many Christians could begin living in a way that shows alternatives to violence, starting with rejecting the pervasive and glamorized gun culture.”
Thanks for those good thoughts.

The threat of tyranny has not decreased but how we handel it has. We are creative people, armed revolt against tyranny is not the most constructive way to deal with it. I really hope as followers of Jesus that our solution to dealing with abuses of power arent to shoot at those we dont agree with.

Amen!
Living as a transplanted American in Canada I have come to love their stand on firearms. I grew up with hunters and had all of the gun safety lessons – there is no reason for a hunter to own or carry a handgun unless they are farther down the food chain than what they are hunting.

There is no stock pile of arms any American could use against our government to resist tyranny. They have tanks. They have bombs. Handguns do nothing to enable citizens to resist a tyrannical government.
Handguns do, however, take innocent lives of children every year; they enable disgruntled ex-husbands to kill ex-wives out of vengeance; they create dangerous neighborhoods where drugs are sold which threaten the lives of ordinary poor citizens trying to work and go to school.
I’m with you Scot. I do not understand why we haven’t amended the constitution. Our fetish with arms in America is an irrational attachment to power (power we don’t actually have).
Self-defense against criminals… to me, that argument ought to be evaluated in the context of the inner cities, not the suburbs (which is where I usually hear it debated).

I keep seeing fear as a major factor in both this issue and the previous post re: the Dobson/Obama issue. Fear for our safety, fear of our “religious freedoms” being threatened . . .

Never have owned a firearm (other than my trusty Daisy BB Gun) or plan to, even for hunting, etc. Where I live I certainly don’t need one for protection. Even in parts of our country where people feel they ‘need’ a handgun for safety that need is one largely manufactured out of stereotypes, fear, and a fierce lack of community or at times a lack of regard for the worth of another life; all of which is reinforced by entertainment media, local news, etc.
What is needed though is something that our supreme court, our constitution, or our laws can never a sate. A transformative work must take place in the hearts of our ruptured and shattered communities. The only way that transformation can begin is through the revelation of the cross. We can agree that is not the current reality, but at the end of the day is not the Gospel of the Kingdom one of transformation from a state of realism, to a robust and fulfilled idealism? In other words we can not argue simply from a realistic viewpoint, but from one of hopeful and progressive transformation? Our communities can and could change if we systemically begin to destroy the walls that have created our ghettoized existence by working to reveal God’s Kingdom.
At the end of the day has this ‘wrong’ decision left a rupture wide enough that the healing work of Christ and his body can step in and work to heal at a level no law crafted by a fallen nation in a fallen world ever could?

What about the right to defend my wife and children or co-workers from an armed robbery, home invasion, etc. I live in the DC Metro area where some neighborhoods and business districts have very high crime rates. It seems as if the DC ban put law-abiding citizens at a disadvantage as criminals became aware that they most likely would face an unarmed citizen. A good friend of my mine was robbed twice in DC at gunpoint and had he been allowed to carry a gun, I think it would have served as a good deterrent. For the sake of his employees he has now hired an armed guard at his business. But on a practical level, what is the difference if he carries a gun or an armed guard carries one? Where does Christian realism fit into this picture?

I don’t own a gun, but if you make owning a gun illegal, doesn’t it follow that only people who disregard the law will own them, therefore, putting the law abiding citizens at a tremendous disadvantage (and danger)? Also, the VA. Tech shootings are informative. If average citizens can own, carry, and know how to use guns well, the shooter can be put down before he kills so many. Thank goodness there was an armed guard at the church out in CO.

Personally I’m divided on the issue of gun ownership, but what really scares me is hearing people call for an amendment to the constitution.
Rick’s comment is dead on. Our constitution is the lifeblood of our country; it’s what sets us apart as a people. If we cry “times have changed,” and push for a change it will open a floodgate and you’ll have all kinds of well meaning groups of people trying to strip us of our freedoms.

Scott
Would you care to tell us what other aspects of the constitution are in need of revamping due to the change in our historical ‘Sitz Im Leben’?

I agree with Glenn.
It would be great if NO ONE owned guns, but if you ban them, only the criminals have them.

I own guns, but more and more I’ve grappled with how my pro-gun position is associated with, and perhaps a cause of, a violent culture and gun-glorification. In fact, I resent that I feel the need to own a gun “just in case”, just as I resent how much I pay per month for the insurance I don’t use. Still, I’d rather have them with some resentment than live without them.
And – Absolutely – I agree there are ridiculous excesses with violence, a lack of gun safety, and an insistence on the right to bear military-grade weapons. Please point to any other freedom that is free of similar excesses.
If in the event of a home invasion you prefer a rolling pin to a gun, I will hope for the best for your safety. As for me, I’d rather not take that chance and would appreciate the continued right to choose in what way to defend my family.

Glenn,
I live between D.C. and Baltimore and there have been two murders this year in my supposedly safe, affluent neighborhood.
As a Christian, I understand that I might die or my children might die because I won’t carry a gun. But that is a price of my faith. We have to (imho) stand up for breaking the cycle of violence, even if it means dying.
Although it is widely known that the Amish won’t carry weapons or fight to defend themselves and will forgive and do good to those who hate them, I don’t see hoards of gun-wielding criminals descending to exploit the situation. The Amish are largely left alone.
There’s a whole body of stories of people who practiced nonviolence being spared when groups, such as oppressed Native Americans, arose and struck back with force against their oppressors. And almost every culture has its stories of people who diverted violence through using their wits and creativity. This doesn’t always work –but neither do guns as a form of self-defense.

18 -David B- this side of eternity you idealism seems, well, a little to ideal. Sin ain’t going away till Jesus comes back.
Is that drug dealer going to quit carrying because we Christians finally decided to live a civilized community? I really doubt it. Gun laws don’t affect who they are meant to, only the law adiding citizens.
On the other hand, what about turning to the other cheek? Perhaps we shouldn’t force non-christians into Jesus’ teaching, but it’s a teaching that definitely challenges my political stance on guns.

Hmmm. I can feel my more … libertarian, perhaps … past pulling me one direction while the changes I have undergone as a Christian pull me another. I also tend to dissect most of the things people say simply as a matter of course. First, most “criminals” have guns which were obtained through legal sources. If they got them off the black market in America, they largely entered that black market originally as legal guns. Restrictive laws are about cutting off the primary legal sources for illegal handguns. The protection in the US against tyranny today lies mostly in the ability of our police and military to resist orders to behave in a tyrannical manner. I’ve been in the military. No civilian weapons even compare. Fortunately, at this juncture I think it’s a fairly strong protection. Our military and police are hardly mindless and they are formed by our culture. Those are not particularly valid arguments. My perspective was, once upon a time, that a heavily and thoroughly armed population might be a more polite population. But that hasn’t tended to be the case throughout history. Human history is pretty brutal and violent and there are few simplistic answers.
However, the main reason I decided to post was that I was stopped in my tracks by the utter incongruity of this statement.
“Thank goodness there was an armed guard at the church out in CO.”
Off the top of my head, I have no idea what incident that refers to. Nevertheless, I think it would take a long time to unpack everything in that little sentence. The contradictions pile up so quickly it’s mind-twisting. It is sad, though, that of all people Christians tend to remain as full of violence as the world in which we live.

Scot, did you read any of the decision?
First, it is clear that they interpreted the 2nd amendment as giving you a right to protect yourself against people, not bears. The need for self-defense has not changed. And it has been shown time and again that outlawing guns only ensures that only the criminals will have them.
After 30 years of this ban in DC, did crime go down? No, it is the murder capital of this country. Now the innocent are allowed to protect themselves. I’m sorry if that idea conflicts with your Anabaptist leanings. Not everyone is Anabaptist.
Denying people the ability to protect themselves is wrong. It’s also dumb. Even if every single gun on the planet was taken away, you’d never stop murder. If I recall correctly, murder was invented a few years before gunpowder.
Second, as Scalia put it “Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded … That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct.” If you don’t like the 2nd Amendment, you have to amend it out; don’t ask the courts to do it for you. If they’re willing to do that, the 1st may be the next one to go.
Third, the opinion leaves open the legality of denying gun ownership to felons and the mentally ill and requiring licenses to own handguns. It doesn’t even touch on concealed (or otherwise) carry of firearms.
I think it was a well-reasoned and carefull wrought. And if you believe in the rule of law (ala Rom 13), constitutionally, they had no choice but rule as they did.

Ronjung,
Perhaps it is also the ‘right to bear’ arms that helps put weapons in the hands of ‘criminals’. In societies where firearm use is not a right, put a privelage, police are empowered to remove weapons from criminals – becasue their firearms lisences would be revoked, thus making their carriage a crime. Law abiding citizens are still able to have weapons provided they are lisenced and carried/used in an appropriate manner. Where the carriage of firearms is a right of all, police cannot confiscate weapons or revoke lisences.
As for the self defence argument (Glen, others) – Allowing the carriage of firearms seems to be a quick fix solution to much greater issues such as what constitutes appropriate defence? Should you be able to carry any kind of weapon that is available, or just certain types? How much force can be legally directed against a potential ‘intruder’? Should a citizen be able to pre-empt force with greater or equal force? Can personal defensive measures be taken into the public space (i.e. carrying my gun on thestreet to ‘protect my family’ whilst out shopping?

As I read the comments I’m bemused to find so many people who would decry any attempt to push the Christian faith on anyone suddenly thinking the second amendment should be struck down because of their religious leanings.
Way to be consistent guys.
Oh, and Phil Style, American rights are, first and foremost, freedoms from government interference. We had a nasty experience with a strong central government, and our Constitution is the product of that era.

Re Scot (#10): Not that the point isn?t known, but the point is that times have changed. Do you think we should bear arms to prepare ourselves to resist tyranny?
Sorry to be so long in replying. I had to run out to my local gun store…just kidding.
I do not agree that times have changed. And people haven’t changed either. Still sinful. Still struggling. Only the technology is different.
To answer your question, I think if someone doesn’t bear arms, tyranny will be encouraged at home and abroad. Look at Germany between the World Wars. It changed very suddenly. We could too. But I personally do not own a weapon. Maybe that’s being spiritual. Maybe it’s only passing the buck.
Pray for me and I’ll pray for you. Let us both pray for our country and our world.

I’ll weigh in with two thoughts:
First, if I were to have a gun, it wouldn’t help me resist a tyrannous government. At least not today. If the government wants to root me out, they’d have more than I defend with a pistol. So, the tyranny thing doesn’t really work for me.
Second, this is about gun control and prohibiting thugs from having guns. I can’t believe legal purists want to argue that thugs can have guns because we have the right to bear arms. That makes absolutely no sense.

Scot,
Canada would welcome you. C’mon up here, the fishing’s great, the beer is tasty, and I think you’ll be happier with the gun laws… which are much more sane. Having not gone to war with England, we did not pass a constitution a few years after the hostilities ended with memories of citizens fighting soldiers so fresh that we decided to enshrine the right to bear arms to protect the Union. Canada was, however, once invaded by the USA resulting in a brief war which was won by Canada decisively enough that no recurrence has been forthcoming. And it’s been pretty much peaceful around here ever since.

Bob,
Do you really believe having guns would have prevented WWII? What about countries without guns? Do they show the invasion of tryrants? Doubt it.
Yes, indeed, pray and preach and embody the kingdom — and without guns as our defense.

Brother Maynard,
You Canadians … calling that a “war”? … it was nothing but a dust-up between a few trappers.
The real battles are in the winter on the ice rink, which you always win, and in the summer, on a baseball fied, which we always win.
We’re at peace because we let one another win.

I can?t believe legal purists want to argue that thugs can have guns because we have the right to bear arms.
No, Scot, this opinion allows to forbid thugs guns. The problem is that in DC only the thugs have guns.
And, no, we can’t stand up to a conventional army with modern sidearms. But we’d never be fighting the whole army, anyway. Anyhow, I think it’s more about letting government think it owns you rather than reminding it that it supposed to be the other way around.

Diane (comment #25),
Thank you for your comments. Thoughtful as always.
But the one thing I wrestle with are statements like “As a Christian, I understand that I might die or my children might die because I won?t carry a gun.” My friend had to hire an armed guard or face the constant fear of employees and everything that goes along with that fear – calling in sick, loss of employees, etc. Could he justify not having an armed guard or carrying a gun himself with the belief that “As a Christian, I understand that I might die or my employees might die because I won?t carry a gun.” How would he explain this belief to family members of an employee who is injured and unable to work for a prolonged period of time or even worse, explain the death of an employee? Sure I can understand that I might die because I won?t carry a gun, but can I sacrifice my wife or children when they desire to be protected and trust me to do what I am able to protect them? Was this not part of my marriage vows and the covenant oath I took before God and man?
“And almost every culture has its stories of people who diverted violence through using their wits and creativity. This doesn?t always work ?but neither do guns as a form of self-defense.” If I have stopped someone from harming and even possibly killing my wife, kids, or employees than guns have worked as a form of self-defense from my perspective, even if less than ideal and far from perfect. But I agree, we need to hear more stories of people who diverted violence through using their wits and more stories of people who diverted violence through creativity. As a Christian, I want to hear those stories!

From the Time piece:
In one of two dissenting opinions, Justice John Paul Stevens called Scalia’s argument “strained and unpersuasive.” He also blistered the majority for its expansive reading of the Amendment’s “ambiguous” text. “Until today, it has been understood that legislatures may regulate the civilian use and misuse of firearms so long as they do not interfere with the preservation of a well-regulated militia,” Stevens wrote. “The Court’s announcement of a new constitutional right to own and use firearms for private purposes upsets that settled understanding.”

26 Taylor -
Taylor thanks for the response! Indeed it is overly simplistic and idealistic to assume that a transformation could happen.
I think maybe I would restate my thoughts this way. Banning handguns is a band aid on a wound that needs sutures. I think for a lot of people the handgun ban helped them feel good, when at the end of the day it accomplishes in most respects the reverse of the intent, making people less safe.
My question is why are we so quick to ban a handgun only to loose sight and forget the systemic root of our problem, sin nature?
As a general thought, I think using terms such as fallen world, or this side of eternity are only phrases that give us a mental pass to say, ‘oh well’ and sit on it.
There is a deeper undercurrent to this issue than the face issues of safety, and security. We as the body of Christ must begin to become less and less controlled by the mindset of this world and what it wants us to believe is possible. I can only hope boldly and with a sense of personal action my friend, I know no other way.

Apparently the “settled understanding” of which Justice Stevens speaks wasn’t so settled.

Scto M said ?Thank goodness there was an armed guard at the church out in CO.?
Off the top of my head, I have no idea what incident that refers to.
This refers to the recent news of a gunman who killed and then entered New Life Church in Colorodo Springs, Co. with the intent to kill more. He was shot by a security guard on staff at the church and thus more deaths were prevented. This brings up a great point, with several gunman having targeted religious centers and churches, how would one approach the philosophy of a church having armed security guards hired to defend and kill if necessary someone who seeks to kill?

Sorry, Scott M

It isn’t a “new constitutional right.” According to the majority opinion, it’s right there in the Second Amendment, been there all along.

Another two cents…here in my town of Kansas City hardly a day goes by where you don’t read of someone being shot somewhere around the city…usually fatally…I would be all for a TOTAL ban on firearms if you could enforce it but you can’t…the “thugs” will always find ways to get guns…I have to admit I have gotten to the point where I’m wanting to see the story of the home invaders who were shot by the homeowner who was armed…I think a big problem is the whole hip-hop culture which glorifies young males being “gangsters” and shamefully my own Episcopal church has embraced that culture and even based a prayer-book on it (God help us)…Blessings!!

#28 Chris B
I can’t say I’m with you on all you’ve written here but I think the core of the debate for me is this:
“If you don?t like the 2nd Amendment, you have to amend it out; don?t ask the courts to do it for you.”
Assuming we agree with the 2nd Amendment is outdated, the most efficient and utilitarian way is for the Court to just declare it outdated and move on. But what about when that efficiency and utilitarianism is applied to other areas? Make change too efficient and you invite tyranny. Make change too difficult and you invite revolution.
The framers intentionally made Constitutional change hard. The courts interpret. The people set policy. That it would be difficult today to change the 2nd Amendment, and that it would likely require a generation or two of persistent effort to make it happen, is the price we pay to keep barriers against either individual tyrants or against occasional radical populist movements.
I?ve written here at JC about economic freedom and free markets. I?ve repeatedly noted that the ?free? in ?free markets? is a relative (not absolute) freedom, just as we Americans know that ?free speech? is not absolute, in that we don?t allow slander, libel, perjury, incitement to violence, etc. Yet I find when I use the term ?free markets? that for many it conjures up images of pursuit of unbridled efficiency and mindless utilitarianism manipulated by an oligarchy with economic power. When I hear others suggesting the Court go beyond interpretation to achieve ?more just ends? I hear unbridled efficiency and mindless utilitarianism manipulated by an oligarchy with political power.
I think we all need to resist the utilitarian spirit of our age and develop more holistic visions of polity that balance powers and spheres of living within society.

Doesn’t anybody think it curious that Washington, DC with its most rigid control laws is the *murder* capitol of the USA? Walk into your local police station and simply ask the question never reported on in the (left-leaning) newspapers: How many violent crimes are stopped by *civilians* legally bearing arms? You will be astounded.
Does anybody remember Waco and the God-ordained U.S. government incinerating many *innocent* people? I am not so sure that some of us don’t have a very naive vision of the US goverment’s ability to become a tyrannical evil.
I am not addressing Christians and guns but the US Constitutional right for its citizens to bear them legally.

There’s a difference between gun control and outright banning. The “thugs” of which you speak, Scot, for the most part own guns illegally already. The Court’s ruling didn’t change their status at all.
But let’s say we favor an outright ban, perhaps along the lines of phil_style (#29 – although I think there are deep problems with that logic). The question becomes, “What methods are necessary and appropriate to achieve such a goal?” And as long as we want to pretend to still have a Constitutional government, I think the necessary method must be a constitutional amendment. Diane (#12) argues that it may be “impossible in this polarized age” to amend the Constitution. That may be so; hence the allure of having the Court “interpret” in such a way as to bypass the amendment process. But that is, quite frankly, authoritarianism. Its appeal lies in the fact that it is more efficient than democratic government; it is also thereby much more dangerous.
If we believe in separation of powers at all, then we must recognize that there are certain things that the Court is not entitled to do, as much as we may want it to do it. If we want to disagree with authoritarianism in circumstances we don’t like (e.g., the “imperial presidency”), we can’t logically agree with it in circumstances we do like (e.g., an “activist court”). The fact that we’ve already gone down that road to some extent is no argument for continuing down it.

Comment #46 should read, “…with its most rigid gun control laws is…”

45,
I don’t think the Supreme Court CAN declare a constitutional amendment outdated. The Constitution, as I understand it, is the supreme law of the land. Other laws can be struck down as not conforming to it, but the Supreme Court cannot do anything about the Constitution itself. Not, of course, that they wanted to. I won’t comment about the 2nd amendment itself, since I’m still very conflicted about it.
But I will say that I’m very disturbed by the idea of armed guards at churches. I think the Christian response to armed attacks should absolutely not be to kill in return. Even if that killing is to save lives. I think Jesus calls us to say “I would die for you, but I won’t kill for you.” And that’s hard as hell but the gospel is hard sometimes.

Scot-
One of the few times I’ve had pause with something you’ve written: “Thug” to me places a derogatory statement against black men with guns, generally speaking. I wonder if you can’t use another word.

Tyler #49,
I read Scot’s use of “thug” and I saw a fat white guy who bullies people. I don’t think we need to define thug for Scot and the readers here.

Scot, I think Stevens is being disingenuous. A guy who has no problem suddenly finding a right to infanticide is concerned that the court suddenly “found” a right to bear arms? Come on.
And since he knows full well that SCOTUS has had very little to say on the 2nd amendment, it’s not like there was this great “settled understanding” to get overturned. The states were doing what they wanted and could get away with. (Incidentally, they still can; this ruling only applies to DC because it is under federal control. It will have to be carried to the states through future suits.) And since the states were doing very different things, it’s hard to say that any one pov was the settle understanding.
Michael, I think I’m agreeing with you. The Consitution is hard to change for a reason. If SCOTUS can change the Constitution (rather than just discern what it means and whether we’re following it), then there is a non-democratic method for changing our Constitution. We go from republic to oligarchy. We don’t want that.
A lot of the reaction I’m seeing acts like the court just struck down all gun control laws. It didn’t. It just said you can’t deny law-abiding, mentally sound citizens the means to defend themselves.

Well, I can certainly agree with many of the sentiments expressed in the comments regarding Christians opting out of the “gun culture.” However, I also agree with the thought that if this is something we want to change, we need to change it in the Constitution. If we do an end run around the 2nd amendment, what’s to keep others from using the same logic to circumvent other amendments?
Also, Scot, have you been challenged as to the logic of “we must have gun control to keep guns out of the hands of thugs” argument? Without going to a cliche, let me just say that I believe there is plenty of evidence that mostly what is achieved by many gun control efforts is to disarm law-abiding people while leaving guns in the hands of ne’er-do-wells.

Travis (#48), because we permit the Supreme Court to be the final say as to what is and isn’t constitutional, they effectively amend the Constitution by saying something doesn’t conflict with it when it obviously does.
For example, someone could bring up a horrendous method of capital punishment (think of something truly vile); if SCOTUS lets it stand, if they say there is no punishment too cruel, then they’ve effectively amended the Constitution to remove the prohibition against cruel punishments.
In this case, if SCOTUS had said that the 2nd amendment doesn’t apply to individuals (which is what 4 of them said), then the official interpretation would be that it doesn’t apply to individuals — despite the fact that grammatically it pretty obviously does.

Tyler,
I have not tried to connect “thug” with African American males; in fact, in my mind was the mafioso more than anything else.
Derek and others,
Yes, of course; it requires change in the Amendment. So, instead of fighting that out, we have courts who render judgments and on this one the Supreme Court may have just expanded the law enough to end many gun restrictions. I’m not giving a slippery slope argument here, for only time will tell how much entailment there is in this new decision.
My point remains the same: we need to do something now and serious about handguns. What DC and Chicago have done was, in my judgment, a step in the right direction.

ChrisB,
Not sure that it was “individuals” so much as non-militia individuals, with the emphasis on non-militia.

Where are “T” and “Duane” when we need them?

Scot:
I’m glad we have two guns in our home. I hear about home invasions. When I am out of town, I encourage my wife to have a gun ready to protect my family. When lawful people can’t own guns, only the criminals have them. Guns would be as hard for criminals to get as heroine. Sorry, but you are being naive on this political point. The need for protection hasn’t gone away since 1789 (or whenever the constitution was ratified).
Derek Leman

Scot (et al),
Alright, first, I might be a total pacifist myself, based on my trust of Jesus. And, though it pains me as a lawyer with strong constitutional interests, I’ll not even comment on whether the Supremes’ call on the constitutional question was wrong. I’d rather talk about the policy question–’the problem’, as you defined it: “Who is our problem? Let?s agree to call them thugs. Cracked Eikons who are carrying guns to kill other human beings who are unarmed.”
If that is the problem, John Frye has pointed out the chief objection to the ‘solution’ of large scale bans, which bears repeating: “Washington, DC with its most rigid control laws is the *murder* capitol of the USA[.] Walk into your local police station and simply ask the question never reported on in the (left-leaning) newspapers: How many violent crimes are stopped by *civilians* legally bearing arms? You will be astounded.” We don’t understand how
From the data I’ve seen (it’s been a while–I’m open to see more), violent crime isn’t often reduced in the US by an unarmed citizenry. In fact, as John points out, such crime is often both deterred and physically stopped by an armed citizenry. ‘Thugs’ here are generally more deterred by a potential victim having a weapon than they are about prison or maybe eventually getting the death penalty. And as the ‘drug war’ has amply demonstrated, gun bans don’t mean there won’t be lots and lots and lots of guns available for the ‘thugs who are carrying guns to kill other human beings who are unarmed’. My point being that the ‘times we’re in’ argument swings both ways, and doesn’t generally help the cause of banning guns, if reducing violent crime is the goal.

Well, Scot, as Scalia wrote, where else in the Const does a “right of the people” apply to anyone other than all the people?

Sorry for no con law bits! I’ll check back later! I’m really working heavy today!

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was once asked why the Russians didn’t resist the horrific actions of their governors. He replied that the guns had been taken from the citizens He said you could not fight guns with rocks. I think we surely would acknowledge Solzhenitsyn as someone in the family who has something valuable to say from the basis of experience. I don’t think either point of view here can be easily dismissed. I think it would take significant work to even come to any kind of conclusion to Scot’s questions in #34. I read an article in Atlantic magazine many years ago by a Catholic scholar who said that we shouldn’t form our conclusions based on what a mere four or five scholars taught. This really struck me, then and now.

Scot,
And of course the immediate response to the decision on DC was a challenge to the Chicago law – which is likely to fall.

Thug: perhaps the reason it connoted black males to some here is the association with “Thug Life” as expressed by Tupac Shakur (the rapper who helped write/create a code of conduct for those “thugs” who were living that life and needed some way to reign in the excesses that were resulting in pointless deaths… and of course, he wound up being a victim of gun violence himself).

What always frustrates me in these discussions is that it begins and ends around a right to own a gun. As if that’s the solution. To my eyes it’s the typical American approach of building the (more expensive in money and suffering) hospital at the bottom of the cliff rather than building the guard rail at the top (i.e. building the prison at the bottom of the cliff vs. investing in kids and schools at the top). You have to start somewhere.
The other important issue here was the trumping of the local rights of DC to make decisions for their public safety. Why doesn’t DC have the right to do this? There are some impressive examples of the impact of broader gun laws lowering violent crime in places like Massachusetts – and there are reverse examples of loosening laws creating a much more violent atmosphere, e.g. Florida. Certainly crime will not change overnight in DC with such a ban – particularly as long as gund can be trafficked in from surrounding communities.

Ryan, when Texas legalized concealed carry (with license), violent crime went down. How is that bottom of the cliff?

My point is that thug is associated with the names of rap groups of black men, so automatically a black person is going to believe that “thug” is directed towards them.

Ryan #65-
“The other important issue here was the trumping of the local rights of DC to make decisions for their public safety. Why doesn?t DC have the right to do this?”
The problem appears to be that it was actually DC that attemped to trump the constitutional rights of its citizens.

sorry, #68 should read “…DC that attempted…”.

Scot, I’ve been reading your blog for a long time, and have enjoyed doing so. I’m afraid, however, that I couldn’t disagree with you more here. SCOTUS was absolutely right to render the decision they did. In fact, I’m terribly ashamed and frustrated that it wasn’t a unanimous decision. It certainly should have been. The problem is that, regardless of laws or constitutional amendments, thugs are thugs. They don’t care whether it’s legal or illegal to carry a gun. They’re going to do it anyway. Removing from law-abiding citizens the freedom to pursue self-protection is a tragedy-in-waiting, fish-in-a barrel situation. Too, there may come a day when we need to take up arms against our own government (the original intent of the second amendment). Are you seriously saying now that the government should have the right to remove from us the last vestige of protection against it? Again, a tragedy in waiting.
No, I don’t own a gun. No, I’m not an anti-American, survivalist, militia nutcase.

the best way to protect our families from thugs is to transform neighborhoods and fight poverty. The best way to protect ourselves from tyranny is to get involved in politics at all levels (local elections are important), assuring ourselves that men of integrity are being elected and that our democratic system is self-perpetuating.
Hand guns are a moot point in these issues, and having them around continues to make the worst of crimes easier to commit.

Kacie, No your argument is backwards. The folks involved in shoot outs and robberies and other violent crimes already have handguns. Having concealed handguns around continues to make it easier to defend against becoming a victim. Outlawing them or changing the constitution will not ever change that. Not ever. Yes, I agree that we should be involved in the transformation our communities, but that isn’t going to solve the problem of violence. We are fallen creatures; that won’t change until the new heavens and the new earth are in place. Until then, your argument doesn’t work.

Scot, the reason they kept the right to bear arms is because once you take the arms out of the people’s hands the government has the ability to shift into a totalitarian state, a la Zimbabwe. The people have no ability to rise up against a government that would oppress them. This was the central concern of the framers of the Constitution because it was happening and did happen to them. It’s not individual powers that concerned them. It was the existing power to oppress the people as a whole that concerned them. it was a checks and balances system.

ChrisB (#66), as a Texas resident, I’m not sure what your point is intended to be. First, you have always been allowed to own just about any sort of federally allowed weapon in Texas. You have always been allowed to have them in your home. You have always been allowed to transport them and to have one in your vehicle while traveling for protection. You have always been allowed to use deadly force, including firearms, against an intruder in your home. The 1996 concealed carry law only added the license to carry a concealed handgun on your person in any public or private location which did not forbid it. In other words, the law really didn’t change that much in Texas, and the changes are largely unrelated to the DC case.
Second, the correlation you seem to raise between concealed carry and violent crime rates in Texas is largely unfounded. The actual peak in the violent crime rates in Texas was in the 1990-1993 timeframe with the highest rate in 1991. (840.1 per 100,000). Clearly, it was the policies implemented before or during this timeframe that led to the subsequent decline. By 1996-1997, the violent crime rate had stabilized around the general level at which it has been ever since. From 1998 on, it has remained in the mid-500s per 100k population.
If your point was that the CHL didn’t lead to a violent crime increase or spike, that’s true as well. However, nothing in that law changed anything much in the availability or use or ownership of guns in Texas. Guns, including handguns, have always been extremely common in Texas. This just altered what you could legally do with the guns you owned.
Personally, from a pragmatic perspective, with DC surrounded by Maryland and Virginia, in which guns are much easier to obtain legally, I’m not sure any DC law could have had much impact on the flow of guns into DC. As I said before, most of the guns which are sold illegally in the US entered the black market originally as legal weapons. Many are stolen from homes in burglaries. And others are sold legally to individuals and businesses who then resell them illegally.
With that said, even in my most libertarian days, I’ve always viewed the claim that handguns specifically are needed to protect against home invasion with a bit of raised eyebrow. I’ve trained on and used a lot of different weapons. And if I were going to use a weapon to defend my home, especially against a surprise invasion when I’ve been asleep, I would want a loaded shotgun by my bed. I want something that’s going to stop them, that it’s hard to miss with at close range, that does a lot of damage at close range, and which is unlikely to penetrate walls of my home with enough force to harm anyone on the other side of said walls.
The last thing I would want for home defense is a handgun. But I mentioned the tension I was feeling in my first post between who I was and the person I seem to be becoming since my journey to Christianity. We don’t have any guns at all in our home these days. (I never really have enjoyed hunting, so no reason to keep hunting weapons.) And my wife and children prefer things that way.

Jonathan (#73), by that logic you should be thoroughly in favor of the armed militias in Iraq, n’est-ce pas? And is that not what the Taliban is doing these days in Afghanistan? And, in truth, while those amending the Constitution clearly wanted to ensure the militias of the state governments were armed to resist tyrannical efforts by the central government, I doubt they had any sort of armed anarchy in mind. That’s always been the failing of the libertarian perspective. I saw that one even when it was closer to my own perspective. One has only to look at Somalia and the myriad other failed states today and in the past to see what happens when order fails and we descend to that which we can hold by our own force of arms (which since there is always a bigger bully often isn’t much). A failed state is a much worse place in which to attempt to survive than a dictatorship.

ChrisB,
Good point on the Supreme Court. They do have ultimate interpretive power, even if they can’t actually alter the Constitution itself.
But I worry about some people here who are freaked out over any change to the Constitution. They’re called “Amendments” for a reason. We can decide, as a people, to modify the Constitution. It’s very hard to do, and rarely done, which is appropriate, but it still happens, and in fact has happened 27 times. That includes Prohibition, which we enacted and then repealed.
Now granted, the 2nd amendment is in the Bill of Rights, so it has a bit more symbolic value than, say, Article 17. But if we wanted to remove it, we could. If we wanted to modify it, or clarify it, we could do that too.

Scott, I agree with most of what you say (especially about the shotgun), but that doesn’t change the fact that, for many reasons, the handgun is the weapon of choice for many people for home defense.
It’s worth noting that, while outlawing handguns, DC also required long guns to be stored in such a state as to render it useless (except as a club) in an emergency.
DC was insisting that people not be able to defend themselves, and the court smacked ‘em down, God bless ‘em.
(And what changed with CHL was this — before you could assume that the average citizen on the street was unarmed; now you cannot.)

Interesting discussion. I have to agree with the majority (on the SCOTUS and, it would seem, among commenters) that the decision was both correct and “right.” The times have changed argument doesn’t hold much water since human nature is still sinful and corrupt, nor does the argument that the government has tanks and we do not refute the fact that an armed citizenry is a free citizenry in terms of being able to protect itself from crime as well as tyranny. One does not have to be able to deal death at a distance in an equal manner to defend oneself (or take the offensive) against those armed with modern weaponry–I believe we’ve been (re)learning something about that in Iraq over the past few years as a matter of fact. The mention of Solzhenitsyn is a good one to reflect upon, given his experience. One might also reflect on the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising…certainly the Jews were very poorly armed in comparison to the German Army, and yet they resisted.
From a Christian perspective the real question is not whether or not the government ought to allow citizens to have weapons. We may have differing opinion on that based upon facts and political understandings. The real question is what Christians ought to do with weapons (if anything). Is self-defense appropriate, or only defense of the neighbor? How far is that taken? Is non-violence the only acceptable path? In extreme situations even those generally committed to Christian non-violence (such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer) may see that the greater evil is in doing nothing, since non-resistance in such cases can become complicity. Those are questions that must be answered whatever the government says.

Crime isn’t a good enough reason for any of us to give that we really do need a gun? You will see in the months and years to come that crime in D.C. will probably drop. Which thug wants to break into a house if he thinks there might be a gun on the other side of the door waiting for him. What % of thugs do you think purchased a gun legally? If we had a run on legal guns by thugs you would have a point but that is not how it works. The guy trying to keep the law remains defenseless while those who are intent on breaking the law arm themselves illegally in D.C. That just isn’t right.

We make an idol of guns.
Didn’t Paul address this issue when he told us to put on the armor of God, which was pointedly NOT the weapons of the day? The armor of God that is supposed to protect us includes peace, faith, righteousness …
The more we live out of fear of our neighbor, the more guns we will need. Then we will need more powerful guns. And we will need to go down the street in body armor. At some point, it has to stop. Not at crazy unreasonable points, such as taking your children across the street in the middle of gunfire, but at reasonable points. I might get killed walking down the street without a gun and body armor. I might killed with those things. Somebody who might not have killed me might wrest the gun out of my hand and kill me with it. The point is, while I would obviously, for example, avoid strolling down the worst streets of a city at 2 a.m., I’m not going to arm myself for day-to-day life. And as Christians, I believe we should take a stand and say we are people of peace following a prince of peace. There is no religion without sacrifice and what we might have to sacrifice is our “right” to arm ourselves and kill other people in self-defense.

Actually, most thugs are not registered gun owners. The constitutions intent is that the citizenry would be an armed citizenry. With those arms we could if need be, join ranks and rise up to fight a government and its army that has swerved off the constitutiional path. Without a armed citizenry the people are helpless in face of radical elements. Note USSR and Germany in the time of Hitler. No guns, no power no ability to fight.

Diane, the “full armor of God” does not protect against bullets.
Now you can make an argument that Christians shouldn’t defend themselves if someone tries to harm them. That doesn’t mean that we can tell our neighbors they have to let people harm them. These are separate questions. Right now we’re dealing with the legal question rather than the spritual one.

As is probably clear from my first comment, I don’t have much confidence in gun regulation to make much of a difference in lessening the amount of violence in our culture one way or the other. Black markets work. So do home-made bombs. The power of one, for good or for ill, has never been greater, and there’s little we can do to prevent that. Individuals can now do damage that only armies could do just a few decades ago, and that power is only increasing.
In my view, we’re better off, as others have mentioned, trying to lessen the amount of desperate and/or violent individuals we create, rather than trying to limit access to dangerous instrumentalities. Perhaps not so strangely, we’re better off, I think, imagining ways we can create a more merciful society, one that attempts to keep any person or family from getting too far down (like strengthening the bankruptcy code and other institutional safety nets, our educational systems, or even altering the goals of our prisons, etc.), rather than trying to make tools of violence (and sleeping under bridges) illegal.

ChrisB,
I know that Paul’s armor of God doesn’t protect against guns like a magic shield. But neither do guns protect against guns. That’s my point. My other point is that Paul said use the armor of God. He didn’t say it would keep you from getting killed. I admit that in the short-term it doesn’t seem rational not to defend ourselves with violence (we can defend ourselves in other ways), but I believe we are asked to have faith that even if it gets us killed, we are living as eikons of Christ when we give up our right to kill our brother.
We put up legal boundaries all the time that stop people from defending themselves from harm. We will, for example, evict people from empty buildings or churches on to the streets.
I do always find it interesting that “spiritual” issues are patronized when it comes to guns. As for the legal question, of course, the second amendment protects the right to bear arms in an organized militia … I’m not arguing that and from the title of the post Scot’s not arguing that either … I am saying as Christians we owe allegiance to a higher power and that as a group we have the power to walk away from gun use. We can do it.

ChrisB, you are erroneously equating “do not act or retaliate in violence” with “shouldn’t defend themselves”. That says much about you. Nor, for the Christian, can there be any separation of the “legal question” from the question of how the only one we are to call Lord has instructed us to live. There is no sphere of life, experience, or creation from which he can be removed.
I found your last statement to me in the earlier comment amusing. If anyone in Texas, before or after 1996, ever assumed a given citizen on the street was unarmed, they were seriously deficient in mental capacity. Moreover, the change had no significant impact on violent crime rates. Earlier efforts, unrelated to CHL, had had a significant impact, but the violent crime rates have remained fairly static over the last decade.
Further, we lived in a culture that does worship guns, the power they give, and the power (or at least illusion of power) they allow you to exercise over others. A better comparison of gun control is with another country altogether. And England and Wales are a good comparison.
For the last century, the homicide rate per 100K in the US has fluctuated between 5 and 10. (The 1910s, 1920s, 1970s, and 1980s were all closer to the high end. We’re currently closer to the low end.) In whatever way specific localities have attempted to restrict specific types and subcategories of guns, firearms as a class have always been extremely common in the US.
By contrast, firearms are much less common in England and Wales. They have strict laws regulating them and even the police do not always carry firearms. Moreover, they do not have the sort of gun culture which the US has. Their homicide rates over the last century have fluctuated from less than one to two out of 100,000 people.
Now, I checked the current statistics and they have had an upswing in violent crime. In fact (though it’s difficult to compare apples to apples because of different laws, different reporting techniques, and different ways of classifying crimes as “violent”), you could make the case that at the moment, violent crime in England and Wales has taken an upswing and exceeds that of Texas. However, the homicide rate remains a fraction of ours. That’s significant. It seems that in a culture that does not automatically turn to guns, even when their is an upswing in crime and even violent crime, homicide rates remain much lower.
Realistically, we are far more violent as a culture and society today than many of the first world countries. And we are unlikely to ever set aside our worship either of our image of the individual in general or of the lone gunman specifically. Nevertheless, we follow a different Lord. And that’s not how we are supposed to live.
Others have made good points about the Constitution. Just like Scripture, absent interpretation the Constitution doesn’t really “say” much of anything. That’s why it clearly defines the Supreme Court as the body which interprets and applies it. The Constitution means whatever the Supreme Court says it means. And if SCOTUS says something different in a decade, that’s what it will mean then.

And ChrisB, the armor of God protects against bullets today at least as well as it protected against swords and arrows in the first centuries of the Church. What sort of protection do you seek?

Do you recall this BBC story? Are guns really the problem?
Doctors’ kitchen knives ban call
Doctors say knives are too pointed
A&E doctors are calling for a ban on long pointed kitchen knives to reduce deaths from stabbing.
A team from West Middlesex University Hospital said violent crime is on the increase – and kitchen knives are used in as many as half of all stabbings.
They argued many assaults are committed impulsively, prompted by alcohol and drugs, and a kitchen knife often makes an all too available weapon.
The research is published in the British Medical Journal.
The researchers said there was no reason for long pointed knives to be publicly available at all.
They consulted 10 top chefs from around the UK, and found such knives have little practical value in the kitchen.
None of the chefs felt such knives were essential, since the point of a short blade was just as useful when a sharp end was needed.
The researchers said a short pointed knife may cause a substantial superficial wound if used in an assault – but is unlikely to penetrate to inner organs.

Scott, you are erroneously assuming that I equate ?do not act or retaliate in violence? with ?shouldn?t defend themselves.? (I don’t think that says much about you.) There are those who do — who take Jesus’ commands against retaliating as a command for radical pacifism; I’m not one of them.
I don’t question that how I live my life is supposed to thoroughly infected with the word. But as many pro-choice Christians will say, I’m not going to force my religous beliefs on my neighbors.
It’s interesting that you bring up UK’s crime. I was thinking about it but don’t have access to the data. They have had a rise in crime … wait for it … since they finally banned firearms. Even if their crime rate is lower than ours, the fact of the rise (and Australia is said to have had a similar rise) is significant.
“That?s why it clearly defines the Supreme Court as the body which interprets and applies it.” It doesn’t. The Supremes declared themselves the interpretive body. Well, that may be too much; they invented judicial review, though.
“The Constitution means whatever the Supreme Court says it means.” That’s funny. Scott, you are a constitutional Catholic (on top of being pomo). If it means nothing, we can toss it out the window. If the Supremes can make it mean anything they want, why the pretense. Let’s trash it and let them make whatever rules they want. They’re cheaper than Congress.

ChrisB,
Diane said this: “I?m not going to arm myself for day-to-day life. And as Christians, I believe we should take a stand and say we are people of peace following a prince of peace.”
To which you responded: “Now you can make an argument that Christians shouldn?t defend themselves if someone tries to harm them.”
You were the one who equated the decision not to arm yourself because you follow the Prince of Peace with “Christians shouldn?t defend themselves”. As far as I can tell from your comments, you can’t conceive of someone acting to defend themselves or others against violence without using violence and the same or greater order level of violence to do so.
That’s just sad. There is nothing in the refusal to respond, react, or retaliate in violence which even vaguely equates to the statement “Christians shouldn?t defend themselves”. You have too high a view of the effectiveness of violence and too low a view of the actions which can be taken without resorting to violence.
That’s what I meant.

And if violence is the appropriate way to respond to violence and defeat violence, then Jesus was simply wrong. He screwed up bigtime.

Scott M,
Thanks. Well said.

Scott M, you sound to my ears to say that following Jesus means radical pacifism, and you seem to use the word “violence” to refer to any compulsive force that might harm a body – legitimate or otherwise. Is this correct?
If so, I can understand this, I suppose. What I cannot understand is that someone with your view would want to establish such pacifism in our laws by removing prohibitions against guns, which are enforced by what you call “violence”.

Sorry – I meant “adding” prohibitions.

I heard on the news this morning as I was getting ready for work that a 2 year old girl was shot and killed with a hand gun that the older brother had found. It is sad.

Wonders, as far as my personal views go they can only be labeled as “unsettled”. I had rather thought they were settled before I truly encountered this Jesus of Nazareth. I’m not sure there is a summary for where I was, but certainly if someone was outside the circle of those important to me, then “do whatever it takes to you to keep you from harming anyone who matters to me” would have been a big piece of it. Over the past 10-15 years (depending on how you count) Jesus has really screwed all that up. As someone who follows him, the application of deadly force is always, at best, troublesome. When it comes to violence, I guess I’m not pomo enough to equate all exercises of the will to power with violence. Oh, I see both and am sensitive to both. But I don’t equate them. I spent eight years in the military. The purpose of a firearm is to kill things. Dress it up however you want, that’s what they were designed to do and even if you make an effort to use one in a non-lethal manner, you always risk lethal force. They are not simply designed for violence. They are specifically designed to kill. Some kill better than others. And some are better at killing just who you intend in the manner that you intend in given circumstances. (Thus my exchange with ChrisB about shotguns vs. handguns in a home defense situation.) But all firearms are designed to kill. And handguns are designed and intended to kill human beings. They have no real other use or function.
Now, if the proper way to defeat violence (a very fundamental problem before God — just read Genesis) and the powers which rule by violence is with your own acquisition and use of deadly force, then Jesus presents a very real problem. That’s not what he taught. And that’s not what he did. I think, as Christians, that we all proclaim that he defeated all powers and that the Cross was the place in which he came into his glory as (among other things) the King of the Jews. Further, we proclaim that he even defeated death. But he didn’t achieve his victory through the application of violence, through retaliation, or through all the means by which the powers of this world achieve victory. And he explicitly and directly said that God’s rule, his Kingdom, didn’t work that way.
So yes, that has confronted everything I once held to be true and left me with no clear or simple answers. In what kingdom do we hold citizenship? Who do we call Lord? And if we call Jesus Lord, doesn’t that then mean we have to play by his rules? I mean, it’s not like what he taught and lived is a mystery. Lots of things are mysteries. They are even called mysteries (mysterion). But not this one. The question is do we live it or not. And that’s a really, really, really hard question to answer. But we don’t do ourselves any favors by turning our backs and pretending it’s not there.

Of course, there are lots of things about this Jesus I find really troublesome as an adult convert who once thought he had a clue about how to live life and be a human being …

Ok, I thought I’d put my two cents worth. The ministry I direct in inner-city G.R, Urban Transformation Ministries, reaches out to many of our city’s gang members and “thugs.” Almost every teen and young adult within our ministry has had a relative or a friend who’s been shot on the streets of Grand Rapids. One of the young men that I am mentoring right now has had at least fifteen of his friends and family shot and killed in the past five years. I share this with the Jesus Creed family because sometimes when we are arguing from the standpoint of the Constitution (which I respect and think there is an argument to be made), we can sometimes overlook the lives who are affected by the bloodshed.
That being said, let me share with you from my experience on the street. First of all, those gang members and drug-dealers that I know who are packin’ did not get their gun legally. In fact, I can’t think of one of them that got their gun through a legal means. Therefore, I don’t see a good argument coming out of “making guns illegal will get the guns out of the hands of the thugs,” except in a few cases. I knew of a gang-member who traded drugs to a crack-addict who stole a few guns from his gun-owning dad. So there are a few scenarios where legal guns do get in the hands of people who shouldn’t own them.
Second of all, deterrents such as tougher laws against criminals or even carrying concealed weapons makes no difference to the gang members and thugs that I minister to. Living without alot of hope, several of our students have no qualms about dying young or spending their entire life in jail. Its part of the “thug” culture where a person can end up dead like Tupac or Notorious B.I.G. Therefore, when I hear people talk about concealed weapons as a deterrent or the death penalty as a deterrent, they speak without knowing much about the culture.
One thing from following this post, I’m really glad that people actually care about the violence problems in our cities or they wouldn’t be passionately discussing this topic as they are….

Hi Scott, long time reader, infrequent commenter. My question to you is do you really think these thugs are going to stop carrying guns because there is a law that makes it harder for you and I to get one. I own guns. I’m not a thug. The law in D.C said that you could never have a loaded weapon. So if someone broke into your house and you could get it out and load it before your life was taken, you were subject to charges. Times have changed, yes, but I’m not sure that laws like this really will stop criminals from arming themselves. As it is D.C. is often near the top in every year (if not the top) in murder rates so the gun law seemed to be rather ineffective.
Just my thoughts.

I’ve seen some on here saying we should trust God and not guns, put on the armor of God instead of using a weapon, and so on.
Do you buckle your seat belt? Theology is more than a theory.
I like what Rambo said in Rambo 4 to the missionaries thinking they could help people in a war ravaged area. He asked, “Are you bringing them guns?” The answer was no. “Then you won’t change a thing.”
Saving the lives of innocent people using force is a mitzvah (good deed), not an act of brutality. For those who choose to die and let others die rather than consider violent defense, that is your choice. Let’s not legislate that choice for everyone.
Derek Leman

Preacherman,
In the scenario you give most states have laws that will find that gun owner liable.

By all means, please put me in place, as I’m going to go out on a very thin limb here: Is the WWJD question a fair question for all things, for all of humanity? Would Jesus get married? own a house? Not a part of his calling. save for retirement? vote? own a tv? keep a cat? buy insurance? Ridiculous. Of course not. But we do, yet we don’t sin. His life and mission were foreordained only for the cross. I know, my life is too (Mt 16:24). But in infinitely different ways – something we sort of deny with a simple “WWJD?”. Is there such a thing as a higher calling? The universe hinged on his every choice. The mystery of his life — his human divinity, his unfathomable intimacy with Spirit & Father — in some ways make me even less confident & decisive.
But what about his teaching? If a home intruder slaps me, then I’ll turn the other cheek. If he insults me, I’ll pray for him. But is personal self-defense, out of the context of spiritual persecution, “living by the sword”? or was he possibly talking to fearful followers hoping to defend His honor — along the lines of the Crusades or manifest destiny?
Fire away…

I would like to see a very strict federal gun law in the US.
Exemptions could be made for target shooting and hunting, but even then the law should be strictly enforced.
We have a huge gun violence problem in the US and we seemingly refuse to seriously address the problem.
I did not come to this view naturally. My Dad owned a gun store. I hunted as a youth and adult. I was raised around guns, shot guns, and grieved as gun violence took the life of my mother (assisted suicide) and uncle (murder).
Over the years I have visited young men in prison for murder. Stupid acts of passion facilitated by the easy access of a firearm. I remember one boy shot his friend over an argument about a pizza. A pizza!
We have no guns in our home and our children were never allowed to play “shoot” at each other. We felt it set a bad example.
Bruce

One of the best things about hanging out here is it makes me learn to express myself better. What I learn today is to be more careful about how I respond to multiple ideas. I was not equating Diane’s position to radical pacifism; I was simply injecting the idea (that others had brought up above) as a position people take. I was working toward the point that, no matter how far you take a non-violent position you can’t enforce that on anyone else.
That is the refrain I keep singing, and it keeps getting ignored. People are scandalized that SCOTUS says you have constitutional right to self-defense. Jesus taught a non-violent way. Some think He taught complete pacifism. A large chunk of our country has no interest whatsoever in following Jesus.
Now, I think that’s sad, but since the common attitude among the folks who frequent this blog is that it’s wrong to inject our religious views into politics and to force people to accept our religious principles, why are they now decrying this SC decision for not being a properly Christian attitude?

Scot (#10):
YES.

Very well worded, Scot. And I agree.
This is another case for me in which I stand with the more liberal side of the Court. I do think we have to try to look at original intent and then bring that to our setting today, like you say a different setting indeed. The Court should have maintained the ambiguity as to what we can make of the meaing of the words, but instead made an interpretation. It would be interesting if the founding fathers were here today, and what they might make of it.

And we don’t live in a perfect sinless world so it’s true that some people who do evil will get their hands on guns and kill. But I don’t think that follows that we shouldn’t ban handguns with exceptions noted by Scot included. There’s far more danger involved in having them, then in the few cases they’ve actually come in handy for the folks who were using them to defend themselves.

ChrisB at #103,
I’m not so sure you got that one right. I think the dominant attitude on this blog, and one firmly committed to by yours truly, is that it is not about injecting or imposing on the public; that’s not the point. The question is “How do we, as Christians, live in our world as followers of Jesus?” And today, that question is how do we do this no matter what the Supreme Court says. I think the decision is entirely legitimate given the US Const etc, even if I would dissent on the grounds that it the original might be preoccupied with militia. So, I say, that’s the US Const and the Supreme Court and the law of the land and how it works.
The issue for me is, “It might be legal and all, but it’s still not right (for the follower of Jesus — in my judgment).”
And I tend to think most who read this blog would operate under a similar set of categories.
So, it’s not that I agree with the dissent or the Scalia line of thinking — because the US Const is not my guiding lights when it comes to moral decisions. If the rest of the USA doesn’t want to follow Jesus’ teachings, and I’ll leave room for dissent on my view on guns and leave this at a general principle, that doesn’t impact what we as Christians ought to do.

“Actually, most thugs are not registered gun owners.”
Hello, I’m a college student majoring in sociology (last semester I took a class on “Deviance, Crime, and Criminal Justice”)
So coming from that angle, I have some sociological objections here. =)
Primarily, people are not cleanly divided into “thugs” and “law-abiding citizens”(Thus,I would argue that you’re not taking the Christian doctrine of sin seriously enough if you think you can simply find all the “bad people” and lock them away). Though I’d like to think that I am one of the “good people”, just wanting to defend my own, I would say it is very Christian to doubt how righteous I really am. If I had a gun, who knows what I might do if overtaken by a fit of rage, jealousy, hate, or fear? In others words, perhaps I can protect my family from others with a gun, but who will protect them from me? A gun is no help there: only the Spirit of God, working in me to save me from myself.
Most homicidal incidents do occur between people who know each other: family and friends.
Yes, there are career robbers. However, to my knowledge such “professionals” usually spot their target and conduct the robbery during the safest time: when the residents aren’t even home.

The right of a well regulated militia to bear arms means that ordinary citizens [in the 18th C whitemen] had the right- individually and collectively- to fight against government tyranny.To protect themselves, their communities, families from illegal gov’t violence. We are seeing this more an d more now with the militarization of the police in our country. SWAT teams break into the homes of innocent families [when they get the wrong address] and terrorize, wound, and kill the distraught victims. Gov’t tyranny is not limited to King George III– I see the same thing happening now, as each of our succeeding generations has less liberty and more gov’t intrusion. The gov’t does not give us our rights- according to the founding documents our rights are unalienable- gov’t cannot take them away because they come from the Creator-the God of nature. An armed citizenry- apart from an established professional army[which many founders were against establishing] is the best protection against gov’t violence/tyranny.
Think on this. Survivors of the Holocaust have said that they wish they could have had firearms to resist the gov’t jack boots that came for them- to take a few out before they themselves were put down. Solzhenitzen[sp.?] asked what would the gov’t had done had people still had their weapons and could defend themselves from arrest to be tortured or enslaved? What if the KGB, before t hey went on a raid- knew there was a reasonable chance some of them would not be coming home in the morning? Fewer would have been willing to do the bidding of the state. George III tried to disarm the people, Hitler and the Russian communists did. People may say we’re nowhere near that level of tyranny now; at least not yet. But wait awhile. Once our empire crumbles to nothing and the $ is useful only for toilet paper, that’s when things will get nasty. Its a perfect setup for a dictator. Times will change.

Scot,
Clearly following Jesus should be our aim. I am not sure that this means giving up the ability, or sometimes even duty, to defend oneself, one’s family, one’s home however.
I don’t think turn the other cheek applies in this instance – that is a response to a different kind of tyranny or oppression.
Consider a situation as in the parable of the good samaritan – do you think that (purely hypothetical here) part of the story is waylaid by thieves – turn the other cheek?
Is it unchristian to own a gun for self defense? To use a bat or one’s fist in self defense?
I guess I don’t really understand your point.

Your point in #107 that is.

Scot,
“The US Const is not my guiding light when it comes to moral decisions.”
Yes. I too follow Jesus, not the Constitution, though I respect the Constitution.
After thinking about it, I do support a ban on handguns because I think legitimizing carrying weapons —making that activity commonplace–helps provide a cover for criminals. We should as Christians, imho, look at carrying weapons as unacceptable, not normal behavior. The powers of darkness in our world do everything to make violence look acceptable and even heroic.
On the so-called heroic note, I find it interesting that someone here quoted Rambo. The ideology that violence ends violence and protects the innocent is so pervasive. But it is not Jesus’ ideology. I trust Jesus.
Gilley,
Of course, on the tiny details of life–do I have a cat?– we do not slavishly try to figure out if Jesus had a cat. But on the big picture, on what Jesus stood for, what he was about, what he staked his life on–yes, I do believe we are supposed to follow that. And I do believe he allowed his own life to be taken to model breaking the cycle of violence and vengeance in the world. We get sucked into a world bent on glorifying violence and telling us the lie that violence is a necessity. Jesus preached and lived that love and forgiveness are the necessities.

RJS,
“Defend” yes… but never to the point of killing someone.
Yes, I think it is unChristian, though evidently legal, to own a gun for self-defense. I guess I could be more analytical: owning isn’t the point, is it. The point is using the gun. It is unChristian, so I believe, to use a gun to kill another human being. Always.

Scot,
I think the 2nd amendment is an interesting exercise in hermeneutics(the militia clause, followed by the possession clause). Given the recent (last 6 months, maybe from Christianity today site?) survey you posted helping us determine were most of us stand on our hermeneutics (traditional, conservative, liberal), where would you place the court’s decision? One of the raging arguments is between “origionalism (ie, Scalia) vs “active liberty (Breyer).
Regardless of what the outcome might be for gun laws, what do you think is the proper way to “exegete” the 2nd amendment based on “correct” hermeneutics?

BB,
I’m not a lawyer, though, so it would be unwise for me to say anything about the correct method. But, what I like about the hermeneutics of US law is that the ongoing nature of unfolding and exploring. Since I cannot be confident it is all-sufficient, as Scripture is for redemption, I cannot believe originalism or purely original intent is sufficient for US law.
By the way, whether we admit it or not, we also interpret Scripture in light of unfolding tradition.

Scot,
Thanks for your timely and thoughtful reply.
While the US constitution is not all-sufficient for redemption, it is an authoritative text. It seems to be that there should be some agreeable hermentutical principles that allow us to make interpretations. When I read the the debates between the justices on the proper interpretations of the Constitution, I head echoes of how we Christians labor to interpret the Bible. Is there anything we can learn from the Justices’ struggles?

I do not own a gun, my wife won’t let me. As a kid I had bb guns, a .22 rifle and a shotgun. It was just part of life. The founders were not pacifsts of course; but it is also clear to me that the NT leans in a pacifist direction. In the film, “The Mission”, two priests choose different responses to the gov’t attack on the Indians the priests were ministering to. One priest chose to die as a priest, going the way of Christ- he was murdered leading his people inworship distributing the sacrament to them, as they were slaughtered together. The other priest, a man who had been a murderer and slave trader before his conversion, reverted to his military prowess and used it to fight off the Portuguese soldiers sent to enslave the Indians for the big plantations. Although he and the Indian warriors succeeded in killing quite a few soldiers, it wasn’t enough and this priest, like the other one, died trying to help his people. Which one did the right thing? My gut feeling is that the first priest did. what would I have done? I’m afraid I probably would have joined the former slave trader.
Though I support liberty and the right to own weapons for defense collectively and individually, I cannot see that being the first response for a Christian.
on a revival website [scottish warriors for Christ]there was a very powerful film from China- regarding the underground church. The violence and torture those people put up with is incredible. Pastors were speaking who had been arrested and tortured wihtout mercy for weeks; many imprisoned 10 to 15 different times, each time going through horrific abuse and violence. Yet, in the midst of that they prayed. They counted it as a sign of God’s favor that they were counted worthy to suffer for the name. It was right out of the book of Acts. I don’t know of any AMerican pastor- or Christian who is ready for that kind of sacrifice. But that kind of sacrifice is what we are ultimately talking about in this discussion. Compared to those people I cannot really claim to be a Christian. What would I do in their situation? I do not know until I face it myself. I do know, however, that they are doing the right thing whether or not I would in their place.

Scot,
In #113 you say that you believe it is “unChristian to use a gun to kill another human being. Always.”
So, in your opinion, those soldiers who finally stopped Germany and Hitler in WWII were unChristian?
I didn’t know you were an absolute pacifist.

Scot (#113), It was said during the Viet Nam era, in the days before our country had an all-volunteer military, that the U.S. government never forces anyone to kill people. What the U.S. government does is draft you into the military, give you free food and clothing, train you how to kill people, give you the equipment to kill people with, give you a free airplane ride to a country ten thousand miles away, set you down in the middle of a jungle where lots of other people are trying to kill you, and let you make your own decision.
So much for how well turning the other cheek works in the real world.
By scrunching up all my powers of observation, I gather from this post and all the comments that there is not an agreed-upon “evangelical position” on the subject, your own opinion notwithstanding.

Diane,
So I’ll plead, beg, and simply watch an intruder kill my wife and son?

Is it right for a follower of Jesus to own a gun? Clearly this is a matter of conscience and personal preference.

Perhaps a distinction needs to be made between non-violent resistance pacifism? Gandhi was quite critical of pacifists. He even called them cowards. Those who hold to non-violent resistance, resist with all their will, yet without violence. The non-violent resister meets the violence head on with resorting to violence. The pacifist avoid the confrontation and the violence (i.e. running to Canada during Vietnam)
Non-violent resistance is often lumped in with pacifism. There is a difference.
Gandhi wrote a book on it titled Pacifism Long out of print, I found it through Ohio’s lending library. Great book on this issue.

In #95, ScottM says
“the purpose of a firearm is to kill things. Dress it up however you want, that?s what they were designed to do and even if you make an effort to use one in a non-lethal manner, you always risk lethal force.”
No doubt about it. Still, I know a man who has had three home invasions. In none of the cases did he fire his gun. He shouted a warning. He demonstrated audibly that he held a shotgun. They left. Is there any better way to scare an intruder off the premises than by wielding a gun?
There IS such a thing as a warning shot.

I knew when I read that first post that within 24 hours there would be over 100 comments.
Being a Canadian, it’s not really an issue for me, except that American guns keep oozing over the border into the hands of our criminals. What someone said earlier is sort of true though about who would have the guns if they were banned. In Canada it seems like the only people who have guns are the gangs and organized crime. In general regular “law abiding” citizens do not own guns, except for a few peopl So what is the result of this? As the number of guns coming into Canada from the US has increased so has our murder rate, but basically it is criminals and gang members shooting each other. Very occasionally an innocent bystander gets killed but in general it is the people who have the guns who are getting killed.

Scot,
I don’t think owning a handgun is a particularly good idea ? for self defense or anything else. I also think that the easy availability of handguns is a drag on our society with terrible cost. But this is not a Christian conviction so much as a sociological conviction or observation. Costs far outweigh benefits.
I am more interested here in thinking through the more general issues involved. Isn’t the NT witness leading us to a pacifist position best understood as a guide for life in a hostile society where tyrannical authority and persecution are the rule? Taking these ideas and applying them widely is a great distortion. The passages do not relate to how a state should respond to invasion or how an individual should respond to a home invader looking to rob, ravage, or kidnap for example. The appropriate ethic in these situations must include loving all who are potentially involved as victim or perpetrator.
I don’t think handgun ownership or even use in certain circumstances is unchristian, even if that use results in death. The ethic of violence and the dehumanizing of the other ? the person, created in the image of God, from whom one might need defense ? is thoroughly unchristian.

“Isn?t the NT witness leading us to a pacifist position best understood as a guide for life in a hostile society where tyrannical authority and persecution are the rule?”
Aren’t the gun advocates saying that a hostile society (the criminal elements) uses tyrannical authority and persecution (going on the streets and threatening innocent people with guns) hence we have to arm in self-defense? But shouldn’t that state of affairs lead us, au contraire, to embrace non-violence, ala Jesus? Clearly, the larger nation-state we live in is less brutal and tyrannical than the Roman Empire, but it too is still a power based on military might and is quite willing to use physical coercion to maintain its rule. We are not in the peaceable kingdom yet, so wouldn’t the NT witness still prevail? I would argue that *we* as a culture are so distorted by the constant idolatry of violence (we are bombarded every day by images that glamorize violence) that the non-violence (not pacifism–and thanks to the person above who made the distinction) Jesus modeled and preached seem distorted. But Jesus is not distorted. We are distorted. Many keep trying to change Jesus to make him into a violent action figure comfortable for our culture (or a figure whose core non-violence is childish and irrelevant to our culture) instead of looking at ourselves and saying we are living saturated in images of violence, we are childish, and *we* need to change. Or at least this is how I understand Jesus.

RJS (and many others who have raised the issue re: individual pacifism), I don’t know the basis in the NT on which we can say this: “Taking these ideas and applying them widely is a great distortion.” Here’s an exercise I’ve done with my business law students, that has shaped me on these issues: I ask them to look up all the support (teachings or example) in the NT that they can for refusing to take even legal (non-violent) action against a wrong-doer. The results, stacked all together, are a little breath-taking. Then I ask for the same support for the opposite position: any teaching or example in the NT which would support taking legal action against a wrong-doer. If the first list is disturbingly long and robust, the latter is the opposite. Without getting into the interesting conversations that follow, I can say that having done this exercise with several classes now, the main distortion I see seems to be the very large gap between how Christians typically think about these matters (how to deal with human enemies, wrong-doers, and physical threats to our persons and possessions) and how the NT talks about such things.
Some questions when looking at these passages: What does Jesus believe (about God, people, power, physical death, the grand scheme, etc.) that makes his ethic the smart thing to do? Relatedly, what is Jesus trying to accomplish by having us bless and offer more of ourselves to those who are violent to us? How does this goal fit within his goals generally? What role does his cross/our cross, his resurrection, our resurrection play in this issue?
Relatedly, I just can’t see Paul, or Peter, or anyone in the NT keeping a sword under their bed–not for use against soldiers mind you–just for use against a home intruder. It’s just antithetical to the whole direction of their lives and teaching and faith. Why be confident in the face of Herod or Caesar and their armies but not a common criminal?

This is all very interesting. I don’t own a gun, nor do I intend to, for many reasons. (Frankly, I am afraid in my case it would do much more harm than good.) But to say that no Christian should ever own a gun seems to go too far in the other direction.
Culture has influenced our thinking on all of these issues. I remember watching one of those “shoot-em-up movies” back in the 90s with bodies callously strewn everywhere and thinking, “this is the culture of violence; I don’t want myself or my family to participate in it.”
As always, the message of the NT is one about our hearts. I could never judge as unChristian the person who out of an attitude of love and devotion defends his or her family. OTOH, I must be willing to think like Jesus about the attitudes of hatred, bitterness, and rage which lead to malicious thoughts, words, and actions.

I don’t think that Christians should be banned from owning guns. There’s a story about William Penn that illustrates this. When he became a Quaker, Penn went to George Fox, one of Quakerism’s founders, and said, “Should I stop wearing my sword?” (He said this since he knew Quakers renounce violence.) Fox told him “Wear your sword as long as you can.” What Fox meant was that just giving up a sword or gun as an outward display is meaningless without a transformed heart. So we should wear our swords (or guns) while praying for God to change us into the people he wants us to be. Then, giving up our swords is not an outward show of a false piety but the manifestation of a changed heart. My prayer is that hearts would transform such that Christians (and others) wouldn’t want to carry guns.

RJS, we cannot divide what we do as individual followers of Jesus of Nazareth from the way we believe states and nations should behave, whether they actually behave that way or not. After all, we proclaim that all power in heaven and on earth has been given to Jesus. (Or at least that’s what he said, so I presume we all proclaim it.) As a direct result, all earthly powers are under Jesus whether they acknowledge it or not. And one presumes they will be and are being judged by him. That is, after all, part of what the NT and early church said about Caesar. And that had a lot to do with the clash between that early church and the empire of its day. Under the rule of Jesus, there do not appear to be one set of rules for individuals and a different set of rules for the powers. The rule of Jesus is a single rule over all creation. It’s just not a rule imposed by the sword (or the gun).
I find that, from a practical perspective, a lot of people pick very small bits from Genesis when they try to describe the problem of the human race. Genesis 4-11 is especially telling, but in the description of the problem, I don’t often hear it framed the way it is framed in that early narrative. By the time I read it, I had heard a variety of different people talk about it and talk about the problem. Then I read it. And I read it again. And I read it again. You see, the problem presented in those chapters revolves around violence. As a result of death, which man chose by cutting themselves off from life, violence filled the earth. It seems like the direct and almost immediate symptom from the infection of death is violence. When we can inflict death (or the threat of death) on others, we have power. And when we are threatened by death, others exercise power over us. In the story of the flood, Genesis 6:11 seems to often be overlooked.
So, when you say that the commands of Jesus have only limited application, you are essentially saying they don’t work. And frankly, I think that’s where a lot of people end up. They use evil means or ascribe the right to use evil means to the powers because they can’t imagine any other way to resist evil. Violence is wrong, inflicting death on another human being is a desecration of the Eikon they bear, but if we don’t sometimes do it, evil will win. We can’t imagine any way for good to triumph without the use of evil means. In a nutshell, that’s essentially what the Just War doctrine boils down to, though of course it’s never put that way.
The more I’ve looked at the story of God through the lens of Jesus, the more convinced I’ve become that the problem is not with the commands of Jesus. The problem is with our imagination. Either the way Jesus says to live actually works and comprises everything a truly human person (and thus a society of truly human people) needs to live effectively both in this world and in the world which is to come, or nothing he says or does is worth very much at all. If his way is not the way for the human being bearing the image of God — right now — then why follow him?
You cannot kill someone without making them the other, without dehumanizing them in some way. You just can’t and remain even vaguely sane. And you cannot make someone the other and still love them, still actively will the good for them. I mean, if someone wants to say they have found a way to simultaneously do both, I’ll be happy to listen. But a portion of military training is teaching you to detach from the enemy, to treat them as something other than a human being, so you can kill them without hesitation. Because if you hesitate in combat, you will likely die and those who depend on you will likely die. I’ve studied some of the psychology that goes into why we train soldiers the way we do.
And here’s the deal. Nowhere, absolutely nowhere, do I find any place where Jesus (or Paul or John or Peter or James for that matter) gives us a pass on his central command to love God and to love God by loving others. All others. No exceptions. If there’s an escape clause somewhere I haven’t found it. And you can’t love someone and kill them. You can love them and die for them. But you can’t love them and kill them.
But we’re afraid. We’re afraid that if we actually live that way, evil will win. Genocide will occur. Women and children will be raped and murdered. Hmmmph. Supposedly there are more than a billion Christians in the world today. If we followed Jesus, if we refused to kill but also refused to stand idly by and allow people to be killed what are the powers going to do? Kill us all? The only threat they ultimately hold is the threat of death. And we’re supposed to be the people who proclaim that death has been defeated. If death has been defeated, what hold do they have over us? Nothing but our own fear.
So yes, the use of deadly force is unChristian by definition because it violates the direct command of Jesus to love the one we have just killed and to love the God whose Eikon we have just stilled. I think people like to think of the older John as somehow mellow and sweet when he writes his letter. I think such people haven’t actually read 1 John for what it is. That’s one harsh and pointed letter, even if it is addressed to “dear children”. If we don’t love others, we don’t love God. If we walk in darkness, we are liars. If we love Jesus, we will obey his commands, his mitzvots.
But his commands are frightening. They defy the logic we have absorbed from birth. They don’t look like they can possibly succeed. His way looks like the way of failure. But you know, it looked that way in the first century too. And the second. And as far as I can tell, in every century since. And Jesus doesn’t offer “proof” that his commands will work. Instead he says, “Follow me.”
Wow. I guess my thoughts are becoming less unsettled every time I return to this subject. This has been a tough area for me ever since I started trying to follow Jesus. I can’t count the number of times I’ve tried to find a nice, neat way to wrap it up and set it aside. I’ve studied the theories about just war, all the way up to a really good Army War College paper in the eighties. I’ve studied history, including the struggles Christians have had when they have held the reins of power. And I understand the difficulty and fear which drove them. It often looks like there is no way for evil to be defeated and order maintained without employing the same tools the powers from this earth have always used. I get that. The problem is that Jesus and the NT makes no such accommodation whatsoever. They are blunt. His rule has come, the power of death has been defeated, all powers are subject to him, and this is how human beings live. Period.
And historically whatever good may have been accomplished by employing those tools has often been short-lived. That’s just a historical reality. It’s not a Christian thought, per se, but there is a lot of Christian truth in the idea that the means do not justify the end. Rather, the means become the end. It is Christian to say that he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword. The sword becomes the defining element in their life. And that’s the true tragedy.

Scott M,
You speak my mind completely. Thank you and bless you for that beautiful statement. I wish it could be sent everywhere.

Scott M,
I am not thinking primarily about just war theory at all in this instance … although I am not convinced that participating in war or the armed services is invariably unchristian.
Scot said it is never appropriate to defend to the point of killing someone ? and I challenge that ideal.
The specific passages generally cited – particularly in the gospels – are dealing with response to authoritative tyranny. If we extend the principle too broadly we read into scripture – not take out of scripture.
So I am thinking about response to immediate danger ? in defense of yourself or others. If you came in on someone like the school shooter at VA Tech, Northern Illinois, the Amish school, or a workplace shooting, and you could take the person out with a baseball bat or a gun — is that action immediately unchristian?
Or if you turned a corner into such an incident and could stop it by running your car into the perpetrator (deadly force) — is that action unchristian?
Or if someone broke into your house to kidnap and rape your child or grandchild?
Is it unchristian to be a police officer?

I own four shotguns and a bow for hunting. I do not own a hand gun.
If I lived some place that where people were trying to do violence toward my family or other people for whom I was responsible I would buy a hand gun for self defense.
I admire those of you who would not do so, but that’s my leaning.
I do not agree that the NRA is too powerful. In their view they are protecting a fundamental American right delineated in the constitution, and they would see any change in that right as a step toward slavery to the tyranny of government.
Perhaps a part of this disagreement has to do with how we see and understand history and the role of government.

It always astounds me when people make statements about “gun control,” and they believe that such laws would some how impact criminal behavior. What is very interesting is that people believe that if you take the guns out of the hands of legitimate owners, and safe users, and only leave illegal guns in the hands of criminal, then crime will somehow be deterred.
The logic behind owning something which is used to provide and protect your family, yet keeping it at a specific location, locked up, and unavailable for use at your home completely alludes me? In fact I think that I can matter of factly state that there is no logic in that comment.
I do not pretend to say that I own firearms because I ?need? to provide food for my family, however, I am capable of doing so should the need arise. I do not try to give the illusion that I own firearms simply to protect myself from intruders in my home. However, should someone intrude, I sleep well knowing that I will be able to protect them.
I enjoy shooting. I enjoy throwing clay pigeons into the air and blowing them apart. I enjoy setting milk jugs filled with water out in a field 400 yards away, and making them explode, showing water everywhere. Shooting is a sport, as well as a right.
I do not get all worked up about people taking my so called ?rights? away? I get more upset about people who don?t appreciate my sport, trying to take it away. Why don?t you go and take baseball bats away? Tell people that if they want to play baseball, they must go to a sport facility between the hours of 9-5 and sign their bat out, and it can only be used there?
Of course it is ludicrous for me to associate a gun with a baseball bat. It would be ignorant, and irresponsible for me to insinuate that guns are not more of a problem, and far more dangerous than a baseball bat. However, if I chose to kill someone with a bat, I could.
If I chose, or anyone chose to kill another human being, the lack of a firearm readily at hand, is not going to stop the human being from taking action.
The fact of the matter is? If we lived our lives according to Christ, and His Word, then none of this would be an issue. If each and every supposed Christian took Matthew 28 to heart, and lived it out for just 1 month a year, and everyone that came to Christ because of their obedience did the same? In just 2 years the entire world would be saved?
We should be more worried that there are people on the streets of the United States of America who use guns without a single consideration for their eternal life. They walk the streets in gangs, and shoot random innocent people, without worry of their sin.
I assert that it is not the guns? fault. It is the weak, and luke warm Christians of this country who aren?t going to them and displaying the love of Christ. I assert that the lazy comfortable lifestyles that Christians live in this country is more detestable to God than the lives of those who completely reject Him.
As a Christian, you (all of us as Christians, not directed at Mr. McKnight) should stop worrying about why someone is allowed to own a gun, and you should worry about why some gun owners aren?t saved? why some gun owners have never heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I assert that ownership of guns save more lives than it takes? I do not have a key to my house? I have no idea where one might be. If I wanted to lock my home, I would have to buy new locks? I have lived this way for over 20 years? Who needs locks, when you?ve got God?

RJS, the central mitzvot of Jesus is to love God by loving others. All others. Every human being is created in the image, as the Eikon of the creator God and is holy and sacred because of the image they bear. Now, it is not loving to allow someone to further dehumanize themselves by dehumanizing others through violence. As far as I can tell, we never get to simply stand by and watch. At the same time, we are never freed from the responsibility to love the Eikon who is committing the violence. How that plays out will be different in every situation, but Scot has proposed and I agree with his baseline. You can’t love someone and kill them. They are an Eikon of the Holy God and we are not given the authority to kill. If you kill someone, you are violating the central mitzvot of Jesus.
That is what the NT says. I’ve studied all the different ways to find space for something else and they all do so by something that neither Holy Scripture nor the Church of the first several centuries ever said. Even from Constantine on, when the Church was struggling and trying to find a path, that tension has never vanished. I empathize deeply with the struggle of the Church. In many ways, I share that struggle.
Now, the question is not what is the command. Love God by loving others. All others. Follow Jesus in his way. Learn from him and obey his mitzvots. The problem is that we don’t think his way will work. We think evil will win if we are not prepared to use the tools of evil — violence and death. All of your examples revolve around that same fear. If I don’t kill the one doing the violence, they’ll win. And the innocent will lose.
My question (and this is likely my pluralist formation showing itself) has always been this: If Jesus’ way doesn’t work, if he does not teach and live the way of the human being, if his is the path of failure, why follow him at all? And it really comes down to that. Either his way doesn’t work or our imagination and confidence is deficient. Right now, I lean toward the latter.
Can you be a police officer? Sure. You can certainly be a police officer and refuse to kill, though it might be more dangerous for you to do so. And it might not be good for your job prospects to proclaim that’s how you will live. Ultimately, you can’t really be a soldier and refuse to kill. Martin of Tours was one of the early celebrated ones to work that through. People like to say things like, “Jesus didn’t tell soldiers to stop being soldiers.” My only response is that he often left people to work out the consequences of what he had said for themselves. For instance, he didn’t tell Zaccheus to stop being a tax collector even though if Zaccheus actually followed through on their discussion, he would have inevitably lost his contracts because he would not have collected the necessary graft for those above him.
Just War is not somehow separate or distinct from this discussion. There is no distinction between what I do as an individual when I kill people and what a “state” does when it kills people. It’s still always people killing people. I think it’s human nature to compartmentalize these things to make them more palatable. Or perhaps to come up with one answer in one compartment and another in a different one.
Yes, Jesus did lay out some pretty good and specific guidelines for non-violent resistance to the powers. And we should adhere to them when in situations where they might apply. But those are simply the applications of his mitzvots in specific circumstances. They flow from people asking him things like, OK then, if I love God by loving all others, what do I do when the Roman soldier demands I carry his belongings? But you see, the answer to that question is not the mitzvot itself. It’s an explanation or an application of the mitzvot.
And this is what our Scripture says. All human beings are created as Eikons of God. All human beings bear the holy image. And we are to love God by loving other human beings. The second command explains how we are to accomplish the first. If we don’t love the Eikons, we don’t love the one whose image they bear.
Now, it can be exceedingly hard to discern how to act in a manner that wills the good of all — victim and perpetrator — in fact it is hard to will the good at all for those doing evil, but that is our task. And I would suggest a starting point is this: It is not good and it is not love to kill. Whatever else we may do, if we do that we have not obeyed Jesus. It’s a starting point, not a destination. We must break the grip that violence and death and fear have on us.

When I was in seminary, I took a course on just war theory, taught by Reinhard Hutter. Reinhard is a good guy and, at that time, was committed to non-violence. Other students in the course were from the civil rights era, and there was alot of tension between that older generation and the younger students. The older ones really viewed with contempt those who served in the military, especially in Vietnam. I had a real problem with this, as my uncle served there not because he wanted to but because he had no other options. Both his parents died when he was in high school and there were very limited opportunities for someone like him in rural Maine. And so he joined the service and went to Vietnam; upon returning to the states, he was spit on by college kids and others; As if the war was his fault. To say that Christians cannot be in the military or in law enforcement smacks of elitism and arrogance to me.
And what about chaplains? Are they supporting violence by providing spiritual counsel to those who have to bear the burden of battle?
Many in the service are there because they have no where else to go. Rural areas have been hit very hard by casualties in the present mess in Iraq. For people who have had an easier life, with more opportunites, to criticize those who are in the military is arrogance pure and simple.

Dan,
I’m sorry, but it doesn’t help to say it smacks of arrogance. The pacifist view is the one the takes the heat for this; the realist/just war theory is the de facto Christian view.
It isn’t elitism; it is rare. I struggle with this but this is what I believe.
I didn’t say that Christians can’t be in the military; nor have I condemned those who choose that route. I disagree, that’s all. I fully endorse Christian variety here, even if I think the pacifist view is the better view.
Where has there been criticism of the other view here?

Dan, if you heard elitism or arrogance from me, then you misheard me. I was in the military for 8 eight years. (Though I freely confess that my period in the military did not overlap with Christianity.) My father fought in Vietnam and hated the fact that I ever had anything at all to do with the military. My father-in-law was in the Korean War. My grandfather was a WWII fighter pilot.
My perspective when I was in the military — in both personal and state level interactions — was probably closer to one supporting the preemptive application of force. It was after becoming Christian, reading our Scripture, and studying our history that I was confronted in that perspective. That’s why I studied the development and progression of just war doctrine so thoroughly. And for a lot of years, that’s where I rested more or less comfortably, even though I would say I moved from a broader interpretation of just war to a more narrow and specific over time.
Oddly, for me it was studying and considering Gandhi that really began to challenge that perspective. You see, even though he was not a Christian, he acted as though you could resist the powers, with all their might, without the use of violence. And that really challenges everything Christians say in the just war perspective. After all, the reason we need it is because we don’t believe there is any way to maintain order and contain or stop evil in the present world without the use of the threat or application of the power of death. In other words, we don’t believe the center can hold if we abandon that power. Things will fall apart and evil will reign victorious.
But what if that’s not true? What if Jesus’ way actually is the way, the rule if you will, of the kingdom right now? I mean, that’s what he said. We all know that. But what if it’s actually true? Dare we live that way or not?

Pacifism and just war theories, the american culture of violence & glorification of guns, Ghandi’s success with peaceful social resistance, Christians changing the world with peacemaking, whether a church should hire armed security guards, children/gun safety incidents — these are all a distraction to the core question a lot of us are wondering: Can I hold a gun to defend my wife from an intruder. If a warning shot does not deter him, and I’m forced to shoot him, then is my christian witness undermined by this?
Little to nothing has been said here about the biblical glorification of David over Goliath, and countless other God-blessed battles.

Scott M (and perhaps Scot McK),
Maybe this is where I would side with realism over idealism. I don’t think that in this world a fully pacifist view is sustainable.
The example of Ghandi on the other hand illustrates my point – nonviolence and such an approach to resist authoritative tyranny is exactly what Jesus taught.

RJS,
Nonviolent resistance is fine.
The issue is how do Christians live a life of discipleship.

Exactly, RJS. That is the statement of belief of every use and abuse of the threat of the power of death by Christians for two thousand years. That statement — not anything that Jesus or any of the NT authors ever taught or did — is the core of every permutation of just war doctrine and the powers given to Christians acting on behalf of the state. And it is a statement of belief about the nature of reality itself. Nothing is more central.
Do you believe Jesus accurately described and lived what it means to be a human being, how to relate to other human beings, and how to live under the rule of God? Or do you believe it is an ideal that may someday hold true but which cannot work in the world in which we live? How you answer that question determines how you perceive reality and how you will interact with the world around you. What do we believe is real? What do we believe is true?
And then the pluralist in me says this, if you don’t believe the way of Jesus accurately tells us how to live in this world and interact with other human beings, why be a Christian? There are other paths that much more easily come to the “realism” you describe above. There are many spiritual paths in which that is essentially how you are to live. Why not follow them if that’s what you believe to be real? Reality is what reality is. Why follow someone who fails to accurately describe the nature of reality and thus fails to tell us how to live right now? Why bother? In some hope of future reality which is not present today? Because we believe things will one day be all better? Bah. My faith tells me how to live right now, informs my perception of reality in this and every instant, or it’s worthless.
Yes, the way of the Cross, the way of loving others, the way of being the least and the servant of all is frightening and I don’t really know if I can follow it. But if it’s not real, if it’s merely ideal, why even try? Why not find someone else to follow who better describes reality? I think I’ve passed the point, though, where I’m willing to let my fear rule me. At least today. At this moment. Who knows about tomorrow.
And Gilley, I’m not sure what a “Christian witness” is, much less how to answer that question. I suppose the only thing I would ask is, in the moment that you fired the hypothetical shot did you love the person whom you were killing? Were you willfully acting for that person’s good? And as you did so, were you acting in love for the God whose image that person bore by obeying the commands of Jesus? It’s a hypothetical, but it’s very hard for me to imagine a situation where the answer to all those questions would honestly be yes. Now, my imagination is as deficient as anyone else’s in a lot of ways, but I can’t come up with a way to stretch it to that point. In any scenario in which I can place myself, I would be acting out of fear for those who are close to me and out of anger. And I would not be considering the other as a person at all, but as a monster to be stopped at all costs. And that’s not the way Jesus teaches and shows us human beings are to act. It just isn’t.
Perhaps I’ll spend more time than I do trying to grasp the reason for certain stories in the OT when I feel I understand Jesus better, since he is the lens through which Christians read and interpret Hebrew Scripture. That has been true since Pentecost and remains true today. But I will not, on the level of typology, that David was prohibited from building the Temple because of the blood on his hands. And yet, under Jesus our High Priest, we are all priests of the most Holy God, whether we serve the Church in the ordained ministry or not. I have the sense that some things like that are not considered when some people try to use the OT to support a perspective.

Thanks for responding guys. I’m conflicted on this issue and it is a very emotional issue for me and others. As I’ve said in previous posts, I think the non-violent approach is what we see in the NT. I have great respect for those who can maintain this discipline under great duress, as in China with the house church revival, and the Nazi persecution of Jehovah Witnesses in the death camps. As Americans, it is more of a theoretical issue because we are not [yet] under physically violent persecution. We may believe we would not react violently to a situation with force, but we don’t know until it happens. We have no idea of the sacrifice people pay in the torture chambers of this world- becaus e they proclaim Christ as King. And I just don’t think I have the moral authority to tell others what to do in terms of the Service. And since I don’t know what I would do under persecution, or illegal arrest situations, I cannot proscribe behavior for others. I must first live it in my own life, as Christ did. And being a miserable sinner, I fail at this all the time. I guess what bothers me about this discussion is the academic nature of it. This is life and death stuff with real blood and pain. Theories and ideals are hard to maintian under the assaults of evil, and we need to have mercy on those who have gone through the battle or were maimed.
Even Bonhoeffer participated in the plot to assassinate Hitler. I cannot judge him because I have not gone through that oppression, just as I cannot judge those who did not resist. Facing death and torture- loss of family etc.. can be born with God’s grace. But others break under the strain.
We may our beliefs but they are not real until lived out. And there has to be mercy for those who cannot achieve a completely non-violent approach.

Only read the first 40-some comments so this relationship may have already have been discussed. Chris B and others correctly state (see Chris I can agree with you on something!) that in DC and other places, it’s mainly the thugs who have and use guns. OK, let me roll out my some time libertarianism. Most of the thugs are dealing drugs; most of the robbery and murder is drug related. If we decriminalized drugs, there would be much less crime and much less use of guns by the bad guys. And much, much more money that could be used drug counseling and drug therapy. We’ve spent hundreds of billions of dollars on the war against drugs (and how many additional trillions on prisons?). The drug war has until recently been one way many Republicans and some Democrats to scare people into voting for them. Now, of course, the Republican administration is propping up the worlds’ supplier of opium, so we don’t hear much about the war on drugs. Conclusion: Many feel they need hand guns because for protection from criminals. Must crime is drug related. There are saner (and much less expensive)ways to address the drug addiction problem that leads to most crime. With less crime, there would be many fewer handguns. I think the libertarians have this one right.

Scott M – perhaps you are single like me but I would say you should also ask all of your questions about the wife/children you allow to be violated/murdered by an intruder. Are you loving them as eikons of God? Are you willfully acting for their good? Does Jesus really say to only show love to the offender? I remember the parable of the “strong man” that He told. The reason the robber had to tie him up is because he would rightfully get beaten soundly for invading someone’s property…

Scot (141),
Love God, love others right?
But in an imperfect world loving others may entail hard choices if we are realistic. And I think that there are instances where these hard choices may include the use of potentially lethal force. Could this include preemptive or surgical violence? Could it include retributive violence (i.e. death penalty)? This post started with hand guns for self defense and the conversation has moved to encompass both self defense and just war theory. Broad topic?
I am against the death penalty ? it seems to me that such retributive violence, any retributive violence, is unchristian. It is certainly unchristian to promote a culture of violence or participate in a rhetoric that dehumanizes others. I also tend against the idea that preemptive or surgical violence is the appropriate Christian response. But…one of the good things about this blog is that it often forces thought, not permitting thoughtless off the cuff response…

RJS, what do you do with Genesis 9:5-6, “And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.”
The Lord is speaking here to Noah after the flood, and seems to be specifically requiring the death penalty for killing a man, because man was made in God’s image.

Scott M-
I regret asking about my “christian witness” – I should have said “am I sinning?” or something more coherent. I can start a thought, delete, & retype — I don’t know…usually 5 or 6 times before settling on something, but it’s not uncommon that I leave a bizarre trail of confusion. My day job is to work with numbers.
I’ve purposefully framed my question with “can I protect my wife?” instead of “can I protect myself” because when I was single I had no intention to use a gun for self-defense. But the stakes have changed, and I love her more than myself, and I view my vow to cherish her implied “to protect.” Moreover, I love her more than any intruder. She would feel very unimportant, unloved, & betrayed if I didn’t stop the threat.
On David, he fulfilled God’s will in the act of killing and commanding others to kill. I can’t find any psalm where this man after God’s heart ever repented for calling down God’s wrath on his enemies. That he wasn’t allowed to build the temple is an example of my point in #101 about the differences in God’s calling. The temple wouldn’t exist at all in that place had there not been someone to lead the fight. Surely his victims were every bit the Eikons present in our NT age, and not simply unlucky to have lived in the time before Jesus clarified things for subsequent generations.
Moreover, God himself wiped out in a non-surgical manner thousands of Eikons in the time of Noah, S&G, Red Sea, & Hezekiah (Isa 37:35,36) and I ponder what Jesus in heaven was thinking in those very moments. We sweep away these things quite easily.
Finally – if God’s minister, the government, rightfully bears the sword for justice, then I seriously question the notion that a.) defending my bride in my own home simply is not just — just presumptious, or b.) the “but am I loving him?” criteria is satisfied if a cop shoots him instead of me (again, in my own home).

Gilley, in your last point you are reading a whole lot more into that piece of one section of Paul’s letter to the Romans than is actually present in the text. If you study Just War doctrine, that’s typically acknowledged very early in any discussion. The idea is an accommodation of a “realistic” perspective that what our text tells us to do as individuals can’t actually apply to “states” even when the same individuals make up that state. Of course, the categorization of one thing as “realistic” and another as “ideal” is in and of itself a statement about the fundamental nature of reality and who and what Jesus of Nazareth actually was. It can never be anything less. If it were ever OK for us to act in that manner as individuals, there would never have been an issue for the Church when Christians also wielded state power. That rule or description of life would have simply been an extension of the rule for the individual. It has been an issue for seventeen centuries because there is no such allowance in Scripture. In fact, Jesus bluntly tells his followers that they know how the powers of the world operate and it’s not going to be that way for them. He tells Caesar that his power, his kingdom, is not from this earth otherwise his followers would be using the sword to establish it. Rather it is from the Triune God, but most definitely for this earth. And his Kingdom operates by very different rules. Yet, now all power on heaven and on earth has been given to him. The question for us, as always, becomes: How then shall we live?
And for the benefit of both JWT and you, my wife and I recently celebrated our 18th anniversary. It’s my third marriage and my children range from 11 to 26. I also have a (now adult) foster son. And I have a delightful 4 year old granddaughter. I spent considerable time, effort, and resources (we mostly didn’t have) to rescue my oldest son from an extremely abusive situation and to provide what stability and healing we could. My childhood was … interesting. Let’s leave it at that. And as I’ve said elsewhere in this thread, before Christianity my perspective would be easily described as fully in line with preemptive and retributive violence as RJS outlined. My ethos was to protect those who mattered to me at almost any cost. Those who were not part of that group I held no ill-will toward and might even help — as long as they didn’t harm or threaten anyone I loved.
Again and again, I hear a common thread. If I can’t kill someone, if I take the power to deal death off the table, then I can’t protect the innocent or my own family. And that’s just nonsense. Anyone who did say such a thing would certainly be acting unloving toward those who are being harmed. That’s almost an attitude of indifference. And we are never allowed to be indifferent. It doesn’t mean you will always succeed or that evil will always appear to lose in the moment. But frankly, even with the power to deal death on the table, human history at dealing with evil isn’t all that good. Could it really be any worse if we lived as though Jesus actually described reality and what it meant to be human? What if the realistic perspective is Jesus’ and we are simply to enslaved by fear to see reality? Is that really why we want to treat it as “ideal” rather “real”? I don’t know, but those are the sorts of questions Christianity has forced me to ask.
The other thoughts I would add on the Christian use of the OT are this. There are many themes in the OT, but Temple and Torah are certainly at or near the core. I made a short Temple point earlier, but it needs expansion. Because we are not only priests, we have actually become Temple ourselves. The Spirit of God dwells or tabernacles within us. We are both priest and Temple. When you read anything in the OT, keep that in mind. Secondly, not only is Jesus the fulfillment of Torah and the prophets (and thus they must be read through the lens he provides), he said this explicitly about Torah:
Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is one! Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. And the second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.
This is a statement about Torah (and many other things beside). Jesus says you fulfill Torah by following me and obeying these mitzvots, these commands.
So a Christian has to read the OT always keeping in mind what the NT says about Temple and Torah. It changes how we read it.

Hmmm. And in case it wasn’t clear, I have never been a Christian without my wife and without children. I’ve added one child, acquired a semi foster child, and a granddaughter since I became Christian. But at no point as a Christian have I ever not had a family. Read anything I’ve said through that lens.

Hi Scot,
The court has allowed for this much at least: “I find no reason why reasonable US citizens can?t agree to restrict the ownership and the right to carry guns.” They have allowed restrictions.
But regarding this: “No one, so far as I can see, needs to have a handgun, live and loaded, on them in public. No one. But cops.” I don’t and won’t own one, but living just outside DC and with the practically daily killings by oulawed handguns there, I’d prefer that law abiding citizens be able to have a handgun in their house if they so choose. The law has done little to stop law breakers from owning and using handguns.
- Craig

Hi Scot,
btw, I do appreciate your position and struggle myself with this. But I currently am of the mindset that I would defend my family to the death (mine, or the aggressor) in case of their being attacked; regardless of the type of instrument, or lack there of.
- Craig

Who of us knows what we would do if our children/spouse/self were in a life-threatening situation at the mercy of another? But if we start out from the premise “I would blow him away, I would kill him to save my loved ones” … it’s more likelihood that would be the first response. But if the mindset is, “the last thing I want to do in that situation is kill and the first thing I want to do is pray very fervently to God for guidance,” then God will guide us, and we will do God’s will. And I have faith that in almost all cases, what God will guide to do is something very different from the Hollywood-scripted hero scenario.

Even if we stipulate (I don’t, but if we did) that comprehensive gun bans should be allowed to stand and that the 2nd Amendment should be set aside, the key question that Scalia helped us answer is this one: IS IT THE PROVINCE OF THE SCOTUS to make it happen?
No. A thousand times, NO.
Justice Kennedy has made a habit of citing “emerging consensus,” or more precisely his reading of same, as a proper basis for SCOTUS decisions on constitutionality. In doing so, he ignores the inconvenient fact that the Constitution has codified a very simple way of objectively identifying the kind of consensus that must emerge, and be unequivocally demonstrated, before any portion of the Constitution can be set aside.
If we want to set the 2nd Amendment aside to achieve what Scot desires, let the process begin, and do it right: get the states to vote, and get 3/4 in both houses of Congress to agree. But don’t eviscerate that process by simply turning it over to the discretion of one undisciplined Associate Justice. Doing so puts all of the other provisions of the Constitution in equal jeopardy of being set aside without pursuing the kind of national consensus that the Framers codified.
So, Scot, let’s say you’re right. If you are, then get 3/4 of the states and the elected representatives to vote with you, and do it according to law. That is the sum total of what Scalia has said: it is not within SCOTUS’ prerogative to substitute someone’s reading of “emerging national consensus” for the very simple, very concrete, and entirely objective means of measuring national consensus that we already have laid out for ourselves. There is a way to achieve what you want done, but relying on unelected justices to do it for you is an illegal shortcut that undermines the Constitution as a whole.
This is what is meant when we say we are a country of laws, not of men. There is already a way to do what you want done! That you might believe the bar is set too high does not justify going around the procedures we already have in place that have been successfully used a couple of dozen times. The bar may be high, but it is not impossible.
qb

I’ve enjoyed this thread, and the many thoughtful responses. But I sense I’ve failed to make it plain that I don’t harbor a boyish hero-dream & I would exhaust every possible alternative (warning shot, etc.) before aiming at him. And even then I’d hope to God to stop him without killing him. But the issue of killing has to remain in the thread not because I/we want to kill but because it’s squarely in the realm of the unwanted likely.
But in this I’m indifferent, unloving, and guilty of trying to usher in the kingdom with a sword. Indeed wife-defense truly does make me a Zealot. I realize now it could never be less than bloodlust in my heart… because no one killed and loved in the same act (with the exception of, nevermind).
I’m struck how easily we should dismiss God’s 1,000+ year pattern of establishing his holy nation through violence, as if it’s completely irrelevant now, in spite of the fact that the singular value of each human life in those days and now has not changed. A new perspective on things, no matter how revolutionary, does not absolve what are now viewed as heinous acts. Is no one else confused by the implications of this 180 degree turn God made – this self-rebuke?
As I mentioned, the triune God saw it fit to say “enough is enough” in wholesale fashion to multitudes of precious lives because in every case these people had crossed some line, where their lives were completely forfeited by their actions, intentions, or even destiny, as it was for their infants. And who am I to consider the inside of my home, or inside my wife’s body, to be anywhere close to that line?! I really hope I’ll have the composure to explain these things to him even though as it is I still struggle recording my voicemail greeting (Seriously).
Oh, if you saw my extreme lankiness you would indeed proclaim it ‘nonsense’ that I should even try to stop him without a weapon. Not everyone has faith in his own fists.

We cannot claim that it is immoral to defend your life or the lives of others, even if that means killing the person threatening your life, at least based on “natural law”, of which self-preservation in the first principle. Christ, of course, turns this all on its head with his “turn the other cheek” and “forgive your enemy” and “he who gains his life will lose it”, so from a purely Christian perspective I would say that owning a handgun doesn’t fit in with Christian values. But turning the other cheek, if that means sacrificing the lives of ourselves or our loved ones, is one of those things, like giving away every thing you have to the poor, that probably isn’t going to happen this side of the second coming. So while there may be a Christian component to the arguments surrounding handguns, the reason for banning handguns are simply practical, and based solely on the notion of good government – doing that which will benefit the largest number of the population the most. Quite simply “the right to bear arms” , when viewed in the absolute fashion that it is in the US, does not keep people safe; it appears to have the opposite effect. The writers of the constitution had not, as is the case with almost all our good intentions, thought out the unintended consequences of this particular article. You believe that you are safer with a handgun because you believe it gives you some control, but the fact is that if you own a handgun, you or someone you love is much more likely to get killed than someone who doesn’t. One only has to look at the statistics to see that the US has been an outlier among developed countries when it comes to both the murder rate and wildly out of sync when it comes to deaths due to guns – sometimes approaching the rate countries that are in a constant state of civil war. Why is this? These are the theories, which seem reasonable:
1. guns make it more likely that assault becomes murder. While knives and other implements we may use when in a violent rage may bear the same intent, murder is much more likely to be the consequence if we have a gun.
2. the largest percentage of homicides are not committed by burglars or by strangers but because of a dispute between people who who know each other, during an argument. Handguns may protect you from home invaders (although that is also quite uncertain) but they do not help protect you from the much more likely scenario that someone you know kills you, or that you kill someone else, in a rage.
3. accidental homicides are much more frequent when guns are readily available. Very few people die while cleaning a knife.
4. people are more likely to be killed in the commission of a crime when both parties have guns. You may FEEL safer because you have a handgun but which of the these scenarios is, in fact, safer (and let’s be realistic here – most of us aren’t Rambo):
-someone with a gun holds you or your place of business up. You put up your hands and give them the money
-someone with a gun holds you up and you pull out a gun
It is true that burglary rates are higher in countries like Canada, and even in Scandinavian countries, than the US and that may be partly because burglary is a more dangerous occupation in the US (or it my be because of higher incarceration rates) but murder rates are substantially lower, especially those committed during a crime. So in the end the choice is something like this: would I rather die than be robbed?
Someone pointed out that if regular citizens don?t have guns, the criminals will still have guns, and this is true, particularly in Canada, where guns are constantly being smuggled in from the US. Guns are mostly owned by young men involved in organized crime, particularly drugs. Nevertheless, the highest murder rates in Canada are in the far north, where the rate even surpasses the US. That is because a much greater percentage of the regular population there have guns (rifles for hunting) and alcoholism rates are very high. Basically people are killing their loved ones, friends and neighbours in alcohol-fuelled rages, because guns are lying around, providing the means. In urban areas most of the murders are young men involved in drug crimes killing other young men involved in drug crimes. They have guns for the same reason that people want guns in the US ? to protect themselves. But they don’t. Those who live by the gun die by the gun.

Precisely, Diane. I’m still angry about the SCOTUS’ decision, for the sole reason that innocent people (read: children, far too often) are dying, caught at the wrong place in the wrong time–often trying to get to or from school in Chicago’s most dangerous neighborhoods. In the midst of all this talk about our “rights”, who here has stood up for them? How many more children have to die before we realize that our “right” to bear arms is outdated? It is therefore a benefit of good government to have, and enforce, a handgun ban, since it supports the prevention of needless violence.
I have a small bone to pick, and this is with the person who tried to use Romans 13 as a justification for the SCOTUS’ decision (I think it was ChrisB). This is nonsense. This passage cannot be construed to support the court’s ruling, since its primary thrust and premise is about how God has placed ruling authorities over us for our good, and rebellion against them is rebellion against God. To say, therefore, that they had “no choice” to rule as they did is to misuse the passage and distort its central meaning. Do you think SCOTUS gives a flying purple rip about this passage; did it even get onto their radar screens? I don’t think they do, and I don’t think the passage did.

Diane (#153), exactly.
I’m simply not willing to concede that reality is not as Jesus of Nazareth described it and that his way of being human is not for us right here and right now. As soon as you take his way and say it is not “realistic” for our present experience or that it is an “ideal” for some future reality, that’s exactly what you’ve done. And when Christians have been notable (at least in a positive way) in history, it’s because they have not just cared for their own. (Caring for those like you is and has always been the human norm.) Rather, they have cared for everyone. They have said every human being is a sacred Eikon of the holy God and must be loved as such.
We almost always react in the pressure of the moment in the way in which we have shaped ourselves (or been shaped) to react. If we are ready to respond with violence, typically the human default position, then that is how we will respond. Only when we have spent the time indirectly shaping ourselves to respond differently through spiritual discipline, communion with God, and the willful intent to be a different person do we have any hope that in the heat of the moment we will respond differently. By the grace and energies of God through the power of the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, human beings are able to become more human. We do not have to be filled with violence. That does not have to be our default position.
I believe that because I have studied the history of the Church and read the lives of the saints. It’s not an ideal. Normal, everyday people have been so radically altered that their responses almost appear unreal to us. And the impact they have made is amazing. I would rather believe in the reality they saw than the one proposed by the “realists” who say that violence is necessary and evil can only be resisted through evil means. Even if I’m never able to see the world as they saw it and as Jesus described it, I find I would rather believe that’s because I cannot break the chains of delusion which bind me than believe that reality does not exist — that the nature of the world since Jesus broke the power of death has fundamentally remained unchanged.
And so, yes, I believe that if reality is as Jesus described it and as the saints saw it, then there is always a way to respond, a way to stand for the innocent and against evil that will not require us to kill. It may be that the way becomes for us the way of the Cross all the way to death as it has for many for two thousand years. Nevertheless, if the cosmos did not radically change when Jesus came out of the tomb and death was defeated, if all power in heaven and earth has not been given to him, if the rule of the Kingdom is not the rule today for the people of God, why follow Jesus?
Gilley, I’m not ignoring the history of Israel. I’m simply making the point virtually every theologian for two thousand years has made and which the NT itself makes every time an apostle speaks. Christians read the OT through the lens of Jesus — incarnation, death, and resurrection — and as the people of God indwelled by the Holy Spirit. And that means we read it very differently. I’m not sufficiently immersed in Christ to always feel confident attempting to explain much in the OT. But Jesus radically altered the nature of the law by which the people of God are to live. He even did so directly and explicitly when he told his followers, the new Israel (thus the twelve) that they were not to live in the way of the powers of this world. Everything you have said seems to attempt to want to take OT passages and apply them directly to yourself today. We don’t get to do that, especially as gentiles. We are the people grafted into the tree of the people of God through Jesus. So we can never say anything about what it means to be the people of God apart from Jesus and his commands.
And thanks mariam. That was a point I tried to allude to earlier. Firearms are designed to kill. That’s their purpose and it’s difficult to use them in any other way. If firearms are readily at hand, the odds that someone will die in any sort of conflict have immediately escalated tremendously.

Mariam, or anyone else from Canada, is not hunting popular in Canada? I always thought it was.
don’t people who hunt own firearms?

A citizen without the express right to keep and bear arms is less a citizen than a subject.

Let us say the flooding in Iowa and Missouri are “reality.” So the local populace in towns along the rivers have decided to “fight back” the menace by stockpiling sandbags in order to be ready when the trouble comes. Are all of you nice people saying they should just let Ol’ Man River come in and destroy their towns, with possible human deaths the result, because that is what you have decided Jesus would do? After all, He told the Sea of Galilee, “Peace, be still” and we should all be acting as He acted. Right?

Bob,
I hope you don’t consider that an argument, but a facetious bit of humor.

Who was that guy again that grabbed a whip and not so non-violently sent the merchants flying across the Temple court? I also seem to remember a quote about someone stumbling a child and having a millstone hung around his neck and being sent swimming in the sea (not something one would survive if I read millstone trivia correctly). Until I see someone walk on water I’m not convinced we can do everything Jesus did. I’m happy with being “in Christ.” But I still don’t find anything in the gospels or the NT in general that says not to defend yourself or your loved ones from harm…deadly force or otherwise.

Scot,
I expect that Bob’s comment was somewhat tongue in cheek. But I also have to admit that one thought that crossed my mind in this discussion was similar. God is sovereign – part of Jesus’s ministry was healing – the disciples healed. Healing is a gift of the Spirit. But most of us ? even as Christians, would speak ill of a parent who relied on faith and prayer alone to treat a child with diabetes (as one example). If a child died for lack of treatment we would fault the parents. What is different about the issue of confronting evil in the world? Why should we rely wholly and solely on God to work a miracle in one case and not in another?

From today’s Washington Post:
Guns for Safety? Dream On, Scalia
Sunday, June 29, 2008; Page B02
The Supreme Court has spoken: Thanks to the court’s blockbuster 5 to 4 decision Thursday, Washingtonians now have the right to own a gun for self-defense. I leave the law to lawyers, but the public health lesson is crystal clear: The legal ruling that the District’s citizens can keep loaded handguns in their homes doesn’t mean that they should.
In his majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia explicitly endorsed the wisdom of keeping a handgun in the home for self-defense. Such a weapon, he wrote, “is easier to store in a location that is readily accessible in an emergency; it cannot easily be redirected or wrestled away by an attacker; it is easier to use for those without the upper-body strength to lift and aim a long rifle; it can be pointed at a burglar with one hand while the other hand dials the police.” But Scalia ignored a substantial body of public health research that contradicts his assertions. A number of scientific studies, published in the world’s most rigorous, peer-reviewed journals, show that the risks of keeping a loaded gun in the home strongly outweigh the potential benefits.
In the real world, Scalia’s scenario — an armed assailant breaks into your home, and you shoot or scare away the bad guy with your handy handgun — happens pretty infrequently. Statistically speaking, these rare success stories are dwarfed by tragedies. The reason is simple: A gun kept loaded and readily available for protection may also be reached by a curious child, an angry spouse or a depressed teen.
More than 20 years ago, I conducted a study of firearm-related deaths in homes in Seattle and surrounding King County, Washington. Over the study’s seven-year interval, more than half of all fatal shootings in the county took place in the home where the firearm involved was kept. Just nine of those shootings were legally justifiable homicides or acts of self-defense; guns kept in homes were also involved in 12 accidental deaths, 41 criminal homicides and a shocking 333 suicides. A subsequent study conducted in three U.S. cities found that guns kept in the home were 12 times more likely to be involved in the death or injury of a member of the household than in the killing or wounding of a bad guy in self-defense.
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Oh, one more thing: Scalia’s ludicrous vision of a little old lady clutching a handgun in one hand while dialing 911 with the other (try it sometime) doesn’t fit the facts. According to the Justice Department, far more guns are lost each year to burglary or theft than are used to defend people or property. In Atlanta, a city where approximately a third of households contain guns, a study of 197 home-invasion crimes revealed only three instances (1.5 percent) in which the inhabitants resisted with a gun. Intruders got to the homeowner’s gun twice as often as the homeowner did.
The court has spoken, but citizens and lawmakers should base future gun-control decisions — both personal and political — on something more substantive than Scalia’s glib opinion.
– Arthur Kellermann, a professor of emergency medicine and public health at Emory University

RSJ,
You are so intelligent and I enjoy reading your comments on the blog, but the analogy doesn’t hold. What if you had to kill another person to make your child healthy or do something else unethical? Just seeking medical treatment doesn’t force a moral choice between your child’s well-being and that of another human being.
And, just speaking out of rationality alone, if the above Washington Post editorial is true, and houses with guns have a higher number of gun-related suicides and yet guns are rarely ever used for home defense, then isn’t a gun the equivalent of a “cure” that is more lethal than the disease?

Dan,
My impression is that hunting for sport is quite a bit less popular in Canada than in the US. I think the whole “hunting” thing is advertised in the US to hunters there, by Canadian guide and outfitter groups, but I think the proportion of people who hunt for sport in Canada is quite a bit lower than in the US. However, in rural areas, especially in the north, there is still a fair amount of hunting for food. A lot of farmers own shotguns to protect their chickens, etc and for those living near subsistence level, bagging a elk or moose helps fill the freezer with food for the winter. My parents and my aunts and uncles all owned rifles and shot at coyotes and would try and get at least one deer or moose for the winter. The idea, though, of hunting for sport was something they thought bordered on cruelty and trophy hunting they considered positively immoral. I heard lots of angry comments over the years about city hunters that would come and take the head of the animal for a trophy leaving the carcass to rot. It wasn’t just the waste – it was the sense of disrespect to the animal. Even hunting for food is on a steep decline though – McDonald’s is cheaper than bullets. Also wildlife is a lot less bountiful than it once was and among a lot of people there is a sense that it is cruel and extravagant to hunt the large game animals that are left. I have lots of relatives in Canada’s rural north. None of them own firearms anymore – they just think it is too dangerous and they all know too many kids that have been killed or lost pieces of themselves in gun accidents.
In urban areas – truthfully I don’t know personally a single person who owns a firearm. Well, no that’s not quite true. My husband has a crazy uncle who owns several guns and definitely shouldn’t. His family keep trying to figure out how they can get him to give them up without getting shot themselves. I know a lot of people who did have rifles and have got rid of them. A common attitude is “Some criminal might break in and steal it and then use it to shoot someone and then I would feel responsible.”

Diane,
I don’t have a handgun and don’t want a handgun – the article you posted is a good summary of many of the reasons why.
I do think that we should think about why we take a given position however. Why do we expect Christians to do everything humanly possible in most instances but rely on God alone in others?

RJS,
I don’t think the notion of non-violence, which Christ taught, has to do with relying on God to keep us safe. It means that we are so committed to stopping the cycle of violence that we are willing to not shoot back, even if it means giving our lives for that principle. It is, in effect, the opposite of what you describe, because the extreme action that we are taking, the thing that we are doing that is most humanly possible thing we can do to stop violence, is to refuse to participate in it. It is probably the hardest thing Christ asks us to do. Of course, it helps if you believe that those actions will be recognized in the hereafter. That is why Christ promises that “He who wishes to save his life will lose it and he who loses his life for my sake will
save it.” But we’re not really ready for that are we? Most of us don’t have quite that much faith. I know I don’t. I think CHrist is right and that is The Way, but I can’t blame those who aren’t ready to come on board with that yet.

FACT: Guns prevent an estimated 2.5 million crimes a year, or 6,849 per day.
* Gary Kleck, Criminologist, Florida State Univ.
Often the gun is never fired and no blood (including the criminals) is shed.
FACT: Every day, 550 rapes, 1,100 murders, and 5,200 other violent crimes per day are
Prevented just by showing a handgun. In less than 0.9% of the time is the gun ever actually ever fired.
* Gary Kleck, Criminologist, Florida State Univ.
FACT: Every year, people in the United States use a gun to defend themselves against criminals an estimated 2,500,000 times- more than 6,500 people a day, or once every 13 seconds.
* Fall 1995, Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

Jim, #170, Well, FACT may be a trifle strong. More like AN ASSUMPTION BASED ON STATISTICAL EXTRAPOLATION FROM A SMALL SAMPLE SIZE. But that’s OK. I know that would make the word count longer and mostly we know what you mean. There are other studies which present very different results and they all criticize each other’s methodology. A layman’s article which summarizes that discussion and the inability of scientists to answer the question “Are we safer with guns or without” is here:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1511/is_n5_v17/ai_18199116/pg_1?tag=artBody;col1

Scot (#162) and RJS (#164),
Yes, my post (#161) was facetious. Well, semi-facetious. “Somewhat” tongue in cheek, as you say. But only somewhat.
And of course it isn’t an argument. Still, it makes one think.
If you don’t close off the comments soon, this topic may go on forever, because no one is likely to convince anyone else.

As mentioned in one of the initial comments, the real issue with this ruling is not what we think about gun ownership, but what the constitution thinks about gun ownership. The job of the supreme court is to decide what the constitution means, not what it should mean in light of todays changing times. Perhaps some of the justices who voted against the ban on constitutional grounds, were actually in favor of it. But they did their job in as much as they faithfully informed us what the founding father’s actually meant.
Amending the constitution is difficult, as it should be. Those who feel that times have changed sufficient to warrant changing the constitution, or that the founding fathers were wrong, should role up their sleeves and seek an amendment. The alternative is frightening. Do we really want nine un-elected people with no term limits deciding for us what the founding fathers should have said? Writing our nations laws is the job of the people, not a select few.

I do see the anabaptist interpretation of Jesus’ teaching such that it advocates radical pacifism to be an over-extrapolation. Nowhere do I see Jesus teach that legitimate authority should use the power given to it by God to protect the helpless and establish justice. And I daresay this includes the authority of a father and a husband to defend his children and wife from an intruder. However we might like to say that “‘violence’ never solves anything”, it WAS the disparate and heroic actions of the Tutsi rebels that finally stopped the Rwandan genocide (and yes, they used guns, and not just kisses). The pacifists here need to take this to heart – to realize that their cavalier and all-encompassing use of the word “violence” equates those who liberated the Nazi concentration camps with those who ran them, and those who ended the Rwandan genocide with those who began them.
Having said all this, I think the point is a weighty one, nonetheless – that Jesus very much challenged our notions of power and how we expect the kingdom of God to come. And here I think the traditional ancient Christian faith has the right balance – where soldiers may be blessed by the church but still have sanctions upon them when they must kill to do their duty. Where a man may kill legitimately, but this still disqualifies him from the priesthood. The analogy I see is that of eating meat – we rightly decry the bondage of creation to decay and death – where we cannot eat but by the death of another creature. But to say simply that all Christians may eat nothing but the Eucharist is to over-immanentize the eschaton in my view. We still groan. We still must, as George Manly Hopkins says, “kill and eat with wonder”. We still must defend our little ones from those who would destroy them – how else would we be like our father in heaven, who defends his people?
The difference between us who have taken on board Jesus’ message and those who resisted him is seen well in an allegory from Lord of the Rings. Sauron and Saruman must be resisted. They must be fought. It is the noble, though deeply ambiguous calling of the men of the west to give their lives in struggle against this evil foe. And yet these noble efforts are doomed to failure in the long run. Sauron’s power will not be overcome by force of arms, but by loving sacrifice and weakness of a hobbit, taking upon himself the evil of the world and walking into the fire of death. This is where the final victory comes, and this is where the kingdom really breaks in. But just because we know the kingdom of God comes in weakness through the cross does NOT mean that those whom God has given strength and authority are not called to use it in defense of justice in this veil of tears wherein we live. It just means that these powers must not mistake their calling for the highest one, or their efforts to resist evil as the central ones.
This, I submit, is an understanding that takes Jesus’ core message seriously without demonizing the authorities that Paul spoke of in Romans (or, for that matter, the acts of God in the OT whereby he defended his people from their enemies).

Sorry – the above second sentence should read:
Nowhere do I see Jesus teach that legitimate authority SHOULDN’T use the power given to it by God to protect the helpless and establish justice.

Check out John Piper’s personal reaction to the Supreme Court ruling on handguns. http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/1288_guns_and_martyrdom/

#176, Joel, thanks for that. I’m going to have to cut Piper some more slack!