Does God Believe in
Gun Control?
"You are doing God's work," Brady Bill sponsor Charles Schumer remarked to
Sarah Brady at one Congressional hearing. And perhaps one could argue that if it took God
seven days to make the world, people shouldn't be able to buy a gun in any less time.
But did God really endorse the Brady Bill? One would certainly think so, given the huge
number of Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish religious organizations that endorsed the Brady
Bill, and which endorse virtually every other gun control proposal. God's anti-gun army is
prominent not just in Washington, but also in the state legislatures.
This year, for example, as legislatures have debated laws
allowing licensed, trained citizens to obtain a permit to carry a handgun for protection,
some of the most vocal opponents have been religious groups. Now the state chapter of the
National Council of Churches does not show up at legislative hearings armed with
criminological data. Instead, persons claiming to testify on behalf of "the religious
community" come to express their "moral" opposition to the use of deadly
force against criminal attack.
This same worldview is at the heart of the federal ban on
so-called "assault weapons," which attempts to distinguish good
"sporting" firearms from bad "antipersonnel" weapons. It likewise
motivates the stated long-term agenda of Sarah Brady's organization Handgun Control,
Inc.--to outlaw firearms possession for self-defense. Within the gun control movement, one
does not have to dig very far to find the strongly-held and sanctimonious belief that the
NRA and its ilk are moral cretins because they believe in answering violence with
violence.
But is hostility to the lawful use of force for defense
the only morally legitimate position? The moral authorities relied on by most Americans
suggest otherwise. The Book of Exodus specifically absolves a homeowner who kills a
burglar. (Exodus 22:2, "If the thief is caught while breaking in, and is struck so
that he dies, there shall be no bloodguiltiness on his account.")
The Sixth Commandment "Thou shalt not kill"
refers to murder only, and does not prohibit the taking of life under any circumstances;
notably, the law of Sinai specifically requires capital punishment for a large number of
offenses.
A bit earlier in the Bible, Abram, the father of the
Hebrew nation, learns that his nephew Lot has been taken captive. Abram (later to be
renamed "Abraham" by God) immediately calls out his trained servants, set out on
a rescue mission, finds his nephew's captors, attacks, and routs them, thereby rescuing
Lot. (Genesis 14). The resort to violence to rescue an innocent captive is presented as
the morally appropriate choice.
Most gun prohibitionists who look to the Bible for support
do not cite specific interdictions of weapons (there are none) but instead point to the
general passages about peace and love, such as "Do not resist an evil person. If
someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also" (Matthew 5:
38-39); "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Matthew 5:
43); and "Do not repay anyone evil for evil." (Romans 12: 17). None of these
exhortations take place in the context of an imminent threat to life. A slap on the cheek
is a blow to pride, but not a threat to life.
Reverend Anthony Winfield, author of Self-Defense and
the Bible, suggests that these verses command the faithful not to seek revenge for
evil acts, and not to bear grudges against persons who have done them wrong. He points to
the passage "If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live in peace with
everyone" (Romans 12: 18), as showing an awareness that in extreme situations, it
might not be possible to live in peace.
Further evidence that the New Testament does not command
universal pacifism is found in the missions of John the Baptist and Peter, both of whom
preached to soldiers who converted. Neither John nor Peter demanded that the soldiers lay
down their arms, or find another job. (Luke 3: 14; Acts 10: 22-48). John did tell the
soldiers "Don't extort money, and don't accuse people falsely," just as he told
tax collectors "Don't collect any more than you are required to." The plain
implication is that being a soldier (or a tax collector) is not itself wrong, so long as
the inherent power is not used for selfish purposes.
Of course most gun prohibitionists do not see anything
wrong with soldiers carrying weapons and killing people if necessary. But if--as the New
Testament strongly implies--it is possible to be a good soldier and a good Christian, then
it is impossible to claim that the Gospel always forbids the use of violence, no
matter what the purpose. The stories of the soldiers support Winfield's thesis that the
general "peace and love" passages are not blanket prohibitions on the use of
force in all circumstances.
Is an approving attitude towards the bearing of arms
confined to professional soldiers? Not at all. At the last supper, Jesus' final
instructions to the apostles begin: "When I sent you without purse, bag, or sandals,
did you lack anything?" "Nothing," the apostles answer. Jesus continues:
"But now, if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a
sword, sell your cloak and buy one." He ends by observing "what is written about
me is reaching its fulfillment." The apostles then announce, "Lord, behold, here
are two swords," and Jesus cuts them off: "That is enough." (Luke 22:
36-38).
Even if the passage is read with absolute literalness,
Jesus was not setting up a rule that every apostle must carry a sword (or a purse
or a bag). For the eleven, two swords were "enough." More importantly, Jesus may
not have been issuing an actual command that anybody carry swords, or purses, or bags. The
broader, metaphorical point being made by Jesus was that the apostles would, after Jesus
was gone, have to take care of their own worldly needs to some degree. The purse
(generally used for money), the bag (generally used for clothing and food), and the sword
(generally used for protection against the robbers who preyed on travelers, including
missionaries, in the open country between towns) are all examples of tools used to take
care of such needs. When the apostles took Jesus literally, and started showing him their
swords, Jesus, frustrated that they missed the metaphor, ended the discussion. The
metaphorical interpretation is supported by scholarly analysis, and seems to best account
for the entire conversation.
Even when reduced to metaphor, however, the passage still
contradicts the rigid pacifist viewpoint. In the metaphor, the sword, like the purse or
the bag, is treated as an ordinary item for any person to carry. If weapons and defensive
violence were illegitimate under all circumstances, Jesus would not have instructed the
apostles to carry swords, even in metaphor, any more than Jesus would have created
metaphors suggesting that people carry Ba'al statues for protection, or that they
metaphorically rape, rob, and murder.
A few hours after the final instructions to the apostles,
when soldiers arrived to arrest Jesus, and Peter sliced off the ear of one of their
leaders, Jesus healed the ear. He then said "No more of this" (Luke 22: 49-51)
or "Put your sword away" (John 18: 10) or "Put your sword back in its
place, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword" (Matthew 26: 52). (The
quotation is sometimes rendered as "He who lives by the sword will die by the
sword.") Jesus then rebuked the soldiers for effecting the arrests with clubs and
swords, for Jesus was "not leading a rebellion."
The most immediate meaning of these passages is that Jesus
was preventing interference with God's plan for the arrest and trial. Additionally, Jesus
was instructing the apostles not to begin an armed revolt against the local dictatorship
or the Roman imperialists. Jesus had already refused the Zealots' urging to lead a war of
national liberation.
Do the passages also suggest a general prohibition against
drawing swords (or other weapons) for defense? The versions of the story recounted in Luke
and John do not, but the version in Matthew could be so read. If Matthew is analyzed along
the lines of "He who lives by the sword will die by the sword," the passage is
an admonition that a person who centers his life on violence (such as a gang member) will
likely perish. On the other hand, a translation of "all who draw the sword will die
by the sword" could be read as a general rule against armed violence in any
situation.
The best way to understand the Bible, most theologians
would concur, is not to look at passages in isolation, but instead to carefully study
passages in the context of the rest of the Bible. If the single line in Matthew were to be
read to indicate that to draw the sword is always wrong, then it would be difficult to
account for the other passages which suggest that drawing a sword as a soldier (or
carrying a sword as an apostle) is not illegitimate.
Looking at the passage of Matthew in the context of the
rest of the Bible would, therefore, look to the passage as a warning against violence as a
way of life, rather than as a flat-out ban on defensive violence in all situations. A 1994
document produced by the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace states:
"In a world marked by evil and sin, the right of legitimate defense by armed means
exists. This right can become a serious duty for those who are responsible for the lives
of others, for the common good of the family or of the civil community." The document
notes that "the right" to armed defense "is coupled with the duty to do all
possible to reduce to a minimum, and indeed eliminate, the causes of violence."
The Catholic Church recognizes people as saints because
(among other reasons), the lives of saints are considered to worthy of study and
emulation. February 27 is the feast day of Saint Gabriel Possenti. According to The
One Year Book of Saints, as a young man in 19th-century Italy, Francesco Possenti was
known as the best dresser in town, as a "superb horseman," and as "an
excellent marksman." The young man was also a consummate partygoer, who was engaged
to two women at the same time. Twice during school he had fallen desperately ill, promised
to give his life to God if he recovered, and then forgotten his promise. One day at
church, Possenti saw a banner of Mary. He felt that her eyes looked directly at him, and
he heard the words "Keep your promise." Possenti immediately joined an order of
monks, taking the name Brother Gabriel.
The main incident for which Saint Gabriel Possenti is
remembered was this: "One a summer day a little over a hundred years ago, a slim
figure in a black cassock [Possenti] stood facing a gang of mercenaries in a small town in
Piedmont, Italy. He had just disarmed one of the soldiers who was attacking a young girl,
had faced the rest of the band fearlessly, then drove them all out of the village at the
point of a gun....[W]hen Garibaldi's mercenaries swept down through Italy ravaging
villages, Brother Gabriel showed the kind of man he was by confronting them, astonishing
them with his marksmanship, and saving the small village where his monastery was
located."
Saint Gabriel Possenti's "astonishing
marksmanship" was displayed after he had just disarmed the soldier. The mercenaries'
leader told Possenti that it would take more than just one monk with a handgun to make the
mercenaries leave town. The saint pointed out to the mercenaries a lizard which was
running across the road. Possenti shot the lizard right through the head, at which point
the mercenaries decided that discretion was the better part of valor; they obeyed
Possenti's orders to extinguish the fires they had started and to return the property they
had stolen. They then fled the village, never to be heard from again.
Jewish law comes to the same conclusion as the Vatican Pontifical Council: "If
someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first," commands the Talmud.
Bystanders are likewise required to kill persons who are attempting rape. As Columbia
University's George Fletcher explains, while there is a duty to self-defense, the duty to
defend others is seen as prior.
The view that forcible resistance to evil attack is itself evil has serious implications:
Patrick Henry and the other founding fathers were wrong to urge armed resistance to the
British Redcoats; the Jews who led the Warsaw Ghetto revolt against Hitler were immoral;
Jeffrey Dahmer's victims would have been wrong to use a weapon to protect themselves;
Saint Gabriel Possenti was a paragon of evil; Abraham should not have rescued his
kidnapped nephew; and police officers who fire their guns to protect innocent people are
sinful.
Consider the situation of a mother in a rough Los Angeles neighborhood, moments after an
escaped psychopathic murderer has broken into her house. The woman has good reason to fear
that the intruder is about to slaughter her three children. If she does not shoot him with
her .38 special, the children will be dead before the police will arrive. Is the woman's
moral obligation to murmur "violence engenders violence," and keep her handgun
in the drawer while her children die? Or is the mother's moral duty to save her
children, and shoot the intruder?
The view that life is a gift from God, and that permitting the wanton destruction of one's
own life (or the life of a person under one's care) amounts to hubris is hardly new. As a
1747 sermon in Philadelphia put it: "He that suffers his life to be taken from him by
one that hath no authority for that purpose, when he might preserve it by defense, incurs
the Guilt of self murder since God hath enjoined him to seek the continuance of his life,
and Nature itself teaches every creature to defend itself."
Whatever their disagreements on other matters, the natural rights philosophers such as
Blackstone, Montesquieu, Hobbes, and Locke who provided the intellectual foundation of the
American Revolution saw self-defense as "the primary law of nature," from which
many other legal principles could be deduced.
As the great Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis wrote: "We shall have lost
something vital and beyond price on the day when the state denies us the right to resort
to force..."
Leading 19th-century criminal law scholars emphasized a less philosophical,
point: that victims protect the entire community when they kill a dangerous criminal
rather than leaving him free to prey on others. As Frederick Pollock summarized the views
of James Bishop and of Sir James Stephens, "Sudden and strong resistance to
unrighteous attack is not merely a thing to be tolerated ...as a necessary evil [but is] a
just and perfect" right. A good citizen attacked has "a moral duty" to use
all force necessary to apprehend or otherwise incapacitate criminals rather than to submit
or retreat.
Janet Powell, speaking for Australia's Anti-Gun Lobby, Incorporated, insists that a person
should never use a gun for self-defense, because of duty to the community. But what kind
of decent community would prefer that an innocent member of the community be harmed
instead of the harm being suffered by a conscious predator?
John Crook, the head of Gun Control Australia, stated that any woman who would defend
herself with a firearm is "selfish." But a Psychology Today study of
"Good Samaritans" who came to aid of victims of violent crime found that 81%
"own guns and some carry them in their cars. They are familiar with violence, feel
competent to handle it, and don't believe they will be hurt if they get involved."
Are these people selfish, inferior beings?
Having been through the Bible several times, I still can't find the parts where God (or
even a minor prophet) endorses a handgun waiting period, one-gun-a-month, or any other
item in the litany of the anti-gun lobbies and the religious groups that endorse them.
(Nor, of course, is there anything in the Bible implying that there is anything immoral
with any of these proposals.)
But the idea that pacifism in the face of violent attack against one's family or oneself
is some kind of moral imperative that should be enforced by the state is not only missing,
it is contrary to common sense and the Western religious tradition. Making it illegal for
citizens to own firearms for defense of home and family may or may not be a good idea from
a criminological viewpoint--but it is certainly not God's work.
More by Kopel
on religious issues, including self-defense.
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