By REY FLORES
Do you own a firearm? Wait. Don’t answer out loud — you never know who may be listening.
If your answer is yes: Why do you own a firearm? Is it for hunting, self-defense, or is it for nefarious purposes? You see, there are all sorts of different reasons why an individual may own a firearm.
In the current debate in our nation’s capital about guns and so-called gun control, there are those who claim they want to reduce what they call “gun violence,” when in reality they seek to violate the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and disarm our citizenry.
As Catholics, we need to ask: What does the Church say about guns or any other weapon or firearm? Let’s take a look at what the Bible and the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) say.
“Let him who has no sword sell his mantle and buy one” (Luke 22:36). Why would our Lord tell us such a thing? I think the answer is obvious.
When we talk about the sanctity of human life, we shouldn’t stop at the sanctity of an unborn person, but see that sanctity is all-encompassing virtue. That goes for the elderly, the sick, the poor, the disabled, as well as the person under the threat of losing his life to a homicidal person.
CCC 2263: “. . . The act of self-defense can have a double effect: the preservation of one’s own life; and the killing of the aggressor. . . . The one is intended, the other is not” (citing St. Thomas Aquinas).
Again, we as gun owners aren’t deliberately seeking to kill another person just because we may own a gun, but we certainly have the right to bear arms and defend our own lives, the lives of our loved ones, and other innocents in extreme cases where there is no choice but to kill or be killed.
CCC 2264: “Love toward oneself remains a fundamental principle of morality. Therefore, it is legitimate to insist on respect for one’s own right to life. Someone who defends his life is not guilty of murder even if he is forced to deal his aggressor a lethal blow: ‘If a man in self-defense uses more than necessary violence, it will be unlawful: whereas if he repels force with moderation, his defense will be lawful. . . . Nor is it necessary for salvation that a man omit the act of moderate self-defense to avoid killing the other man, since one is bound to take more care of one’s own life than of another’s’ [citing St. Thomas Aquinas].”
I don’t care what the gun-grabbing, overreaching tyrannical government says. Do you think that our Founding Fathers would have made the Second Amendment about preserving the right to bear arms the second on their list of priorities if they thought it wasn’t important?
The First and Second Amendments are about our free speech and our right to defend that free speech, in that order, and that is by design and not a mere coincidence.
It was precisely because our leaders knew that one day we might have so-called leaders like the current Obama administration, hell-bent on disarming us so that they can control us easier. History shows that whenever a government disarms its citizens, genocide soon follows. Just remember Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Che Guevara.
Self-defense isn’t as much a right as it is our duty, as the Catechism further explains.
CCC 2265-2266: “Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for someone responsible for another’s life. . . . Preserving the common good requires rendering the unjust aggressor unable to inflict harm.”
If anyone ever argues with you that guns are a bad thing, ask them why firearms are the primary tool which our law enforcement and our military use to keep the peace.
What do the gun-grabbing totalitarians think we’re going to use to keep peace and law and order in our society? Have a bunch of Democrat do-nothing congressmen and congresswomen sing Kumbaya songs while throwing a huge childish temper tantrum on the floor of the House of Representatives?
Enough is enough and the Second Amendment must be defended at all costs. If we allow ourselves to be disarmed as citizens, we are dead in the water, both literally and figuratively.
As Catholic men and women, we must protect our right to bear arms and defend our families and our properties. How dare anyone infringe on our right to do so, especially when they come at us with a false argument that they say will reduce violence by taking guns away from lawful citizens?
I’d like to see our government instead focus on the real threat against our nation and that is radical Islam and its homicidal followers. I’d like to see our current president demonize the real enemy and not our own citizens.
There is no excuse for what President Obama and his minions at the Department of Injustice are trying to perpetrate on the American people. This is an all-out attack on our freedom as Americans and on our God-given rights to protect all human life by stopping the aggressors, not the inanimate weapons that they use to cause harm to us.
If you are not a member of the National Rifle Association already, I encourage you to become a member right away. If you do not own a firearm yet, I suggest that you do so before our government gets any bolder and starts to dictate through executive orders who can and who cannot own a gun.
Consider this a call to arms, my Catholic brethren!
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(Rey Flores is a Catholic writer, activist, and speaker. Contact Rey at reyfloresusa@gmail.com.)
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