Armed and Ready to Save Your Life
Does God promote gun control? Is there actually anything wrong with guns? Should using guns be illegal? If it was, what would the results be? Is it sometimes in the best interest of the innocent to use a gun? These are all moral questions that should be answered first before taking a side in the never-ending gun control controversy.
Firstly, does God promote gun control? While there were no guns in biblical times, there were weapons, just like in any other age. The common weapons at that time were swords, knives and clubs, and though they might not be as powerful or efficient in taking lives as a semiautomatic gun from the 21st century, they were still used to kill people, and they were apparently efficient enough. After all, wars were fought and wars were won, even back in the days of the Bible.
Looking through the Bible at various verses, people can be misled by out-of-context verses to think that God detests violence and that everyone should be peaceful. For example, one very widely known verse from the Bible is Matthew 5:39, “But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.” From first glance, this verse seems like it is telling you to be passive, let evil people have their way with you, and to not resist what is inevitable. When you read it in context though, the Lord Jesus Christ, as indicated by the red print, is saying to his people, “You have heard that it was said....” Jesus was giving his famous Sermon on the Mount, and he was actually correcting the previous teaching from the Pharisees. Also, if you were to go one verse back, to Matthew 5:38, the quote reads, “You have heard that it was said: 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth'.” Basically, if these verses were to be strung together, the passage is preaching against revenge and trying to get even with those who do wrong unto you, not that you may not defend yourself. In addition, back in biblical times and still today, a slap on the cheek was symbolic as a personal insult and humiliation, rather than physical assault or pain.
However, if this were true that you could not use violence as self-defense, then this passage would contradict other sayings in the Bible that specifically say that life is to be valued, cherished, and protected. In fact, in Luke 22:36, it is said, "Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one." Jesus was telling his disciples, his very own most personal friends and followers, to arm themselves with swords, the “firearm” of the time! He was, in effect, saying that they could use those swords to protect themselves, that they must use them in self-defense. Swords were objects of violence at the time, so if Jesus himself told his people to arm themselves with violent weapons, then he must have intended for the disciples to use them, therefore killing the theory that God and Jesus were all about pacifism. They were all about protecting and safeguarding.
Question number two: Is there actually anything wrong with guns? Sure, there are about 4 homicides for every 100,000 people in the United States annually, but how many motor accidents are there? People sue gun companies and manufacturers all the time for making unsafe products which kill people, but how many times do Ford®, Chevrolet®, and Dodge® automobiles kill people? (I’m not against automobiles of course, but using this as a parallel problem helps show common problems with both industries, and the gross unfairness against one.) Yes, cars do have a driver who is supposed to be responsible for the vehicle and what it does, but so do guns. Children are killed by accidentally being run over by an automobile by a family member more often than children are killed by accidental discharges by firearms; 61 percent of all fatal accidents involving children are backovers or frontovers. Why are we not suing the car companies? Why do people single out the gun industry? To me, it seems like people hear someone say that guns are bad and then just go along with the idea rather than researching for themselves and choosing their own side to the argument. People are ignorant.
So if guns aren’t all that bad, then why should using guns be illegal? Marijuana is bad, and so it is illegal, in some states. Drinking and driving is bad; therefore it is illegal. Guns aren’t bad. But actually, in certain places, guns are banned.
In the case of the District of Columbia, using a firearm in self-defense in your own house is illegal. You can’t even move your firearm from one room of the house to another unless it is empty, trigger-locked and locked up in a safe container. Right now there is a case in the Supreme Court challenging this law, and according to Paul Duggan, “...the violence here over those years [since ban was made] was worse than in most other big cities, many of them in states with far less restrictive gun laws...” In Australia, guns are banned completely. Since the eradication of their guns, their violent home invasion rates have “increased in some areas by 44%. Rapes and murders have also increased substantially....”
Going in the opposite direction, Texas enacted a concealed carry law for firearms, letting their citizens arm themselves in public, and since then their murder rates dropped by 34 percent. Florida citizens were ridiculed for wanting a concealed carry law, but after they got it passed, their crime rate went from way higher than the national average, to below the national average. Vermont, which has been in the top 5 safest states for the past decade and has won the “Safest State” award three times, has no restrictions at all. Citizens may carry a firearm without permission, without paying any money, and without enduring any “government-imposed waiting time.”
How is it that a state with virtually no gun control at all is rated as a place with one of the lowest violent crime rates in the world? If Vermont can get along just fine without gun control, and is apparently doing better because there is no gun control, then how does it make sense to push gun control, which supposedly makes the world “a safer place”?
If you were given the choice between living and dying, what would you choose? Most sane people would say that they would prefer to live, thank-you very much. Well, how about if you are given the choice between a gun and words? Between using that gun, or those words, to stop a violent attacker, and live? If you chose words, just like the employees at a certain Wendy’s® in New York City, then you would most likely be dead. See, the employees knew, or thought they knew, that if you use words and talk to your armed attacker in a compassionate and understanding way, that the attacker will realize that there is a better way to get what he or she wants and not harm you. In reality, an armed attacker is armed because he or she has the intention of using that weapon; it’s common sense. The Wendy’s® employees who died had not defended themselves at all; they had meekly complied and submitted to their attacker, gave him the money, and then were shot to death.
Maria Pittaras from Pasco County, Florida, woke up early one morning with a strange man on top of her holding a knife against her throat. This man was her neighbor, and he was trying to rape her. Instead of submitting, being violated, and then probably killed so that there were no witnesses, Maria pulled out her loaded .38 caliber revolver from her nightstand drawer and shot him in the neck. Maria panicked and called 911, hiding in some other part of her house, terrified that the man was still alive and coming after her. In actuality, it was confirmed that he died instantly, by the police who arrived at her house several minutes later. "I understand that I did what I had to do, but I'm never going to be a normal person again. Every day I'm going to have to come to terms [with the fact] that I took a man's life, a man with a family." Maria is a survivor. Without that gun, Maria would be dead.
But Maria is not the only one who has benefitted from the protection of a gun. Guns are used by civilians in self-defense about 2.5 million times every year, which means that guns are used to save civilians 80 more times than they are used to hurt civilians. In addition, according to Kleck and Gertz in Armed Resistance to Crime: “Of the 2.5 million times citizens use their guns to defend themselves every year, the overwhelming majority merely brandish their gun or fire a warning shot to scare off their attackers. Less than 8% of the time, a citizen will kill or wound his/her attacker.” Also according to them, at least 200,000 women use a gun every year to defend themselves against sexual abuse. That right there is as example women’s rights: the right to protecting her life.
There is so much fuss in this country concerning guns, the control of guns and the use of them. The anti-gun advocates just don’t seem to understand the common sense and the facts that are used to support the argument said by pro-gunners. Guns aren’t evil and there is nothing wrong with guns. There is a problem with guns, but banning them is not solving anything, as shown by the numerous instances mentioned above. People need guns for protection against that which is more dangerous out in the world. The world is a dangerous place, and leaving its citizens defenseless against armed criminals is one of the worst things that this government can do to its people; it is the act of taking away the right to pursue life, as stated in the first amendment. It is unjust and unconstitutional. For all that the leaders and the people and their courts of the United States stand “firmly” behind the constitution, and for all that it is supposed to make America the country of possibilities and freedom, if we don’t even have the freedom to protect ourselves and make sure that we do all in our power to make sure that we live another day, what use is our constitution, but as a way for the government to abuse power? Is this still a government “for the people,” as said by Thomas Jefferson? If not, what has this country become? What have we let this country become?
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