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on The Sight M1911 A-1:

Christians and Guns
by Carlo Stagnaro

August 30, 2002

"Shoot, shoot, shoot," Father Giorgio Giorgi said from the pulpit of his church in Retorbido, near Pavia, Italy, during a sermon about a year ago. These words stirred up trouble, because a Roman Catholic priest has hardly dared to speak in such a way in the last few decades. Yet Father Giorgi merely said that every man, being created in the image of God, has the right to life and thus the right to defend life. "[Confronted by a criminal] I might let him kill me – he added. Indeed, if I killed a bandit, I should presume to send him to Hell, because he’s not in the Grace of God. So it would be better for me to die, because, theoretically, I should always be in the Grace of God, given my job. But the father of a family is not a priest. He has the right, and before it the duty, to defend his wife, his children, and his property."

Perhaps, rather than turning the other cheek, one should close an eye and aim well?

Most ecclesiastical authorities have declined to point out this line of argument; for whatever reason, they have been reading the Holy Bible from a pacifist’s, coward’s, weakling’s point of view. Yet, it should be clear that embracing gun control implies the denial of the basic principle of individual responsibility.

"The problem is not six-shooters; the problem is sinners. Eliminating guns won’t solve that problem.… The proximate (civil) solution to gun-related violence is stiffer (biblical) penalties for harming humans and property – whether by guns, knives, axes, spray paint, or computers. The ultimate solution to gun-related violence is the transformation of individuals by the Gospel of Jesus Christ.... The ironic solution of liberals is to lock up the guns and liberate the criminals after a mere wrist slap," wrote Andrew Sandlin in The Christian Statesman, Vol. 140, No. 1.

In reality, while inviting people to love and mercy, Jesus never said that individuals have no right to defend themselves. Even less did he say they should not defend their feebler brothers when such are in danger. A person might decide to offer no resistance to aggression if he risks only his own life, but he can’t shirk the moral duty to help others. As Jeff Snyder has written, "Although difficult for modern men to fathom, it was once widely believed that life was a gift from God, that to not defend that life when offered violence was to hold God’s gift in contempt, to be a coward and to breach one’s duty to one’s community." (Nation of Cowards, Accurate Press, 2001, page 16.)

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Some of y'all have probably already seen this article. I'm not copying the entirety here because there are a number of cross-references, given as embedded links, in the original text. Lots of interesting info throughout the website.