Twelve people were shot and killed in Virginia Beach May 31. What should be part of our Catholic response to this violence?
My father was an FBI special agent, so his gun was sometimes in our home during my childhood. When we visited Grandma’s farm, our cousins occasionally had BB guns or 22s, and we’d shoot cans. But guns had little allure. As a teen, my focus was reading, jazz and girls (not necessarily in that order). Later, in 1968, after the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., I knocked on doors in Durham with a gun control petition. Signatures were hard to come by.
Around the same time, I began a deeper faith journey that led to my ordination in 1981. On this journey, I began noticing the contradiction between the example of Jesus and prevalent Christian attitudes toward guns and violence in North Carolina and West Texas (where I lived from 1970 to 2017). Many believers owned weapons and advocated their use. Yet, it seems unlikely that Jesus would pack heat. What then about His disciples? Should we Catholics possess or use weapons of violence?
I believe the answer is a clear “no” for two reasons: Jesus’ call for us to be women and men of peace, and Catholic social teaching’s recognition of the urgent crisis of gun violence.
I profer at least five reasons we Catholics should give up private ownership of guns. (The case of a Catholic required by his/her civic role to carry a weapon is a separate matter.)
- Jesus resisted Roman violence against Himself and His people with non-violent suffering. Can His disciples do less?
- At baptism we promised to renounce Satan’s “empty promises.” Chief among the devil’s lies is that violence solves problems. However, Catholics know that abortion is not the cure for unwanted pregnancy, nor does capital punishment balance murder. Domestic violence is not solved by counterviolence; road rage does not cure stupid driving.
- Catholics are a Eucharistic people. “The Eucharist is the sacrament of non-violence! Thanks to the Eucharist, God’s absolute ‘no’ to violence, spoken on the cross, echoes alive down the centuries.” (Father Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher to the Papal Household, 2005)
- Christians have a responsibility to renounce even lawful things like guns for the sake of the Kingdom. (Paul’s example is food: 1 Cor 8:13; 9:19-23.)
- Catholics should be ready to die for many things. But Jesus has no list of things that we should be ready to kill for.
As a matter of faithful discipleship, American Catholics should give up firearms. Any weapons currently owned should be destroyed. (I acknowledge exceptions for which space does not allow discussion: for example, law enforcement officers; ranchers whose land has dangerous animals.)
Our nation requires radical change.
Catholic social teaching recognizes law enforcement’s necessity. A fallen, violent world requires governments to use appropriate force – including firearms when needed – to protect residents from violent crime (See Catechism of the Catholic Church 1909). However, it does not require, nor need it permit, individuals in their private capacity to own guns, especially in our society where gunfire hourly causes death and injury and wreaks havoc on schools and workplaces.
The United States has a disproportionate rate of deaths and injuries from guns. Our homicide rate is approximately 5 times that of other democratic, developed nations. We are among six nations with 10 percent of global population and half of all firearm deaths in 2016. (Our peers were Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Venezuela, and Guatemala.) We average one mass shooting (four or more persons shot in the same incident) per day! The explanation is not mental illness or higher crime rates. The cause is the ready availability of guns.
The chief responsibility of any government is to advance and protect society’s common good. When the availability and firepower of privately-held guns threatens the peace and the common good, government has a responsibility to regulate ownership. (“The production and sale of arms affect the common good of nations…. Hence public authorities have the right and duty to regulate them.” (CCC 2316)). The bishops of the United States have long advocated more restrictive gun control laws: see “A Mercy and Peacebuilding Approach to Gun Violence,” March 2018.
Given our lopsided rate of mass killing, murder, suicide and accidental death, the United States must control guns. Here are some of the radical, but practical, policy measures that make sense and that Catholics should advocate; some of these are already the law but not adequately enforced.
- Anyone owning a weapon must have a license.
- Possession of firearms by most violent felons, persons with extreme risk or domestic violence restraining orders, and those on terrorism watch lists should be prohibited.
- Every firearm must be registered by a certain date. After that date, any unregistered firearm discovered in the ordinary course of policing (not special searches for unregistered weapons) will be confiscated and rendered inoperable.
- Background checks, plus a two-week waiting period, should be required before any sale or transfer of firearm ownership.
- Restrict the number of guns a person may purchase within a month (for example, a maximum of one gun per month per person).
- Limits should be placed on the capacity of magazines (for example, no more than seven shots before a weapon must be reloaded).
- Weapons designed for or capable of easy modification for rapid fire should be prohibited.
- All guns manufactured after a certain date must be equipped with safety locks and other childproof mechanisms, and include features that enable only the registered owner to activate firing.
These measures are more than controversial, and I understand that thoughtful Catholics may disagree. I would be happy to have a faith-based conversation in any suitable forum.
The killing of 12 public workers in Virginia Beach and two students at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte recently moved me to write. During the time of writing, a dozen or more men and women were killed by guns in our diocese, and a 28-year-old woman accidentally shot and killed herself in a Kannapolis restaurant. What will move you to action?
Deacon Clarke E. Cochran, PhD, serves at St. Peter Church in Charlotte.