What’s Wrong with the World

The Vox Nova posts on this would be embarrassing if you didn't consider the source. I'm pretty ambivalent about gun control, truth be told, but there are, shall we say, minor differences between Heller and RvW. For one thing, murdering children actually is against the natural law, while owning a gun is not. For another, the Constitution actually mentions a right to keep and bear arms, while it does not mention a right to abortion. Morning's Minion is always attempting a kind of tu quoque between Democrats and Republicans in order to justify his fawning for Democrats, and this is just one of the most cringeworthy examples.

Mind you, I think judicial review and stare decisis have shown us their rotten fruit and ought to be thrown under the bus. (That in itself would likely, as a practical matter, resolve most of Lydia and my ongoing disagreements about legal positivism). But I don't understand why anyone takes MM seriously when he tries to wedge a square argument into a round hole this way.

Yes, that is his M.O. Every now and then, the arguments against Republicans and mainstream conservatives are actually compelling.

And then, there is something like his opinion on Heller.

In Italy there used to be a law (I've read that it was reversed eventually) that you had a right to self defense only insofar as you used weapons no greater than those possessed by your attacker. So a woman attacked by a man with no weapon could not defend herself with a knife or gun, for example. Insane? You bet. But that's the liberals' idea of a "right to self defense." You have a right to self defense, sort of, and only insofar as it isn't "unfair" or "disproportionate" in relation to the poor aggressor.

Heller was far too watered down. The way that it was handed down leaves the right barely useful to the general public as governments can still put so many onerous restrictions on firearm ownership and use that the right "recognized" in this ruling is effectively useless.

Scalia and others were too conservative. They were too squeamish about being radical, and refused to admit the obvious which is that if you 20,000 federal laws that violate the 2nd amendment, then all 20,000 need to be struck down at once by the Supreme Court. Roberts spoke for them best when he said that he would still support RvW on the grounds that it is "decided law." Not that it is good law, not that it is even based on anything other than satanic-level sophistry and mendacity. It's decided, and God forbid we be radical and turn the law on its head when it is just flat out wrong.

I'm sorry you're ambivalent about gun control, Zippy. :-) I understand you're an excellent shot yourself. I wish I knew enough about the matter--how, where, etc.--to set up each of my daughters as she grows to adulthood with a loaded handgun in her apartment and full training and knowledge of how to use it in self-defense. This especially if they live on their own for a time before getting married. After they get married it's up to Bob (or whoever the husband is) to defend them.

I realize that what I am about to state is a stale cliche among gun enthusiasts, but my idea of gun control is being able to reproduce a tight shot grouping on a target. Beyond obvious exceptions to the right such as prohibitions on firearms ownership by felons and the insane, I think gun control inspired by the same lunacy which first stripped Britons of the right to possess firearms, and now ends by criminalizing resistance to criminality. And most advocates are creepy scolds who prattle on about "root causes", which, being translated, means that the victims of crime are probably at fault, since they actively participate in, benefit from, explicitly endorse, or at least 'consent' to - in that fallacious modern sense, according to which non-opposition translates to identification with the institutions or policies in question - structural evils alleged to be productive of criminality. It is a mindset straight from the abyssal depths of the Sixties and Seventies, when wave after wave of crime broke upon the American body politic, and those who expressed the desire that it be dealt with proportionately, as opposed to therapeutically, and who moved their families from urban abattoirs in order to escape the slaughter, were stigmatized with every invidious epithet from the Five Minute Hate of liberalism. And I say this as someone who maintains that our economic institutions give the lower half a raw deal, often simply the shaft. But my grandparents were working poor, and never committed a crime. So I've no sympathy for the "root causes" trope, to which most gun-controllers make quick recourse.

Lydia:

You might be surprised, but if you walked into your local gun shop and told the owner: "I wish I knew enough about the matter--how, where, etc.--to set up each of my daughters as she grows to adulthood with a loaded handgun in her apartment and full training and knowledge of how to use it in self-defense," I'm sure he'd be more than happy to explain everything in detail, recommend you to a local gun club, and sell you a nice little Ruger .22 target pistol so that you (and your daughters) can get started. Or find a Cabela's or Bass Pro shop -- they'll do the same, and you might find them a little less intimidating.

Beyond obvious exceptions to the right such as prohibitions on firearms ownership by felons and the insane

This is problematic when so many offenses are deemed felonies, and the definition of insanity may be subject to government, not medical, definition the way that the DEA has determined in its wisdom how many pain killers may be prescribed. Do you really think someone whose worst crime is to have committed felony copyright infringement by sending a few thousand songs to a friend (a felony under the No Electronic Theft Act) should be barred for life from owning a firearm?

I think it stands to reason that if felons that are a threat to the public are getting out of prison, it's a sign that other laws need to be changed. For example, why waste time ensuring that a convicted murderer cannot own a firearm when your bigger concern is the fact that a cold-blooded murderer is back in the community?

Do you really think someone whose worst crime is to have committed felony copyright infringement by sending a few thousand songs to a friend (a felony under the No Electronic Theft Act) should be barred for life from owning a firearm?

Not in the slightest. I'm presupposing, you know, real felonies, like rape, assault, grand theft, and so forth - not pseudo-felonies intended to enforce our preposterous regime of copyrights and patents, which often amount to rents-in-perpetuity for those whose great-great grandfathers may have had one clever idea.

Subjectivity in determinations of mental health is unavoidable, even if political definitions are excluded. Despite the comprehensive pseudo-rigour of something like the DSM, there will always been gradations and grey areas. The metasticization of bureaucratic and administrative procedures for defining and addressing mental health problems is a direct result of the decline of compact, integral communities, in which, in the ordinary business of life, those who were just a little nutty could be given much informal supervision and kept from harm. So, yes, this is a potential problem, but I don't know how much can be done to rectify it.

I can't speak for Maximos, MikeT, but my guess is that he had in mind serious violent crimes, and it would be no difficult thing, from a practical statutory perspective, to proscribe firearm ownership for that particular class of felonies.

For example, why waste time ensuring that a convicted murderer cannot own a firearm when your bigger concern is the fact that a cold-blooded murderer is back in the community?

I agree, which is why I left murder out of my representative list of real felonies.

Then again, I support capital punishment, and, absent that, "life" should mean that the malefactor draws his last breath in a prison somewhere.

Not in the slightest. I'm presupposing, you know, real felonies, like rape, assault, grand theft, and so forth - not pseudo-felonies intended to enforce our preposterous regime of copyrights and patents, which often amount to rents-in-perpetuity for those whose great-great grandfathers may have had one clever idea.

I actually knew what you were getting at, but wanted to use that as an opportunity to remind everyone how much of a disconnect there is between the ideal scenario that everyone speaks about when they talk about how it should be, and the real world in which the idea will be implemented. For this reason, I oppose disarming felons. Disarming felons is not the answer, and it allows politicians to escape from having to answer for why there are dangerous felons getting reintroduced to society.

Personally, I am of the belief that anyone who commits armed robbery, home invasion, rape, assault that seriously injures or cripples the victim or murder should be execute for the benefit of society. I don't believe it is incumbent upon society to rehabilitate or provide opportunity for such people to repent.

This issue goes back to a conservative-libertarian principle of mine: any restriction on a basic natural right in the name of public safety is invariably nothing more than a symptom that the system is failing to do its basic job.

Zippy knows perfectly well that I am not equating the act of abortion with the act of owning a handgun. He knows perfectly well that I have said that owning a gun is not a sin. But I do stand with the Church in holding that banning handguns would be in accord with the common good, an application to the particular circumstances in the United States-- a country ravaged by gun violence and too enamored by a culture of violence. I am quite shocked, here and on Vox Nova, by how many orthodoc Catholics are not merely ignoring the US bishops on this matter, but are gleefully supporting the unfettered right to gun ownership, totally ignoring solidarity and other common good concerns. I see an outbreak of a narrow Americanist perspective, grasping at logic that would puzzle your Catholic brothers and sisters around the world. And what has this to do with the Democrats? Obama is pandering badly on this one. My view, the the US should adopt the stringent gun laws of the UK, would render me completely unelectable in this country. But the truth is funny like that, isn't it?

And I totally stand by my point that the legal philosophy that gives us an individual right to handguns is the same as that giving us extremist versions of a "right to privacy" that include taking the life of an unborn child. It's the same old flawed thinking of the Enlightment, manifesting in different ways-- I thought this blog in particular would appreciate this. Nah, it's just the same old Americanism...

Lydia:
I'm sorry you're ambivalent about gun control, Zippy. :-) I understand you're an excellent shot yourself.

Nah, just lucky, and cool-headed in situations where others (for reasons I don't understand) tend to get freaky. I don't own any guns at all myself, though I am somewhat familiar with their use. My brother now, he is an excellent shot. I've seen him shoot clay pigeons from the hip with a '22 pistol.

I would ideally leave prudential judgments about things like the DC gun ban in the hands of local officials. On the other hand, I do recognize that that is problemmatic given the requirements of the Constitution: that is, in order to do so the right way would probably be a Constitutional amendment.

MM:
I totally stand by my point that the legal philosophy that gives us an individual right to handguns is the same as that giving us extremist versions of a "right to privacy" that include taking the life of an unborn child.

You can stand by that 'argument' all you want, and be 'shocked' that others don't buy it, but neither makes it is worth the pixels that represent it.

Mind you, they are connected in a very remote sense. I myself am against even using 'rights' as a term to describe the moral obligations involved in human relations. If your argument is that we should throw rights-talk under the bus completely, I'm with you. But about the only thing Heller and Roe have in common is that they are both modern US Supreme Court decisions.

I suppose if we got rid of the pernicious 'incorporation' doctrine, that would leave local gun control in the hands of local officials, since the Bill of Rights would no longer apply to states, counties, municipalities, etc. So perhaps MM's argument isn't quite as 'distant' as I had at first thought, if what he is saying is that the incorporation doctrine should be rolled back.

If that is so, perhaps he should be explicit that he thinks the incorporation doctrine should be rolled back.

"I see an outbreak of a narrow Americanist perspective,"

Morning Minion,
Appreciate your attempt to call those Catholics who mistake the GOP for the politcal arm of the Church, back to reality. However, too many at Vox Nova succumb to the dark temptation to engage in reverse evangelization and think it their vocation to convert the Church to cultural norms. So maybe, physician heal thyself, is in order, given how some waterboard their mental faculities in order to justify supporting Obama. I don't know how any Catholic can get behind either candidate, but it fear the consequences of compromising ourselves like this.

For a truly sobering account of where this can lead, read; Burleigh's "Earthly Powers". In it, he devotes the closing chapters to chronicle the nationalism that corrupted European Christianity, especially the clergy, prior to and during World War I. I was depressed to learn, that even after the aggressive anti-clerical measures of republican France and Bismarck's Kulturkampf, Catholics in each country placed temporal loyalties and political-socio calculations over Church doctrine and the proclamations of Benedict XV. I view the history lesson as a cautionary tale best applied to my own life and hope all factions of the Church learn from it.

Oh, gosh, according to MM you're not a good Catholic if you don't support a ban on handguns.

I'm so glad I don't hang out with that kind of Catholic very much. My blood pressure wouldn't stand it.

At least one Vox Nova blogger claims that subsidiarity justifies the pro-choice position. It is like haggling over tea and crumpets at Birkenau.

At least one Vox Nova blogger claims that subsidiarity justifies the pro-choice position.

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

!?!?!?!?

Maximos:
Yeah, I kid you not. See here. The dude is a contributor. Apparently he is also some kind of Beltway insider. I never heard of him before my little 'encounter' in that thread.

Oh and he's a RealTrue Philosopher too, so what he Pronounces is Above Our Pitiful Understanding, and we are Too Ignorant to Follow His Profundities.

One learns something new, monstrous, and disconcerting every day.

"One learns something new, monstrous, and disconcerting every day."

It's not new. It goes back to the Garden and found it's apex in Judas. The key is to seach one's soul and immediately kill it. And, if one can't find it - search again. It's there, lurking behind a thicket of nobel sentiments and sophisticated philosophies.

I hate simple "rights" talk, since rights only exist alongside duties, within relationships, and under the rule of justice. A right to bear arms exists because of the natural duty to defend one's family, friends and community, which springs from the duty one has to love and honor them, and which in turn exist because of the nature these relationships possess.

Now, if I owe it to those I am in these relationships with to defend them, the question arises as to what means I may employ to do so. Justice seems to demand that the means must be proportional to the type of threat that exists or may develop. It strikes me as absurd to say that handguns are disproportional. It is an empirical fact that any number of threats to one's family and society at large are armed with handguns or worse. It seems an obvious and gross injustice to remove such a necessary and proportional means of defending one's family and community when there is little to no chance that the numerous threats to them will be so disarmed.

Or does this reasoning depend too much on "Enlightenment theories of individuality, asserted over against the common good"?

Well stated, Brendon.

Brendon:

Justice seems to demand that the means must be proportional to the type of threat that exists or may develop.

Couldn't this argument be employed against us by tyrannical nations that seek to arm themselves with nuclear capabilities due to threat of attack by the U.S. and its allies for fear of an (Iraq-type) invasion, etc.?

I have no idea why you all keep bringing Obama into this. It reflects an inability to think outside the narrow frame of contemporary American politics. I oppose Obama's positions on abortion, the death penalty, and yes, guns too. Is he a superior choice to McCain? I believe so, absolutely, but that is another argument.

I also place God's law above the US constitution.

Kevin: the historical analysis is correct. The correct modern analogy, however, is the Americans Catholics who place nationalism before the Church (or who-- like many evangelicals- mix Christainity with what amounts to a pagan civic religion). I'm thinking of the Weigel-Novak-Neuhaus set and their cheerleading a gravely unjust war.

Brendon: that kind of reasoning would justify an escalation in more powerful and more destructive weapons. By that reason, Somalia should be the safest country in the world. I detect a Hobbesian strain to your argument, a war of all against all. I prefer the Catholic notion that everybody should look upon neighbor as another self. When you think the unfettered availability of handguns would protect yourself and family (a dubious claim to start with), you are ignoring the carnage in your midst caused by such free availability. Just because we do not live in the inner cities, and are not the acting moral agents in the particular incidents of violence, do we not bear some responsibility toward our neighbors? Of course we do. Your argument is similar to those who support private health insurance based on personal risks, rather than social insurance that allows for the young and healthy to subsidize the old and the sick. The first way is a great deal for young and healthy people, but we pass our brothers and sisters on the road.

And when did the Church ever say the right to private property was unlimited?

I also place God's law above the US constitution.

But since God's law allows for personal self-defense and the execution of offenders for the protection of the commonweal, this statement it irrelevant to the discussion at hand.

I detect a Hobbesian strain to your argument, a war of all against all. I prefer the Catholic notion that everybody should look upon neighbor as another self.

My entire argument is based upon the existence of particular, existing relationships between people, the very relationships that make someone our neighbor. How you get Hobbes out of that is a matter of your own thought process, not anything I wrote.

When you think the unfettered availability of handguns...

I said nothing about "the unfettered availability of handguns." Again, this is a matter of your thought process, not what I wrote. But if it makes you feel better, I do not support "the unfettered availability of handguns" by violent criminal offender and the mentally incompetent. Or children either, for that matter.

Just because we do not live in the inner cities...

How do you have any idea where I live?

I am the third generation of my family to have lived in, been schooled in, and/or worked in the inner city of Allentown. My family knows from experience its degeneration and growing danger. But thanks for pretending you know anything about me and mine.

...do we not bear some responsibility toward our neighbors? Of course we do..

This is the very core of my argument. I don't see how you can think it refutes me.

And when did the Church ever say the right to private property was unlimited?

Never. But your non sequitur is neither here nor there.

My entire argument is based upon the existence of particular, existing relationships between people, the very relationships that make someone our neighbor.

When Jesus taught "Turn the Other Cheek", he meant Dirty Harry's "Go Ahead -- Make My Day"!

Aristcoles is indeed correct. Brenden's weird logic wouold provide theological support for an arms race-- when the Church teaches pricisely the opposite.

And Brenden, simply stating over and over that you-don't-say-I-claim-you-say is a rather inedequate retort. And enough with the snideness, please: I use "we" in an encompassing sense to describe those of us who live rather comfortably; where you personally live is quite irrelevant.

God's law allows for execution of criminals? In a theoretical sense, yes; but in the current circumstances of modern society, NO WAY.

As opposed to your personal arms race, I would recommend some Catholic responses to violence in society: remove the underlying conditions that foster violence, work to change the culture. More proximately, the community places its collective self-defense in the hands of agents of law (the more local the better), not in a bunch of vigilantes seeking bigger and bigger guns. And local police forces in crime-ridden areas always seek to reduce the availability of guns. Talk to Mayor Fenty about that.

What in the name of God is the deal with Americans and guns????? You should listen to the bishops. That's good advice in general, whatever the topic.

"remove the underlying conditions that foster violence..."

Like evil hearts? Good luck with that.

"More proximately, the community places its collective self-defense in the hands of agents of law..."

Which being interpreted is, if a big, evil man comes up to your wife and tries to drag her off and no cop happens to be on the spot to stop him, you're outta luck. Didn't you know, you don't have _personal_ self-defense, you only have this thing called "collective self-defense." And you don't have that, either, because it's been placed in the hands of the "agents of law," only none of them happen to be around just at the moment. Tough luck, buddy. Say bye to your good lady, or your child, or someone else's child, or the retarded boy being beaten to death by the gang, or...

Because it's written somewhere or other, God knows where, that no one who isn't a formal police officer has the right to defend the innocent. And maybe not them either. Perhaps only with pepper spray or something. Mustn't hurt the bad guys. AFter all, they're only bad because someone ignored the "underlying causes."

Ick.

When Jesus taught "Turn the Other Cheek", he meant Dirty Harry's "Go Ahead -- Make My Day"!

How you think I could possibly be saying that boggles my mind. But it is blindingly obvious that "turn the other cheek" is not a universal precept of the moral law, since the one time Scripture shows us the Lord being so struck, he rebukes the guards that strikes Him for injustice rather than offering His other cheek to strike.

"And when he had said these things, one of the servants standing by, gave Jesus a blow, saying: Answerest thou the high priest so? Jesus answered him: If I have spoken evil, give testimony of the evil; but if well, why strikest thou me?" (John XVIII.xxii-xxiii)

Brenden's weird logic wouold provide theological support for an arms race

No, Brendon's logic would not. You keep trying to make the concrete abstract, to turn concrete relationships and situations into some kind of universal norm. The positive precepts of the natural law cannot be applied without the prudent consideration of particular circumstances. Something you fail to do when you compare a discussion about the United States to Somalia, and compare a discussion about what means a person can use to defend themselves against unjust aggression with the nuclear arms race engaged in by world governments.

And enough with the snideness, please...

You first. Unless you consider making pronouncements without arguments and attributing things to me that I did not say to somehow be devoid of "snideness."

I use "we" in an encompassing sense to describe those of us who live rather comfortably; where you personally live is quite irrelevant.

No, it's not, since this whole argument is about the application of positive precepts to particular circumstances. It is impossible to have such a discussion without actually considering particular circumstances.

More proximately, the community places its collective self-defense in the hands of agents of law (the more local the better), not in a bunch of vigilantes seeking bigger and bigger guns.

This is a false dichotomy. Where did I suggest that we should eliminate law enforcement personnel, or that each of us should hunt down those who have committed crimes against us and execute justice according to our own personal whims? I merely suggested that justice allows for me to defend my life and the life of my family, friends and neighbors. Law enforcement personnel cannot do this for me because they are neither omniscient nor omnipotent. There is no justice in letting a neighbor be brutalized because the police have not arrived.

God's law allows for execution of criminals? In a theoretical sense, yes; but in the current circumstances of modern society, NO WAY.

Assertion is not argument. Something is not true simply because you WRITE IT IN CAPITAL LETTERS.

Lydia, you sound very Protestant. If you don't accept that underlying social and economic change is crucial to any attempts to reduce violence, and that it's all about personal conversion, then you are out of step with Catholic social teaching. This notion is deep in the thought of John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

Brendon, my assetion is assertion of Catholic teaching. If you are dissenting from core teaching that the death penalty is only licit when there are no bloodless means to protect society, and that these circumstances are rare if not practically non-existent in modern society, then we're done here.

"The positive precepts of the natural law cannot be applied without the prudent consideration of particular circumstances."

That statement is absolutely correct, which is actually the whole basis of my argument. Given the appalling level of gun violence in the US, a reflection of the liberal gun laws at present, and a true manifestation of the culture of death, a proper "ordinance of reason for the common good" would be for the person who has care for the community to restrict access to such handguns. This is an application of the natural law to specific concrete circumstances. You argument derives more from classical liberalism, whether you think so or not.

Lydia, you sound very Protestant.

LOL! MM, Lydia is very Protestant. This is not a Catholic blog; indeed the majority of the contributors are not Catholic.

But in any case, one can accept that "underlying social and economic change is crucial to any attempts to reduce violence" - indeed I think that is very much the case, though we would doubtless disagree on the particulars of what changes are required - without concluding that if one does not believe that guns must be banned one is a heretic.

You are at least as bad as your right-liberal counterparts whom you criticize (correctly, much of the time). Have the temerity, please, to actually argue for what you think is true, rather than attempting to sit in the Chair of Peter and proclaim it by fiat.

FWIW, I think much of the comeuppance that right-liberal Catholics (Weigel etc.) are going to get, good and hard, comes from their attempts to sit in the Chair of Peter and pronounce (for example) that there are five voting non-negotiables which happen to make it impossible to do other than vote Republican, and that (e.g.) a manifestly unjust war doesn't count. Not the opinion, mind you, but the attempt to sit in the Chair of Peter in promulgating it. It is a dangerous place to try to sit when one is not in fact the Vicar of Christ. God is not mocked, and you seem to me to run the same risk under a different set of propositions.

Brendon: that kind of reasoning would justify an escalation in more powerful and more destructive weapons. By that reason, Somalia should be the safest country in the world. I detect a Hobbesian strain to your argument, a war of all against all. I prefer the Catholic notion that everybody should look upon neighbor as another self. When you think the unfettered availability of handguns would protect yourself and family (a dubious claim to start with), you are ignoring the carnage in your midst caused by such free availability. Just because we do not live in the inner cities, and are not the acting moral agents in the particular incidents of violence, do we not bear some responsibility toward our neighbors? Of course we do. Your argument is similar to those who support private health insurance based on personal risks, rather than social insurance that allows for the young and healthy to subsidize the old and the sick. The first way is a great deal for young and healthy people, but we pass our brothers and sisters on the road.

Like virtually all Catholics you forget that these teachings apply only to believers. The mandate to protect your neighbor and provide for the needy is not a burden that is to be shouldered by those who have not been born again! It is part of what Jesus meant when He said that you must take up your cross daily and follow him.

Maximos isn't very Protestant. He's Orthodox, and he and I have had our bouts and laid down our arms in a truce (or something like that) in the Prot-non-Prot wars. And he's batting a thousand on this thread. Go, Maximos. Believe it or not, I'd never heard that one about what gun control means. From which you can infer that, surprisingly enough, I haven't gotten around formally to joining the NRA.

By the way, a reader on VFR had a great line apropos of this very type of discussion: The Bible is not a suicide pact.

Like virtually all Catholics you forget that these teachings apply only to believers.

FWIW, the Catholic understanding of self-defense is that it is a matter of the natural law, and so applies to everyone, and can be known by everyone. Of course the Catholic understanding of self-defense is also quite different from what MM presents as The Catholic Understanding of Self-Defense.

First, "that these circumstances are rare if not practically non-existent in modern society," cannot be part of the Church's "core teaching" on the use of the death penalty, since it is a statement about circumstances as they really exist, something that the Church has no power to alter by pronouncement. If the Pope says it will rain and it doesn't, I do not have to pretend it did rain--or even that it was "sort of raining spiritually, only we were too sinful to see it"--simply because he said so.

Given the appalling level of gun violence in the US...

"Gun violence" is a useless statistic. How much "gun violence" was done in the commission of a crime vs. as a defense against it? How much was done with weapons illegally possessed by criminals vs. weapons legally possessed by law-abiding citizens? Simply speaking about "gun violence" ignores obvious and important distinctions, and, as such, is worthless to the discussion.

You argument derives more from classical liberalism, whether you think so or not.

Yes, obviously. My entire argument blatantly relies on the will being man's highest power and unrestricted liberty as being the foundation of a just society and the summum bonum. How could I have been so mistaken and confused. Nothing either explicitly or implicitly about practical reason, the truth about circumstances, order, the common good or subsidiarity at all.

"LOL! MM, Lydia is very Protestant. This is not a Catholic blog; indeed the majority of the contributors are not Catholic."

Oops, mea culpa, I'm so used to Catholic blogs!!

Zippy,

When you compare me to the Neuhaus-Novak-Weigel triumvirate, you forget one crucial difference: I stand with, not against, Church teaching. On matters such as who to vote for, the Church does not and cannot make that decision-- and I likewise do not tell other Catholics who to vote for. I have made the case for Obama, and will do so again no doubt, and I believe I am right-- but I would never tell another Catholic they cannot pick McCain, Nader, Barr, or simply abstain.

But what bothers me is the rote dismissal of a teaching because it is a "prudential judgment". Prudential judgment does not mean dutifully listen and then ignore. It means you weigh up facts and circumstances. There is of course no certainty here, but that does not mean all prudential judgments are equal. Having looked at the evidence, the statistics myself, it is quite clear to me that gun deaths are associated with high levels of gun ownership. That is a statistical relationship, and there is always outliers, there is never certainity. But still, that is a sound basis for the public authority to restrict access to guns to protect the common good. It is in accord with reason. The USCCB comes to a similar conclusion. I guarantee you that the Church in other countries is quite strident on this point. How does anything I say here mock God?

Brendon:

The teaching that the death penalty is only licit when no bloodless means are available to protect society is doctrine, and is owed religious assent. The prudential judgment comes in when John Paul argues that such situations are rare and non-existent in modern penal systems. This circumstantial fact is so blindingly obvious that I cannpt imagine an argument against it. Maybe it doesn't hold in Somalia, to keep an example you love so much, it most certainly holds in the US.

On violence, please read my discussion of statistics in the original post.

And I'm not sure I would classify your arguments as voluntarist, but certainly I see the primacy of the individual and the freedom of that individual from outside constraint in some of what you say.

When you compare me to the Neuhaus-Novak-Weigel triumvirate, you forget one crucial difference: I stand with, not against, Church teaching.

They would say the same.

How does anything I say here mock God?

In taking on the posture - like many of those you criticize, indeed including those we have both criticized - that you speak for the Church, rather than for yourself.

MM:
And I'm not sure I would classify your [Brendon's] arguments as voluntarist, but certainly I see the primacy of the individual and the freedom of that individual from outside constraint in some of what you say.

You really need to quit grossly mischaracterizing Brendon's argument. Well, you don't need to do it, but you might as well staple a sign that says 'partisan hack' to your forehead if you don't.

One reason I'm a fan of quote-and-respond in discussion threads is because then we are responding to what someone actually says, rather than just making things up and attributing them to another.

And whose partisan am I exactly, Zippy? Certainly no entity in the US, with its attached to the "right to own guns". Perhaps Europe? Perhaps the rest of the civilized world?

And in terms of tone, with all due repect Zippy-- but you are one of the most rigid people in the Catholic blogosphere. Now, that's often a good thing, and I admire much of your thinking-- but it is what it is. You often assert positions that bypass the nuance that can be found in Church teaching.

And I do not believe I am mischaracterizing Brendon's argument. His key point is that in the current US environment, widespread gun ownership is a "necessary and proportional means of defending one's family and community." I find the implications of this to be utterly horrendous, on so many different levels. It reflects a sickness in contemporary American society, a society that is too inclined to resort to violence as a solution to problems, and that often glorifies the man with the gun.*

*Ths is me speaking for me, not the Church, lest there be any doubt.

And in terms of tone, ...

I wasn't criticizing your tone. I was criticizing your adoption of a Magisterial posture. I suggest that where you want to adopt a Magisterial posture in your argument, you quote the Magisterium. Where you don't quote the Magisterium, don't start telling people that they owe religious assent to your opinions.

I find the implications of this to be utterly horrendous, on so many different levels.

Well, yes, we get it that you find it horrifying. But you said of his arguments, just as two examples:

certainly I see the primacy of the individual and the freedom of that individual from outside constraint in some of what you say.

You argument derives more from classical liberalism, whether you think so or not.

Which is, technically speaking, tommyrot.

The reason you don't quote him meticulously and respond to what he actually says is because if you did that, the shovel you are using to scoop words and concepts in his mouth would not work. I personally have little patience with that sort of thing, even when it is being done to someone else.

First of all, I only used "religious assent" (the technical langauge of LG 25) in reference to the magsisterial teaching on the death penalty. I did not quote it, for I thought it was pellucid.

And you may assert tommyrot; I respectfully disagree. The basis of his analysis is that the response to a social situation that leads to a level of gun violence is to grant the individual a proportional right to fight fire with fire, as it well. Forgive me if I find this hard to reconcile with the Gospel. Forgive me if I fail to see this as compatible with the call to see neighbor as another self, with an all-econompassing culture of life, with the call to be guided and sustained by the law of love, with the natural unity of the human race sundered and "individualized" by original sin and recovered by the redemption of Christ.

In this vein, a Christian response to the problem of gun violence would be to tackle the underlying social, economic, and cultural problems that lead to such violence -- which in the United States includes the residue of racism. And just as Americans must bear reponsibility for creating chaos in Iraq, if even they are not directly responsible for each particular act of violence, so are people who refuse to restrict access to handguns implicated in the violence that arises. Here is the issue: the US is not a particularly violent place, in relation to comparator nations at equal levels of development. What differs about the US is “lethal violence”. So while guns may not induce people to commit crimes, they make crimes lethal. Remember Virginia Tech and the countless other tragedies that could have been avoided had this country some sane gun laws. Remember social sin.

And as I'm quite tired of saying, the US bishops support gun control-- why are they not out there calling for more people to get bigger guns to protect themselves from armed malefactors? This is an element of the culture of life.

So, yes, I do see classical liberalism rather than classical Christianity in the argument put forth. After all, who gives a tinker's damn about inner-city carnage or Virgina Tech as long as each individual has the right to protect his family in his fortress with a really big gun?

The basis of his analysis is that the response to a social situation that leads to a level of gun violence is to grant the individual a proportional right to fight fire with fire, as it well.

The basis of my analysis is that we live in a society continually beset by gang violence and a criminal justice system that habitually releases violent criminals back into society. A middle-aged father is not not equal to three gang members in their prime of life unless he has something that makes their numbers and superior physical condition irrelevant. I am not talking about "a social situation that leads to a level of gun violence." I am talking about a situation where violence thrusts itself upon a family or community and one has a duty to act in their defense.

...a Christian response to the problem of gun violence would be to tackle the underlying social, economic, and cultural problems that lead to such violence...

Where did I say anything that would lead you to think that I am opposed to these things? Can you explain to me how a law-abiding citizen cannot possess a weapon for the protection of his family and community as well as work towards such goals?

And as I'm quite tired of saying, the US bishops support gun control...

The bishops do not possess a special charism of infallible political analysis.

So, yes, I do see classical liberalism rather than classical Christianity in the argument put forth. After all, who gives a tinker's damn about inner-city carnage or Virgina Tech as long as each individual has the right to protect his family in his fortress with a really big gun?

You continue to try to paint me as arguing for the ability to protect my stuff from the unwashed masses instead of acting with solidarity towards others. All you are doing is demonstrating that you do not understand my argument at all. I have nowhere mentioned protection of things. I have rarely even mentioned the protection of self. I have continually mentioned the protection of family, neighbors and community.

My entire argument is based upon solidarity. It is the solidarity to run towards the screams so as to offer assistance after contacting the police rather than to run away from them because you have no means of helping. It is the solidarity to defend a stranger from a group of attackers because they are a neighbor and a member of your community. It is the solidarity to personally act in defense of the weaker members of your community when you find them beset by violence.

I am done with this discussion. You keep putting words in my mouth and attributing to me positions I do not hold. I can only assume it is because you have a little, ideological box in your head labeled "conservative" that you keep trying to fit me in. The apparent content of this box is not at all what I believe. But since you refuse to be convinced otherwise, further discussion is a waste of both our time.

Here is the issue: the US is not a particularly violent place, in relation to comparator nations at equal levels of development. What differs about the US is “lethal violence”.

FWIW, the Catholic understanding of self-defense is that it is a matter of the natural law, and so applies to everyone, and can be known by everyone. Of course the Catholic understanding of self-defense is also quite different from what MM presents as The Catholic Understanding of Self-Defense.

I was actually referring to the "social obligations" to provide for the poor that come from divine mandates in the New Testament. There is an inherent distinction between believer and unbeliever there because the Gospel was addressed to those who would follow Jesus, not humanity in general. One verse that comes to mind from the epistles about those who expect humanity to behave like one big happy family of believers is "holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these."

Yes, Americans are more likely to shoot each other to death than English or Canadians, but they are also substantially more likely than English or Canadians to choke, beat, stab, or poison each other, too.

America is also far more demographically diverse than Canada or the United Kingdom. Furthermore, neither of those countries have a neighbor like Mexico which actively encourages a mass exodus into its borders.

And no, draft dodgers and liberals don't count as an equivalent migration into Canada.

America is also far more demographically diverse than Canada or the United Kingdom.

Morning's Minion,

You, and the U.S. Bishops labor under the following key assumption:

"In this vein, a Christian response to the problem of gun violence would be to tackle the underlying social, economic, and cultural problems that lead to such violence -- which in the United States includes the residue of racism."

I'm tempted to use Zippy's word "tommyrot" as an apt description of this assumption, but I will be more charitable. With all due respect, and given that I probably know 1/100th of the amount of Catholic theology that you do, I'll confine myself to plain old human reason and simply say that my own careful analysis of the social science research on the subject of violence suggests that you are totally wrong about "underlying social" and "economic...problems" leading to gun violence. Or to put it another way, there is no reason poverty and/or social disadvantage necessarily leads to gun violence. Instead, there are deep cultural reasons, namely the lack of a sense of individual moral agency (and our society's reluctance to focus on moral agency when thinking about crime), for the crime in the U.S.

I could site John Lott, Thomas Sowell and a whole host of smart economists and social scientists on this subject matter and I suspect you still wouldn't be convinced.

So instead, I'll simply note that the "First Things" crowd, which you seem to dislike, often makes the same type of arguments I'm trying to make -- assuming you get the theology right, you still have to use human reason to understand the world and how to appropriately respond to crime, terrorism, etc. And in doing so, the U.S. Bishops and for that matter the Pope, do not have a monopoly on reason and the analysis of how to shape a well-ordered society. So when a Catholic disagrees with the U.S. Bishops about gun control, this tells us nothing about whether or not either position is morally right. The only question should be whether or not gun control will eventually lead to a healthier and well-ordered society. And again, based on all the statistics and analysis I've read, it is clear to me that the individual right to bear arms leads to a safer and healthier society than those societies around the world that believe the individual should cede all their self-defense needs to the state.

In this entire thread I do not believe Morning's Minion has responded to the oft-repeated point that lawful ownership and wise use of firearms can and does provide the very community solidarity and common good he desires. I find this a revealing omission.

I feel confident saying that all the contributors here -- along with, mind you, the Supreme Court's majority -- share MM's view that some gun control is wise and necessary. The question is whether that control ought to be so onerous as to effectively preclude even law-abiding citizens to own the means to defend themselves and their community.

Now, not being a Catholic, I may be going out on a limb here; but gonna say it anyway: if the Magisterial teaching of the Roman Catholic Church strictly and implacably forbids personal ownership of handguns by common citizens, a la England, then I'm a donut.

MM: it so happens that I was called this spring to sit on the Fulton County (GA) Grand Jury for the March-April term. We heard upwards of 1000 cases during that time. Atlanta being a perennial fixture on the highest crime-rate lists in the country, I think I can say this experience gave me a pretty clear and impressive window into urban crime.

I would estimate that 50% or 60% of our cases included a gun charge, usually felon in possession of a firearm or possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. I do not recall a single case which involved a gun where the county failed to charge a firearm violation.

None of these statutes are in the least affected by Heller. If you commit a crime with a gun, even if the gun is not actually used in the crime, even if the victim is not even aware of the gun, you will face an additional charge. This talk of "unfettered availability of guns" is, I'm afraid, mostly a straw man.

“I have no idea why you all keep bringing Obama into this. It reflects an inability to think outside the narrow frame of contemporary American politics. “

Because your site obsessively labors to convince Catholics that voting for a man sworn to sign FOCA is...o.k. In fact, some there insist Obama is the” only moral option” and a failure to vote constitutes a dereliction in the duties of citizenship. Talk about soul-deadening submission to the pwers of this world!

I also place God's law above the US constitution.

Please sir, you are on Dorothy Day. She would take one look at Vox Nova and dismiss it a comical revival of “Call to Action” by those who missed out on the original ‘70’s version. She’d be amused by the chablis and brie radicalism found there, assume the writers clerk for Ted Kennedy and the USCCB, and all were happily ensconced in their chosen compromise.

“I'm thinking of the Weigel-Novak-Neuhaus set and their cheerleading a gravely unjust war. “

The Whigs at First Things are at home within the Liberal Tradition and desperately try to elevate democratic capitalism to the status of Church doctrine. It’s awful to watch. You too, have settled into Liberalism’s beguiling lair. To the point where you’ve signed a peace accord with the culture of death, agreeing to restrict your objections to some qualified essays on the internet and donations to a crisis pregnancy home, allowed to operate as long as it conforms to the strictures of the State.

Aside from some occasional corrections of your soul-mates on the other-side of Liberalism’s faux divide, your site offers nothing compelling, original or new. You strike me as a good guy struggling, like we all do, with the eternal tension that exists between being in, and of the world. I wish you well in finding a resolution that is in full accord with our Christian calling.

As for Vox Nova in it’s current form?
Slay the conformist wimp.

Sorry, the above was addressed to Morning Minion.

Since the dicussion is veering toward social science and statistics, I'm happy to go there too. Looking at internatonal evidence, there is a strong relastionship betweeg gun death and gun ownership: see here: http://bp3.blogger.com/_dehtj8kgqzM/Rp-7tnzAAVI/AAAAAAAAACI/0GbYmsAVnm8/s1600-h/gun+statistics_31043_image001.gif.

Albeit with a very small sample, I tried some basic statistical analysis some time back (http://vox-nova.com/2007/07/19/more-reasons-for-gun-control/). Using basic regression analysis, I found that gun ownership rate are positively and significantly related to homicide and suicide rates across 19 advanced economies, and that a bevy of other factors — GDP per capita, demographics, ethnic divisions, urbanization and inequality– did not seem to matter on their own. What causes gun deaths is the availability of guns. did a little further analysis, to see if the availability of guns enhanced the underlying factors that might cause violence. It does. Introducing a non-linear element in the regression suggests that gun ownership is especially detrimental when ethnic divisions and inequality are elevated. Oh any by the way, the US is far more ethnically divided and unequal than the other countries in the sample.
Look at the statistics on gun-related homicide and suicide rates in the US. See here: http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=6166

And contra to what was said above, the most extrensive research on the topic conduicted by David Hemenway from Harvard's School of Public Health, shows that the US is actually not that exceptionally violent, at least among other high-income, industrialized nations. Crimes like assault, car theft, burglary, robbery, and sexual incidents are not particularly high by OECD standards. What differs about the US is "lethal violence". So while guns don't induce people to commit crimes, they make crimes lethal. The international evidence is beyond dispute: the availability of guns leads to greater rates of homicide and suicide, and no offset in terms of lower non-gun murders. How many deadly "crimes of passion" take place in the US that would ne non-lethal elsewhere? And would disturbed people like the perpetrators of the carnage at places like Columbine and Virginia Tech be able to do so much damage absent the free availability of guns?

The within-US evidence seems to be all predicated on the notion that some communities with high rates of gun ownership are quite peaceful while the violence is restricted to particular areas. But that cannot be an argument for a liberal approach to guns, for it is tantamount to ignoring the plight of the inner cities and other afflicted areas. And I'm sorry, it's cultural Calvinism to say that each individual is personally responsible for his own actions and that we have no broader social responsibility (I didn't come up with that term-- blame Cardinal George for that).

And this gets to the heart of my strong disagreement with Brendon and Zippy. They claim I misunderstand, or distort, Catholic teaching on self sefense. I do not. I'm well aware of it, and I support it. The problem is elevating a personal theory of self-defense to social policy-- as happens when one pushes for free availability of guns in the US. And I never said that ownership of guns was sinful or somehow condemned by the Church. What I do say is that given the par