What Is The Christian Position On Gun Control?

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If you are a Christian (indeed, if you are a person of any faith), you should be taking the time to think through how your beliefs impact the way that you live your life including your views on multiple topics. Yes, including gun control.

Christianity teaches for people, as much as it is in their power, to get along with other pople. To be peaceful and to act with love towards other people.

With this in mind, some Christians with anti-gun leanings are accusing other believers of not living out their faith. For example, writing for Washington Post, Kristen Powers wrote, “There’s something deeply hypocritical about praying for a problem you are unwilling to resolve.” (hat tip to here for the quote)

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Now, on the surface, I agree with this sentiment. Christians are told to pray, but they are also told to act to make a difference in the world. The problem is: what is the real solution to gun violence? Anti-gun Christians such as Powers argue that more gun control is the solution (even though her piece admitted that gun control wouldn’t have prevented the Las Vegas shooting). But what is the real solution? David French offers some thoughts that differ from Powers:

there are important ways to combat gun violence that don’t involve more gun control. This is a vital point — one that Powers and other gun-control advocates miss. Refusing to support ineffectual gun-control policies isn’t the same thing as “doing nothing.” Indeed, Second Amendment advocates have a host of ideas for combatting gun crimes and limiting gun deaths — including ideas that might actually prevent mass shootings.

This is an incredibly important point: as Christians, yes, we are called to act, but we are also called to think. Doing something ineffectual doesn’t help the situation and only makes us feel morally superior. What we do needs to actually work, and, sometimes, that means being able to do the thing that we most do not want to do: kill an evil person who is on a rampage. As Christian martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that, if we encounter a drunk driver, it is not enough to comfort the people killed by that drunk driver’s actions. No, we must wrestle the keys out of his hand. In the case of a shooting incident, that means disabling that active shooter’s nervous system, and, often, the best way to do that (and, thus, save more lives) is with a gun.

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8 COMMENTS

  1. If the strong man of the house knew what hour the thief would come he would not allow his house to be broken into. If a man will not provide for his own he has denied the faith and is worse than an infidel. Translated very narrowly these may not mean much to people of faith. Looking at them in a more practical sense I have a responsibility to look after my own even if that which I must do is something I might not enjoy. Yes we need to be prepared to protect. I respect and appreciate law enforcement but they are not omnicient not are they omnipresent. The officers I have known are like the rest of us. They are doing the best they can with what they have. Sometimes the rest of us need to act when it is needed.

    • I asked the preacher one time what does the bible mean when it says it’s somebody strikes you . turn the other cheek what happens after you turn the other cheek. He told me nowhere in the Bible does God tell you what to do after you turn your cheek so interpret that the way you like. And this was like 70 some years ago.

  2. In Jesus day the weapon of choice was a sword. Today it is a handgun. This what he told his disciples.
    Luke22:35-38 And he said unto them, When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye any thing? And they said, Nothing.
    36 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.
    37 For I say unto you, that this that is written must yet be accomplished in me, And he was reckoned among the transgressors: for the things concerning me have an end.
    38 And they said, Lord, behold, here are two swords. And he said unto them, It is enough.

  3. Until you take the guns away from the bad guys and gangs running the streets and driving the streets and shoot whom may be in site leave our guns alone. The good man has the right to own one and the second amendment says so. It’s not good people who are shooting and killing it’s the sick bad people who has no thought of someone else’s life. The politions are why there is so much killings. Stop paying gangs are anti gun activists to commits murder. Go after the bad guys and leave the good man alone.

    • Yes. CA gun control leaves people open to criminals especially gangs. Sanctuary cities and Dreamers is not the way to keep people safe. Concealed carry to trained people is the answer. Boycott stores that are GUN free. Sanctuary cities are GUN free. BUT! Gangs and criminals have guns.
      Brown and Harris support Sanctuary cities.

  4. Look people the bill 3999 is trying to go through and we the people do Not want it
    To so we need to stop this bill 3999

  5. I am a Christian and I am also an American who believes in the second admenment. My wife were at Walmart and when we returned home we found a stranger in our house I thank God I did not have to shot him but I did hold him at gun point until the police arrived, if I had not had a gun there might have been a struggle and I and my wife might have gotten injured, so by having a gun allowed me to control how everything would evolve the officers even thanked me for doing it the way I did, So it goes to show that even though you my have a gun and are licensed to carry you my not have to fire it but only use it to control.

  6. Furthermore, it is written, and I quote; “Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, ARM YOURSELVES with the same thought, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer by human passions but by the will of GOD.” (1st Peter 4:1-2). Although, the 6th Commandment states; “Thou shalt not murder.”; in actuality the truth is that there is “a time to kill” (Ecclesiastes 3:3); that time being in defense of anyone else’s life to include self defense. Even in the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus, Himself instructed Peter to go and purchase a weapon as written; “He said to them, ‘But now, let him who has a purse take it, and likewise a bag. And let him who has No Sword sell his mantle and but one. For I tell you that this scripture must be fulfilled in me, And he was reckoned with transgressors; for what is written about me has its fulfillment.’ And they said ‘Look, Lord, here are two swords.’ And He said to them, ‘It is enough.'” ( Luke 22:36-38).

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