THIS is the solution to mass shootings - why won't we do it?

Over the weekend, two mass shooters gunned down people in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio. Pope Francis has issued a statement and called for prayer. What can be done to combat this terrible problem? 

Mass shootings will continue to happen until we apply the correct solution.

Highlights

By Marshall Connolly (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
Catholic Online (https://www.catholic.org)
8/5/2019 (5 years ago)

Published in U.S.

Keywords: Christian, mass, shooting, violence, solution, guns, violence

LOS ANGELES, CA (California Network) - Pope Francis has condemned the recent violence in the United States, and during his Sunday message in St. Peter's Square, he led a Hail Mary prayer for the victims. 

As Catholics, we are called to pay for peace. However, as many have pointed out, "thoughts and prayers" are not enough. 

Gun violence is common in the United States for three key reasons. First, the United States Constitution recognizes the natural right to keep and bear arms, which is grounded in the right of people to protect themselves from violence. This is a God-given right. The second is that firearms are ubiquitous, with more than 300 million guns of all types in private ownership. The third is that Americans have lost their moral compass, which results in evil. 

The United States has always been an armed nation. If not for the firearms carried by farmers and frontiersmen, those hardy souls who made the backbone of many militias, the American Revolution would have been lost. In deference to this fact, and in recognizing the God-given rights to self-defense and property, the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights explicitly allows people to keep and bear arms. Supreme Court decisions over the past two centuries have affirmed this right. 

With this right comes responsibility. The entire purpose of a firearm is to destroy. Most commonly, firearms are used for hunting, but they are also used for war and for sport. But no matter which use they serve, they are destructive and coercive. As such, they must be wielded with respect, both for their potential, and for the lives they could destroy. 

However, respect, especially for life, is no longer an American trait. We live in a nation where it is permissible to kill a child inside its mother's womb. We live in a nation that wants to kill the elderly and the ill. We praise incivility in our streets, and often turn a blind eye to violence. Our media is filled with violence, from music, to television, to video games in which kids are rewarded for virtually shooting as many people as they can. 

Instead of learning how to use a firearm properly, with discipline and respect, kids simply learn that it is fun to shoot things. Our schools no longer provide moral education, nor do they instruct kids on life skills, or how to handle firearms, as many schools did decades ago. 

Find all your stocking stuffers and Christmas gifts at Catholic Online Shopping

Naturally, when you add firearms to this volatile circumstance, you get violence. 

This same violence could be expected anywhere, except most other secular nations have stripped people of their natural right to self-defense with a firearm. 

So, the United States has a problem, for which there are three solutions. The first solution is to change hearts and minds though moral education and teaching empathy and responsibility. The second is to modify the technology so as to make such violence more difficult or impossible. The third is to limit access to the technology. 

We have passed laws to limit what firearms a person can have, as well as what features a firearm can possess. For example, fully automatic weapons are outlawed. And we have modified access to firearms by registering and checking buyers, and by requiring permits for concealed carry and more. None of these solutions seem to work. 

But the one solution nobody will speak of is instilling Christian values in our society. No Christian with a properly formed conscience would ever commit a mass shooting. It is literally a physical impossibility. Only those whose moral sense is disordered due to illness or spiritual corruption, are capable of such heinous deeds. 

The solution is clear. Unfortunately we live in a society that would rather abide mass shootings than re-embrace its Christian heritage, and so we all pay this terrible price. 

---

'Help Give every Student and Teacher FREE resources for a world-class Moral Catholic Education'