Dear Fr. Longenecker: You Don't Really Get It!

Another demonstration of "I don't know why there is a Second Amendment."

That's followed by a bunch of actual truth, from a priest in the South.

First, the silliness.

...I’m in favor of more gun control.

Let’s face it, why does anybody need a semi automatic rifle? Have a shotgun or a rifle if you need one for home defense and carry a pistol if you must, but keep the guns small and with limited bullets before you have to re-load, and limit the number of guns a person can have, and do more background checks, get their doctor and priest or somebody sane to sign off on the permissions. Make them wait longer before they can buy a gun....

For the zillionth time, Father, the 2A is NOT entirely about self-defense, nor about hunting.  It is about the prevention of tyranny--you know, like you had in merrie olde England.  And like they currently have in Red China, VietNam, and North Korea.  And Russia.

It is critical that you understand this:  self-defense is integral to defense of liberty and the nation, and vice-versa.  You cannot have one without the other.  Ask Thomas Aquinas.  Go ahead.  I'll wait.

Then there's this:  what's "common sense" to YOU is not necessarily "common sense" for others--which means that it may not be "common" at all, Father.  One may "need" a semi-automatic rifle for ensuring humane kills when hunting.  Maybe you've never missed a one-shot kill shot on a deer, but others have.  One may "need" a semi-auto rifle to defend home/family/self against a home invasion, or in case of major civil disturbance.  Ask the Korean shopkeepers about those Los Angeles riots. 

Frankly, you are not the judge of "need," Father.  I could ask the same 'need' question about the size of a home, speed of a car, or number of acres owned, or dollars in a retirement account.  Those are questions proper to an individual, not to society, nor you.  It's worth noting that you DO ask those questions in your essay (thanks!!!) but your answer, the B-Option, doesn't work for everyone. 

By the way, could that shotgun you allow us be a semi-auto?

How many bullets may one load into a self-defense pistol under your regime, Father?  Enough to kill an assailant?  How many IS that, Father?

How many guns is "too many" for an individual, Father?  Oh--wait--does that individual have a family who might need to be armed?  So should each of those people also have a limit?  And while we're at it, shouldn't we ask about the purpose of each weapon?  After all, there's concealed-carry, open-carry, long-distance hunting (and defense of liberty), close-quarters hunting and defense, bird-shooting.....we could go on.  

Finally, Father, when you require that 'somebody sane signs off', exactly who might that be?  I'm acquainted with a highly-qualified and eminent M.D. who killed his wife.  But he was "sane."  Are you telling us that psychiatrists are "more sane" than other people?  That rabbis, ministers, or priests are "more sane"?  You have a heavy burden of proof, Father....

Here's where you get it RIGHT:

...don’t imagine it is going to stop the killing. Don’t imagine that controlling guns will control people.  Don’t imagine that the heart of darkness in American society is going to be cured with such a superficial thing as gun control....

Correct.  As Neumayr mentioned today, it's "self-control," not "gun control."

You get even more points here:

...If there is no God everything is permissible. If there is nothing embrace the nothing.

Why is this a theological question? Because nihilism is the dark underbelly not only of modern philosophy and relativism, but it is also the dark underbelly of the sappy New Age nonsense on sale by people like Oprah and the rest of the “Eastern thinkers”

Really. What do the Eastern religions teach? They teach that beyond the person is the great emptiness. They teach that to truly be spiritually aware you become aware that the greatest reality is that there is no reality. Nirvana is to accept with peace that there is nothing else and no one else out there.

Nirvana is Nihilism....

And Christianity, properly understood, is the answer.  Very good!!

(About that "Benedict Option", Father:  will there be weapons at that location?  How many?  What sort?)