Saturday, February 17, 2018

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?)

4 comments:

Elizabeth said...

Thanks for that. You saved me the irritation of reading a piece by Fr. Longnecker, which I actually never do anymore.

All points you made are spot on. I've had conversations like that with members of my family who are very anti-gun, anti-2nd Amendment. But this priest goes even further than any of my liberal family....actually suggesting that someone "sign off" on my permission slip. Good grief, thanks for reminding me again just why I never read anything by Fr. Longnecker.

Praypraypray said...

Thank you for this post.
Hitler and the Nazis believed in gun control. Dictatorships believe in gun control. Democrats/Socialists/Communists/Fascists believe in gun control.
Don’t ever give away your gun rights. Right now, Trump is in office, but after he’s out of office, whether after 1 or 2 terms, Heaven only knows who will try to take over this country. Every opportunity that the Democrats get to take control of our guns, they’re on it.
Gun control is not about guns as it is about CONTROL. Listen to the people who were fortunate to survive under totalitarian governments. They try to warn us to NEVER, NEVER, NEVER EVER GIVE UP OUR GUNS or ANY OF OUR RIGHTS!!!
Thank you.

Anonymous said...

I see a lot of school age kids calling for gun control. Their history teachers need to educate them on the real reason for the 2nd amendment. Our forefathers just fought off their own tyrannical government and made sure the 2nd amendment had the clearest meaning.

Best estimates are 12-15 million homicides in the 20th century. There were 262 MILLION people killed by their own government in the 20th century. Bad things happen in isolated instances in an armed populace, horrific things happen to a disarmed populace.

20th Century Democide https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM

Stephen Lowe said...

Father Longnecker really needs to return to the Anglicans...he would be a conservative there...here he is just another modernist shaking his fist. A dime a dozen. Commonplace, mundane modernist concentrating on horizontal aspects of life and not the vertical or spiritual...the kind that lifts you up, not drag you down.