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by Richard Knodel, Jr.

If a person has the means, should he or she purchase a firearm? Is it moral or immoral to do so?

Anti-gun advocates impute "sin" to gun ownership mostly because of the simplistic relationship between guns and death. But given our founding fathers' inclusion of the "right to bear arms" in the original Bill of Rights, ought we not to be a bit humble in the quick association between guns and evil?

Our Founders, far more than men today, believed in absolute right and wrong. Most founded their moral determinations on religious grounds. They read the Bible and went to church.

In one of the easiest-to-prove assertions ever made, they considered gun ownership so virtuous that they protected it by the Bill of Rights. But why? Didn't they know that guns kill people?

Our forefathers based their thought on the Sixth Commandment, "Thou shalt not kill" (Ex. 20:13). A common interpretation was that: "The sixth commandment requireth all lawful endeavours to preserve our own life and the life of others" ¹

In other words, if murder was wrong, actions or causes tending toward murder, like not defending oneself or others, were also wrong. This was the "right of self-defense."

Our founders considered this one of the most basic of human rights. They accepted this as a right of all levels of society: the nation, the states, the counties, the family, and the individual. If right and wrong existed, and if murder was wrong, then citizens had the moral obligation to defend the good and innocent at whatever level.

The Bible is full of stories promoting self-defense. One of the earliest tells of some thugs who kidnapped Lot, the patriarch Abraham's nephew. Abraham mustered a militia and by force of arms won back the life of his nephew (Gen. 14:12ff). The Bible recounts this occurrence as one of God's providential help and of human virtue. There is no suggestion of censure for this act of self-defense through the use of arms.

But people no longer assume such things. Is crime a problem today? Yes. So many think that it is perfectly moral to fight crime by banning or regulating weaponry. If in so doing, other "goods", like the ability to defend oneself is destroyed, what of it? But it is fundamentally flawed to "cure" one evil by committing another.

In one amazing crime study it was reported that "the average American living his or her entire life in a large city now has a better chance of being murdered than the average soldier had of being killed in combat during World War II."²

Would we have sent our G.I.s into World War II without guns? Of course not. But "gun control" becomes the same sort of thing for the law-abiding citizen, leaving them unarmed and helpless before thugs and criminals.

Some say, "Let the police protect the citizens." But this is flawed on two counts. First, the police use of weaponry (the right of community defense) is founded on the same moral ground as the right of individual defense.

The second reason is more pragmatic: the police are simply unable to protect us at all times! Every individual murder proves the limitations of community defense. Community defense is good, but it can never disqualify individual self-defense.

What's happening today is that innocent people are being treated as criminals for merely trying to defend themselves. Such was the famous case of Benard Goetz in New York a number of years ago, and a host of others.

If modern society had the moral courage to follow the Bible and execute murderers and habitual criminals, crime would virtually vanish. It's an idea for somebody's political campaign! Any prospective candidate could use it! "Elect me, and I'll cut crime by 90%!"

But if we don't have the courage to do that, we shouldn't compound our collective fault by taking away each other's rights to defend ourselves. It's just plain sinful to do so. And the times are getting worse.

Richard E. Knodel, Jr., M.Div., is Pastor of Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Lynchburg, Virginia. He is a Trustee of Christ College, and is a member of the National Reform Association Board of Directors.

Endnotes

1. The Westminster Shorter Catechism, Answer #68; emphasis added.

2. William Tucker, Vigilante: The Backlash Against Crime In America (New York, 1985), p. 42. Secured from Arnold Barnett, Daniel J. Kleitman, and Richard C. Larson, On Urban Homicide, Working Paper WP-04-74 (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, March, 1974); Criminal Victimization in the United States, 1982, Bureau of Justice Statistics, U. S. Department of Justice.

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