Guns

Jimmy McCarty 1-16-2009
The day after Barack Obama was elected president, I heard people say multiple times that we have now arrived as a "post-racial" nation and that it can now be said that anyone can truly be president
Tom Hubers 1-01-2009

I was struck by the letter from Richard Tillinger regarding his love of machine guns (“Misfire?” September-October 2008).

John Rufe 1-01-2009

Regarding “Supreme Illogic: Catholic social teaching and gun control,” by Joe Nangle, OFM (November 2008): Pope John Paul II’s 1994 document by the Holy See’s Pontifical Cou

Joe Nangle 11-01-2008

For decades the city government of Washington, D.C., banned handguns among its citizens. Permits were given for special cases but, by and large, these lethal weapons were not to be in the possession of residents in a city that, tragically, has vied with other metropolitan areas to be the “murder capital of the U.S.” So the recent decision of the Supreme Court repealing the District’s handgun ban deserves our attention.

All of the majority votes in the Supreme Court’s verdict came from the five Catholic justices on the court: John Roberts Jr., Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito Jr. This highlights the irony that Catholic social teaching—which provides modern Catholics and others of good will with resources to apply biblical wisdom to many of the common problems facing us in 21st century life, including violence, arms production, and weapons proliferation—has remained the Catholic Church’s “best-kept secret.”

The facts of the court case are straightforward. Security guard Dick An­thony Heller, who had a permit to carry a gun when on duty, challenged the D.C. law, seeking permission to have a weapon in his home. The District Court threw out Heller’s case, but the D.C. Circuit Court reversed the lower court’s decision, and on June 26, in a 5-to-4 vote, the Supreme Court upheld that reversal.

National Rifle AssociationThis week, The New York Times ran an editorial about H.R. 6691, follow-up legislation to the June Supreme Court decision on D.C.'s gun ban. After reading the editorial, I made a resolution: [...]

Even though we don't often weigh in on local D.C. political issues, the Sojourners policy team made an exception on a new piece of legislation that would have a direct impact on gun violence in the District. We signed Sojourners on to a faith-group letter last week opposing the bill described in this [...]

Rachel Smith 6-30-2008

Last week's headlines blared the news: The Supreme Court has ruled that there is a constitutional right to gun ownership. I'm not surprised -- disheartened, dismayed, disappointed, yes -- but not surprised. The photo accompanying the headline was of jubilant gun rights supporters carrying signs saying "Guns Save Lives." "The Great Object: Every Man Be Armed." "If guns kill people, do pens misspell words?"

And that's the real problem with gundamentalism (and I do see this ruling as an [...]

Ed Spivey Jr. 6-01-2008
The Supreme Court is about to rule on guns. Be afraid.
Ed Spivey Jr. 7-01-2004

Being a resident of our country's last colony, Washington, D.C. ("Doesn't Count"), it's hard to approach this political season with anything but a jaded, albeit cynical, pessimism. Like most Iraqis, I am waiting for self-rule to be established in my hometown, and to experience "democracy," this new thing I keep hearing about where citizens have, like, a vote.

Fortunately, there are other benefits to living in the nation's capital, although I can't think of any right now because I'm too busy not drinking the water, which you shouldn't, on account of the lead, which there's too much of. (Of all the things I've taught my children, it's irony that I'm most proud of. For example, my youngest just came home from Central America, and when she got back to D.C. I had to warn her not to drink the water here.)

To compensate for an absence of meaningful political participation, I have for years taken an interest in the congressional district of my youth in Indiana (motto: One Man, One Gun). I watch with jealousy as voters in my former district, after first receiving instructions from the Republican Party, exercise their right to vote. Hoosiers, as they are called - there's a story to that name, but it's really boring - are a devoutly conservative lot who, for example, believe the only foreign aid we give should be shipments of bootstraps so recipients can...well, you know.

The 8th District of Indiana, where I spent my formative years, is currently represented by Rep. John Hostettler, a fine Republican who was recently detained at an airport. Details are sketchy, so I'm not sure whether it was his laptop computer, his cell phone, or the loaded 9 mm semiautomatic handgun in his briefcase that caused concern among the security personnel.

Ed Spivey Jr. 1-01-2003

Filmmaker Michael Moore loves to pick at the sores of America's self-delusions, and he's really good at it.

Rose Marie Berger 11-01-2002
The ceramic arsenal of Charles Krafft.
'Columbine' used to refer to a mountain wildflower. Now it conjures up a national tragedy of teens killing teens.
Sadly, kids killing kids isn't anything new.