On Newtown, CT, and Policy

I ran across Larry Correia's statements on mass shootings and what makes people safe in Mark Shea's commentariat.

Larry Correia may truly be one of the most qualified of people to discuss the issue of how gun ownership and use affect criminal behavior, including mass shootings like what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary. I have seen nothing I think you would do better to read if you wish to be informed on the relevant issues, especially not anything I've written.

The Tragedy in Connecticut

EDIT: I suppose you can consider my post the tl/dr of this post by the eloquent and esteemed David Warren, whose writings I recommend without qualification.

end edit With Pope Benedict, I am deeply saddened by the senseless and tragic massacre in New Town, Connecticut. I pray for those lost and all their families: May God have mercy on them all, and give his grace to all.

This article in the Atlantic concedes that the debate over banning gun ownership is largely over, and that those who argue for have lost. The author, Jeffrey Goldberg, even concedes that defensive gun uses happen, that law-abiding gun owners save lives with their guns, and even contradicts a lawyer for the Ohio police chief's association who says that his anecdotal evidence proves gun violence has increased since Ohio passed a shall-issue CCW permit law by claiming that statistics show otherwise.

Israel used to have a serious problem with school massacres. The PLO or Hamas would find some willing martyr, hand him a $50 black market AK-47 and some ammo, and send him to shoot up a school. Prime Minister Golda Mier said she was not going to make policy on the backs of children. Her response was to field armed volunteers to protect elementary schools, often retired relatives of the school children. The death tolls from these incidents went from over a score to low single digits, and Arab terrorists started using suicide bombers instead of gunmen.

I am not at all surprised to find Pelosi, President Obama, et al, making sure that they don't let tragedies go to waste by trying to make gun-banning hay while the sun shines. But I sincerely hope that they fail.

Mafia Discourse and the Church Militant

This post is going to ramble. Once again, I've seen a number of things online that just seem to tie together.

This article was on the front page of Catholic Exchange today; in it, Dr. Stanley Williams takes Sean Hannity to task for his use of what Eric Scheske once called "mafia discourse tactics" (and on Fr. Thomas Eutener, at that)! It seems to me that all too often, such tactics are used to avoid the truth.

Then I found a link to this post by Adoro te Devote. She goes on at length about what it means to be a confirmed Catholic -- it means we've volunteered to be part of the Church Militant, to go into spiritual and rhetorical battle to defend and promote the Faith. But she also expounds on the way we are to do this: with caritas. St Paul tells us that without caritas, all other gifts of the Spirit are nothing.

I don't mean to suggest that there is no place for all-out warfare. There are cases where our opponents clearly intend nothing less than our complete destruction, and doing whatever it takes to stop them is called for by the Church. (The Caveman makes the case for executions here, and provides an example of when warfare is so justified.) But such cases are rare. I think the Church is better served by initially giving others the benefit of the doubt, and not presuming hostility before it has been demonstrated.

Franz Jägerstätter, martyr, Beatus

I'd finished with Catholic Caveman, and wandered over to Catholic Anarchy. Yeah, the two are very different. I fully agree with the Caveman on the need for more manliness, particularly in the Church. And I agree with Michael Iafrate over at Catholic Anarchy, that we ought not have invaded Iraq. I expect that he and I are fellow=travelers regarding the War on Terror as well. But this here is my blog, and I'd like to write about Franz Jägerstätter, who came to my attention via Catholic Anarchy.

Jägerstätter was one of many Catholics martyred by the Third Reich. St. Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stien) was martyred for being a Jewish convert to Catholicism in a city where the Catholic Church decried the Nazi deportation of Jews from every pulpit. St. Maximillian Kolbe was arrested and sent to Auschwitz for sheltering some 2,000 Jews in his Franciscan friary and speaking out against the Nazis via amateur radio. He was killed because he thought it better that he should die than Franciszek Gajowniczek, who had a family. But Jägerstätter was killed for one reason only: he refused to carry a rifle for Hitler. And he refused because he recognized, as Pope Pius XII made clear in Summi Pontificatus, that Naziism was clearly incompatible with authentic Christianity. He offered to carry medical supplies and serve as a medic in the Wehrmacht, but that wasn't enough, and he was executed for it. Refusing to aid in evil, regardless of the cost, is heroism worthy of our respect, and emulation if possible and/or necessary.

Most of what I've seen praising Jägerstätter comes from voices that seem to abhor war unreservedly and praise pacifism in every case. (edit: thanks to The Western Confucian, I have found this exception.) Nothing I've seen suggests that he would have been such a voice. He saw that the Nazi Party, in both ideology and action, was completely unChristian, and he refused to take even the most limited part in their evil. But I saw no sign that he would have had similar objections to bearing arms in just defense of his nation. In my opinion, the war against the Axis was a just war, though at times conducted unjustly. Of course, the Axis made it so much more difficult by how they conducted themselves. The point I'm trying to make is that first, it is necessary to fight evil in every case. But even in fighting great evil -- and the evil of the Axis was very great -- one must not succumb to the temptation to fight evil by doing evil.