Some people will be upset over today’s story. That isn’t my intention, and I didn’t “target” the subject of today’s story in order to discredit anyone.
Really, all I want people to do is to pay attention to where religious leaders are putting in their two cents worth.
Because when it comes to firearms, too often the people commenting (who are often extremely competent in other areas of life) show themselves woefully unqualified and ignorant to comment on firearms.
Why?
Because they clearly haven’t had any firearms training, much less used one.
Unfortunately, possibly the biggest religious leader in the modern world did just that: put in his, what appeared to be anti-gun, commentary on a recent active shooter incident. Rebecca Falconer writes,
Pope Leo XIV offered his prayers for the Minneapolis Catholic school shooting victims and called for an end to the “pandemic of arms, large and small” on Sunday.
What he’s saying: “Our prayers for the victims of the tragic shooting during a school Mass in the American state of Minnesota,” said the first U.S. pontiff during a weekly prayer with crowds in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican.
– “We hold in our prayers the countless children killed and injured every day around the world,” added the Chicago-born pope, who was speaking in English.
– “Let us plead God to stop the pandemic of arms, large and small, which infects our world.”
Now, don’t misunderstand me. I very much want to see gun violence, and all violence, decrease in the world.
But a “pandemic of arms” isn’t the cause of the problem, and a Christian leader should know better.
According to Christian theology, the problem is the heart of man in the fallen state, not any of the tools that he may have at his disposal.
And according to the ways things go in the physical world, it’s the same thing: People do evil things to each other. The tools used are irrelevant.
So, we should focus on working to improve the underlying cause of active shooter incidents: human nature.
And religious leaders (of all people) should know what they’re talking about before throwing their hats into the gun control ring. It just makes them look bad when they do.