Here we go! I just know I’m going to get a lot of flak for this one. (If anyone actually reads this post, that is, which I highly doubt anyone actually will; it’s majorly annoying to me when I post an answer to a Prompt and get a ton of “spam likes” on it from people who don’t even read the post but just want to draw attention to their own blog and get me to subscribe to it. If that’s you, please just don’t even bother clicking “like.” I’m not going to follow spammers.)

Especially as a Catholic blogger, I expect my answer to this question won’t win me any fans or friends. My fellow Catholics are surely not going to agree with this. The thing is, I’m a traditionalist (some might even say a radical one), and as such, when it comes to American politics, I lean conservative, definitely more to the right than the left. But on this one particular issue, I don’t really line up with other right-wingers.

But I’m going to post it anyway, because it’s something I’ve felt strongly about for a long time — indeed, I’ve been saying for years and years that I wish I could go back in time and un-invent this thing, that I think it would do a lot of good in the world if this thing were simply erased from existence. And what is even the point of this stupid little blog if I can’t use it to voice my weird and unpopular opinions?

I don’t usually like to get political here, but for me, this one’s more of a common sense issue than a political one. The thing that I’d like to uninvent is (and hear me out): firearms.

In this post, I will briefly explain why I would un-invent guns, and then I will address some potential objections that I foresee readers having to my argument. Finally, I will get to how this relates to the more immediate and real-world issue of gun control in the US.

Why guns?: Because, they do more harm than good. They make it too easy to kill humans. It should not be that easy to kill someone. That’s it. It’s really that simple.

Now, I’m fully aware that guns are not the real problem, when we’re talking about the gun violence epidemic. “The real problem is mental health,” some people say, and that is kinda true — but IMO the real reason people’s mental health is so poor is that we’re living in a Godless society. “We have a mental illness epidemic” is just secularese for “we need Jesus.” (Not that mental health issues aren’t real — of course they are, and devout Christians can suffer from them even while practicing their faith sincerely — it’s just that our society is handling things, including mental health, very poorly because our society is so secular, and many mental health conditions have reached epidemic status because of this Godlessness.) If I may be so bold as to diagnose grave societal ills while sitting in a recliner and nursing my baby, the real problem here IMO is not guns, not mental health, but, frankly, lack of a healthy fear of God.

And the solution, i.e. the conversion of society and the subjection of American culture to Christ the King, is a very slow, very gradual work in progress. In the meantime, we need to do something to stop the bloodshed — to reduce the harm done while this mental/spiritual healing takes place.

Think of it this way. Let’s say that a violent criminal breaks into your home and has your spouse and children at gunpoint. Magically, time suddenly pauses, and you are presented with two options for how things will proceed: option A, when time un-freezes, a psychiatrist and therapist and/or priest will appear to have a talk with this criminal and try to calm him down and work on his mental/spiritual health, which are of course the real problem here after all. Or, option B, when time un-freezes, his gun will magically disappear.

Tell me, who in their right mind would not choose option B? We must neutralize the threat before we can work on the problem.

This is the situation that our country is in. True, guns are not the problem, but we still need to get rid of them, to minimize damage while we address the real problem, which will take time.

“But Mith, what about self defense? Protecting our loved ones and our property?“: If no one had a gun to threaten you with, you wouldn’t have to have a gun to defend yourself, would you? Okay, so maybe someone’s threatening you with an edged weapon of some sort; you’d probably have one too. In a world with no guns, maybe folks would just fight each other with blades or clubs or their bare hands or some such, like cavemen. In this world, you’d necessarily have some other tool or skill to fight back with.

Because it goes without saying that doing away with guns would not do away with crime or violence. It’s true that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” — but it’s also true that guns make it way too easy to kill people. At least if we were using blades, clubs, or our bare hands, there’d need to be some kind of physical exertion, some kind of athleticism — you’d have to earn it. And yes, I’m aware that shooting well is a skill and an art. But that doesn’t change the fact that it removes the killer from the victim in an unnatural way — it reduces killing to, essentially, the push of a button. It shouldn’t be like that. If you’re going to kill someone, to take a human life, you should have the skill, the strength, the prowess, and the sheer guts to do it in a manner that honors the seriousness of that purpose.

If you wanted to defend your property, you could do so with other methods. Like a moat, or archery, or martial arts, or, I dunno, a freaking trebuchet or something. I’m no weapons expert. I’m just saying, we should bring back the medieval style. People still managed to kill each other, and defend themselves, back then, and they did so in much more respectable, authentically human ways.

“But guns allow me to defend myself from a safe distance.” Try archery? Or, to get real medieval with it, axe-throwing?

“But those are hard to do.” Well, painting a picture or writing a book is harder than churning out some AI-generated slop, but it’s still better to do things the human way. It takes more effort to grow and cook your own food than it does to order fast food, but the former is better for you than the latter. It takes more effort and self-denial to meet someome, marry them, put their needs before your own, and accept responsibility than it does to just sit and watch porn on the internet, but it is still better to do things the human way. Most things that are better and more human require effort, require work. That’s just part of being human (Genesis 3:17).

“But what about hunting? Like for food?” Ethics of hunting and eating animals aside (another issue on which I don’t quite line up with other Catholics and Conservatives): the Native Ameicans did alright with bows and arrows and traps, didn’t they?

“Firearms have made warfare much more efficient. It’s easier now to take down bad guys.” Sure, but if the bad guys didn’t have guns either, because guns simply didn’t exist, then it wouldn’t be as easy for them to take us down, either. And honestly, should something like war/killing others be “efficient”? The only time when I think it might be appropriate to speak of “efficient” killing is when it comes to executing criminals, in which situation we have things like lethal injections. (However, even then I’m not sure if there’s really a need for an “efficient” means of execution, because if someone’s committed a crime that merits the death penalty, then they probably deserve to suffer; I kind of believe that the families of the victims ought to be given the privilege of deciding how to dispose of the criminal, in such cases, but that’s just my opinion, and probably veering into questionable territory, ethically.) Or like if the zombie apocalypse happens and you need to take out some zombies. Use a crossbow, I guess, like Daryl Dixon, lol? Is the probability of a zombie apocalypse or like a hostile alien invasion really realistically high enough to justify the risks of civilians owning assault rifles? I think not, but please, try and prove me wrong if you want.

“But guns are cool.” I know some people out there just really like guns. I get it. I can see the appeal. And I acknowledge that firearms are a complex category of tools with a long and fascinating history (well, fascinating for some, I guess). But at the same time, I think we should ask ourselves if this is really a healthy obsession to have. Why do we like guns so much? Why does the thought of killing, or of being able to kill, get us so excited? Is it actually good, to indulge that thirst for power over our fellow man? As someone with plenty of unhealthy habits and questionable tastes in things (completely aware that I’m a pot calling a kettle black here): I really think a passion for guns is morally questionable and probably not a great one to indulge.

“Okay, sure, but there’s no way to undo the invention of firearms. They exist in the world, so at this point the best thing to do is teach responsible gun ownership, not to try and take guns away, which would just leave citizens vulnerable.“

This brings me to my conclusion. Yes, I’m obviously aware that it’s unrealistic to want to do away with guns entirely. We’ll sadly never be a pre-firearm world again. In these circumstances, I do think civilians should be allowed to own guns for self-defense and/or hunting… within reason. I think there need to be way more restrictions than there currently are. For one, no civilian needs an assault rifle for any reason. You’re not going to change my mind on that. We need a lot more restrictions than we have. Although, of course, in order to have sane restrictions, we’d have to have sane, trustworthy people in power, which is probably not a realistic thing to hope for, given that all Ameican politics are basically money-motivated. So I’m aware that it’s a complicated issue, and I’m don’t know enough to prescribe exactly what kind of restrictions we need or how to implement them. But I do know that more needs to be done.

It goes without saying that we need better gun control in the US. Look at Japan. Some of the most rigorous restrictions on gun ownership in the world, and one of the lowest rates of gun violence (source, source). It’s honestly bizarre to me how anyone can say that America doesn’t urgently need to restrict gun ownership. Don’t even get me started on school shootings. If those killers’ parents simply had not had guns in their homes, none of those murders would have even happened. Or at least, not nearly as many.

Doesn’t it go without saying? I just can’t understand people who come up with all kinds of convoluted philosophical defenses for why it’s okay to not take guns away, when our children are actively getting murdered on the regular. And yes, as a conservative I think government’s control of our everyday lives should be limited — limited, but not zero. We do need government. Human societies do need some restrictions in order to ensure our safety. I genuinely do not see how it’s not obvious.

If you have a very strong pro-gun argument though, my inbox is always open. In fact, many intelligent people that I know and respect are, mystifyingly, pro-gun, so, I’m honestly curious and even open to having my mind changed; I’d love to understand the logic here, to know how people justify their position, especially as Catholics. It’s just that, as of yet, nothing I’ve read or heard has presented a strong enough argument to make me reconsider. “Unalienable” this and “constitutional” that, yeah yeah, that means nothing to me in light of an event like Sandy Hook, and I challenge anyone to change my mind.