Gun Control

[Ian]

we believe in individual liberty, and in individual responsibility... our second amendment, and our second article of faith... the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, and men will be punished for their own sins...

[John]

I love you, Betsy.

[James]

A friend said this,

If you want to have a heated debate where nobody changes their views, continue to use phrases like "gun control" or "pro-life." Such phrases are designed to reduce the universe to a binary where there are only two positions. Instead of using such phrases, you might consider just saying what you're actually in favor of or opposed to.
For example, "I'm in favor of additional reasonable restrictions on who may purchase a gun and under what conditions," or "I am actually opposed to all civilian ownership of guns." Such clarifications may help prevent unnecessary hostility and help people quickly see common ground.
You may also consider that most people don't know what an "assault weapon" is, the differences among various rifles, or the difference between "automatic" and "semi-automatic" and what kinds of guns are semi-automatic.
On a related note, various political interests spend a lot of time and money developing (researching and market-testing) phrases designed specifically to circumvent your rational mind, inflame your passions, and make you see the world in black and white. Sometimes they come up with phrases that are designed to do the opposite--to obfuscate the truth and confuse you. Please watch out for their traps.

[Steve]

I do appreciate James's remarks about articulating the specifics of what you believe as opposed to relying on one or two word labels. There is often disagreement based solely on semantics or one's understanding/interpretation of the terminology rather than on the issues themselves. That's a helpful reminder, James! Thanks.

I will add that I still do try to view the world in "black and white."

[James]

Steve said
"I will add that I still do try to view the world in "black and white."

You don't have to try to commit logical fallacy. It just happens.
Unless you do try, in which case the conversation goes, to an even greater degree, as my friend says it would. At 44 pages and counting, and HFWs most discussed topic, the present thread is a good example of that.

[James]

Andy hall said the following on face book the other day. It is the start of a good discussion on gun violence including input from our very own Besty. Here is how he started it:

I am a firm believer in an expansive interpretation of the Second Amendment. BUT: that there is any kind of weapon that the Orlando shooter could buy legally, when he was a known and tracked terrorist, is distressing, frustrating, and ludicrous.

My personal theory of "rights" when it comes to our relationship to the Government is this: that a right constitutes something the Government shall not interfere with, but that it shall also protect its citizens from having infringed by others. Thus, a citizen or group of citizens may arm itself for the purpose of protecting their own rights, but they may not arm themselves for the purpose of infringing the rights of others.

It is also proper to prioritize rights. The right to life itself is paramount among rights. When someone is known to have breathed out threats to the lives of others, they morally forfeit their own enjoyment of lesser rights, and it is the duty of the Government to do everything reasonable to stand in their way.

Thus, Condoleezza Rice's father was justified arming himself for the purpose of protecting his family in the face of a racist culture and corrupt system of Government that was hostile to the life of him and his family simply for the color of their skin. The Orlando shooter was not justified arming himself for the purpose of killing people simply for being gay, and our Government failed in its duty to protect the rights of ALL of us by vaunting his right to arm himself over our right to life. It is completely reasonable for the Government to do all it can to know the reasons for which anyone is buying a weapon, and anyone who wants to buy a weapon and who truly cares about the rights of others ought to be patient and understanding about any processes that may inconvenience or qualify their rights if it could mean the preservation of more important rights for many others.

It is a deep irony that unqualified, zealous, and untenably broad interpretations of the Second Amendment may do more than most other things to undermine it in the long run.

[Ian]

the second amendment to the constitution is actually quite simple. the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

[Steve]

So fundamental in man's eternal progress is his inherent right to choose, that the Lord would defend it even at the price of war. Without freedom of thought, freedom of choice, freedom of action within lawful bounds, man cannot progress. The Lord recognized this, and also the fact that it would take man thousands of years to make the earth habitable for self-governing individuals. Throughout the ages advanced souls have yearned for a society in which liberty and justice prevail. Men have sought for it, fought for it, have died for it. Ancient freemen prized it, slaves longed for it, the Magna Charta demanded it, the Constitution of the United States declared it.

"This love of liberty which God has planted in us," said Abraham Lincoln, "constitutes the bulwark of our liberty and independence. It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling seacoasts, our army, and our navy. Our defense is in the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit, and we have planted the seeds of despotism at our very doors." ...

As a Church:

We believe that all men are justified in defending themselves, their friends, and property, and the government from the unlawful assaults and encroachments of all persons in times of exigency, where immediate appeal cannot be made to laws, and relief afforded (D&C 134:11).

Even though we sense the hellish origin of war, even though we feel confident that war will never end war, yet under existing conditions we find ourselves as a body committed to combat this evil thing. With other loyal citizens we serve our country as bearers of arms, rather than to stand aloof to enjoy a freedom for which others have fought and died.

(President David O. McKay, General Conference, April 1942) ↗

In this Church is to be found everything that makes people better, stronger, happier; better citizens, better supporters of our country, its laws and its constitution. I say again, others may desert it but the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will defend it forever.

(Elder Richard R. Lyman, General Conference, October 1922 General Conference) ↗

I believe that it is the destiny of the Latter-day Saints to support the Constitution of the United States. The Prophet Joseph Smith is alleged to have said—and I believe he did say it—that the day would come when the Constitution would hang as by a thread. But he saw that the thread did not break, thank the Lord, and that the Latter-day Saints would become a balance of power, with others, to preserve that Constitution. If there is—and there is one part of the Constitution hanging as by a thread today—where do the Latter-day Saints belong? Their place is to rally to the support of that Constitution, and maintain it and defend it and support it by their lives and by their vote. Let us not disappoint God nor his prophet. Our place is fixed.

(Elder Melvin J. Ballard, General Conference, April 1933) ↗

The Latter-day Saints believe that they must be loyal to their country, honoring its laws, upholding its institutions, its constituted authorities, and doing all things that American citizens ought to do. They are taught that the Constitution of the United States was inspired of God and framed by wise men whom the Almighty raised up for this very purpose, and that it "should be maintained for the rights and protection of all flesh," so that every man may act according to the moral agency which God has given him, that he "may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgment." Believing this, they cannot be otherwise than loyal. They do not blame the government of the United States for their past persecutions at the hands of lawless mobs. They realize that such things were not because of the Constitution and the Government, but in spite of them; and they stand ready at all times to honor the laws of this nation and to defend it against foes without or within.

(Elder Reed Smoot, General Conference, October 1933) ↗

That last quote is a particularly good reminder when we find ourselves starting to drift from these moorings in light of recent events.

[Steve]

...the tragic collapse of morals, the earth-searing desolation spread everywhere, and the tottering of the whole social order among peoples who have forgotten God, should teach us lessons in humility and make us know that puny man, of himself, standing in the midst of this universal wreckage, "is no more capable of saving the world than he was of creating it in the first place."

It is high sounding to deny divinity and to say that man must make for himself whatever he has or may ever have. Men may profess to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher and his doctrines as comprising the best code of ethics the world has known. But his ethical and moral teachings derive their influence over the lives of men out of the majesty of divine authority with which Christ's gospel invested them. There they have their roots. They cannot support a civilization if severed from their nourishing roots any more than the bloom of a flower can be kept after cut from its parent stem. We have been trying to maintain faith in a Christian ethic without faith in the religion that produced it. That cannot be done! True, a civilization and its culture may go on after a fashion after it has lost faith in the power from which it rose, carried on its acquired momentum. But unless it is nourished at the roots, it will ultimately exhaust the surplus on which it draws. You can no more go on drawing indefinitely on moral reserves without replenishment, than you can go on drawing from a bank without keeping the account current by new deposits. For too long now, the civilization of Christendom has been living on the remnants of a discarded faith. Its weakened condition is apparent in the lack of moral direction which characterizes these times. It is the teaching of history that moral decay follows upon the withering of belief of God.

(Elder Albert E. Bowen, General Conference, April 1947) ↗

Today I would like to propose four questions which every Latter-day Saint might well ask as he attempts to appraise any program, policy, or idea promoted by any would-be political leader. I mention these because I think they will provide a safeguard in electing to office men who will meet the requirements which the Lord has set forth in the revelations.

First, is the proposal, the policy, or the idea being promoted right as measured by the gospel of Jesus Christ? I assure you it is much easier for one to measure a proposed policy by the gospel of Jesus Christ if he has accepted the gospel and is living it.

Secondly, is it right as measured by the Constitution of this land and the glorious principles embodied in that Constitution? Now that suggests that we must read and study the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights, that we might know what principles are embodied therein.

Thirdly, we might well ask the question: Is it right as measured by the counsel of the living oracles of God? It is my conviction, my brethren and sisters, that these living oracles are not only authorized, but are obligated to give counsel to this people on any subject which is vital to the welfare of this people and the upbuilding of the kingdom of God. So, that measure should be applied. Is it right as measured by the counsel of the living oracles of God?

Fourthly, what will be the effect on the morale and the character of the people if this or that policy is adopted? After all, as a Church we are interested in building men and women, building character, because character is the one thing we make in this world and take with us into the next. It must never be sacrificed for expediency.

(Elder Ezra Taft Benson, General Conference, October 1954) ↗

“There ought to be a law” many say when corruption raises its ugly head and our answer is that there are laws—numerous laws which are not enforced, but our further answer is that you cannot legislate goodness, and honor and honesty. There must be a return to consciousness of those values. Every nation which has dropped out of sight can trace its downfall to the breakdown of its moral structure.

(Elder Spencer W. Kimball, BYU, 1958)

Nothing but a revolution in human behavior and a reappraisal of what is enduring in values can rescue us from seemingly impending chaos. There must be a reorientation of life around spiritual verities if individual or national integrity is to be saved. This miracle can be wrought only in the hearts of men. Laws on the statute books howsoever multiplied can never work it. No amount of force which it is possible for human ingenuity to devise or impose can ever introduce a regenerating influence into the human soul. I know of only one power that can do it, the power of a revived living faith and an acceptance of the anciently declared truth that to be saved man must be born again, purged and cleansed. This is one of the messages of religion to this age.

(Elder Albert E. Bowen, Constancy Amid Change, 1943)

In politics as in everything else we want to know the will of God, and then do it. ... Do we not believe in the voice of the people? Yes; but we believe in the voice of God first, in the middle, and in the end. ...We do not think we have wisdom to manage our political affairs without the interposition of the Most High.

(Elder John Taylor, JD-11:355-6, 1867)

[Steve]

...it is to be said of the past that no necessity has thus far arisen in our history which could not have been ultimately and adequately met by constitutional methods. And history justifies the further statement that the cry sometimes raised for amendment of our great fundamental charter to meet transitory and pseudo-emergencies, the charge that we are governed by an antiquated instrument embodying obsolete principles unsuited and irresponsive to the needs of modern life, this cry and charge almost always come from those who, from want of individual or racial capacity, are incapable of understanding or appreciating the fundamentals of, or to think practically and creatively about, the problems of free self-government.

There is every reason to believe that those who understand the spirit as well as the word of the Constitution will be able in the future as in the past to find a way under it to meet all national emergencies and yet preserve its great principles and the republican form of government for which it provides.

(President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Church News, November 1952)

We owe at least the consideration to be loyal to this country and to spurn with all the soul that is within us the scheming disloyal citizens who would undermine our Constitution, or who would deprive the individual of his liberty vouchsafed by that great document... Let every loyal member of the Church look down with scorn upon any man or woman who would undermine that Constitution.

(President David O. McKay, Church News, May 1954)

I counsel you, I urge you, I plead with you, never, so far as you have voice or influence, permit any departure from the principles of governments on which this nation was founded, or any disregard of the freedoms which, by the inspiration of God our Father, were written into the Constitution of the United States.

(President Heber J. Grant, General Conference, October 1944) ↗

[Steve]

These defamers say that the Constitution, and our government under it, are outmoded; not responsive to present-day conditions of life and living; not sufficient to meet and solve present-day problems; and that we need a modern up-to-date system of government. They let us know what should be done to meet their ideas and plans, which seem always to run to despotism.

I have observed that numbers of these defamers take advantage to the utmost of every liberty and freedom created and protected by the Constitution in order to destroy it and its guarantees, so to make easy the setting up of a tyranny that would deprive the common man of his freedom and liberties under it, so permitting these defamers to set up a government that would give place, power, and privilege to them in a despotism to be imposed upon the mass of mankind. We have witnessed this very despotism. There would be a Kremlin in every country on the globe, all under the super-Kremlin in Moscow.

One class of these defamers are the same persons who declare the Ten Commandments, the basic law of the civilized world to be outmoded. ...

The same people declare the Sermon on the Mount to be outmoded, irresponsive to the needs of the people of today. ...

If all that God and his Only Begotten taught that will lead us to the immortality and eternal life that is God’s declared glory, could be wiped out and forgotten, leaving only Satan and his work, the followers of Satan would, in their ignorance, have reached a Satanic heaven.

(President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., General Conference, April 1957) ↗

[Steve]

A serious defect in the schemes of this group is the failure of these so-called reformers to appreciate how much of what they clamor about we already have, and their ignorance that what we do not have and that would be good for a free people to have, might come in due and Constitutional form. They show no adequate understanding either of the spirit or of the letter of our Constitutional form of government. They give no sign of having ever carefully weighed and planned how needed reforms might come to us by Constitutional methods. They show no disposition to work under the Constitution and within our traditions and ideals. They evidence no ability to think in terms of law; they think rather in terms of the sword. Force, not a reasoned, consenting will, is their thesis. That their own views are the ultimate good, that they only are wise, that mankind itself has no aggregate wisdom, that men must be driven to the final goal, that the people cannot be trusted and have not the wisdom to govern themselves—these seem the guiding fallacies of this group’s new reform. God himself does not coerce the will of man; why should puny fellow man think he may do what God does not?

(President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Washington Birthday Address, February 1935)

We can legislate until doomsday but that will not make men righteous.

(President George Albert Smith, General Conference, October 1949) ↗

[Ian]

Concealed Carrier Prevents Mass Shooting At SC Nightclub
The Federalist, June 29, 2016, by Bre Payton

A man with a concealed carry license stopped a shooter after the latter opened fire on a crowd of people at a nightclub in South Carolina early Sunday morning, according to WISTV.com.

After getting into a fight with another person, the 32-year-old suspect pulled out a gun and began to fire at a crowd of people gathered outside of the club, hitting and injuring four, WISTV reports. One of the victims, who holds a concealed-carry permit, shot back in self-defense, hitting the suspect in the leg.

The suspect has been charged with four counts of attempted murder. He was also charged for unlawfully carrying a weapon and for carrying one while committing a violent crime.

The concealed carrier who shot back won’t be facing any charges, as his permit to carry was valid.

[Steve]

The Father’s plan was not received well by all of His children. Lucifer, a son of the morning, rebelled against the Father, against His Beloved Son, and against the plan. He presented his own proposal:

Behold, here am I, send me, I will be thy son, and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely I will do it; wherefore give me thine honor.

There are several things to note about Satan’s proposal:

1. Satan would replace Christ; indeed, there was no need for Christ and no need for an atoning sacrifice at all.

2. There would be no agency. Everyone would be redeemed; no one would be lost.

3. It would surely happen, and Satan would be the sole reason why.

4. Therefore, he should have God’s honor and glory.

Here, in stark contrast to the Father’s plan and the Great Truth, was Satan’s Great Lie: You can obtain joy, happiness, and eternal life without Christ, without God, and without any special effort on your part; and Satan would make all this happen without any sacrifice, pain, or suffering on his part—rather by the sheer force of his power.

It was and is the Great Lie by the father of lies. It would not have worked. It was contrary to the will of the Father and to eternal laws of justice and mercy. And there, right in the middle of the Great Lie, at the very center of Satan’s rebellious, diabolical scheme, was pride. There was pride and all of its sordid offspring—arrogance, selfishness, greed, vain ambition, unrighteous dominion—on a cosmic scale.

The Father rejected Satan’s proposal.

(Kim B. Clark, “Are Ye Stripped of Pride?”, September 29, 2009) ↗

Sometimes it may be tempting to seek to sidestep the necessary qualifications for peace by trying, through measures of force, to make society the way we wish it to be. Little do we realize that we are buying into a "Great Lie" despite the presumed nobility of our desired outcome. Notice that the government proposes that it can solve this problem. With no reference to—or reverence for—God and His divine aid, it will surely manage the problems we're facing by its own power. You'll note that there is much posturing that accompanies these initiatives, often for political gain or self-aggrandizement. As we study the scriptures, we can see right through these deceptions, because we've seen all of this before.

The simple fact is that we cannot obtain joy, happiness, and eternal life without Christ and without God. We cannot have peace by collectively following a path that is not the one straight and narrow way. Our nation simply cannot qualify for the blessings we anxiously desire to obtain by our own cunning.

The Jaredites came first, with stories of the great flood fresh in their memories and the Lord’s solemn declaration ringing in their ears: “Whoso should possess this land of promise, from that time henceforth and forever, should serve him, the true and only God, or they should be swept off when the fulness of his wrath should come upon them.” (Ether 2:8.)

Despite such counsel, however, the Jaredite civilization steadily degenerated into a violent society which forced a man to keep “the hilt of his sword in his right hand” (Ether 14:2)—until finally he “ate and slept, and prepared for death on the morrow.” (Ether 15:26.) ...

But the lessons of history, if not learned well, are certain to be taught again, and a lone father with his son lived to see the self-destruction of these people of promise. The Nephite-Lamanite morality descended from “sorceries, and witchcrafts, and magics” (Morm. 1:19) into rape, murder, and cannibalism (see Moro. 9:7–10), creating a vision so repulsive that it was “impossible for the tongue to describe, or for man to write,” a scene of greater wickedness than had ever been seen “even among all the house of Israel” (Morm. 4:11, 12). ...

In spite of such grief and despair the Lord of the vineyard determined to “spare it a little longer” (Jacob 5:50)—long enough for one final attempt, long enough for one more dispensation, long enough for one final experiment focused on the promised land. ...

Less than a score of years after the Constitutional Convention had concluded its work and freedoms of conscience, speech, press, and worship had been guaranteed in a historic Bill of Rights, the Prophet Joseph Smith was born in clear, graceful Vermont, home of Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys.

...

Benjamin Franklin told his colleagues, “Our cause is the cause of all mankind,” and Patrick Henry spoke much more than he knew when he said America had “lighted a candle to all the world.” (Henry Steele Commager, “The Revolution as World Ideal,” Saturday Review, Dec. 13, 1975, pp. 13–18, 110.) The significance of that cause and that candle will not be misunderstood by Latter-day Saints wherever they may live. As with temple sites, missionary service, and area general conferences, gospel experience transcends the borders—and, if necessary, the flames—of nationalism.

A Frenchman, a contemporary of the colonial Founding Fathers, sketched the clearest meaning of America for those of other nations. Although the twenty-year-old Marquis de Lafayette had been ordered by Louis XVI of France to give up his expedition to aid the rebellious Americans, he defied the command and embarked for the New World. On board his ship The Victory Lafayette wrote back to his beautiful and concerned wife, Adrienne: “Out of love for me, become ‘a good American’. … The welfare of America is closely bound up with the welfare of all mankind.” (Maurice de la Fuye and Emile Baubeau, The Apostle of Liberty: A Life of LaFayette, New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1956, p. 30.) So it has been and so it yet will be. And so it is—but in ways which only those who embrace the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ can fully understand or appreciate.

(Jeffrey R. Holland, A Promised Land, June 1976) ↗

Brother Clark continues:

We live in the dispensation of the fulness of times when the Lord is blessing His children with great knowledge, remarkable technologies, expanded opportunities for learning, and unprecedented wealth. With these blessings, however, comes this warning from the Lord:

It must needs be that the riches of the earth are mine to give; but beware of pride, lest ye become as the Nephites of old.

Beware of pride! This is the warning voice of the Lord to us now, in our day. We have obtained so much control over the resources of the earth, so much understanding of the biology of life, so much capacity to travel and to communicate instantly that we have become “puffed up” in our learning and our apparent control and power. Pride and its children—materialism, envy, arrogance, greed, thirst for recognition, and lust for control and dominion—have become rampant in our culture and society. Modern Babylon is awash in pride. ...

Indeed, the Book of Mormon is a record of an entire people greatly favored of the Lord who succumbed to the temptations of pride, rejected the Lord, and were destroyed.

(Kim B. Clark, “Are Ye Stripped of Pride?”, September 29, 2009) ↗

As we consider the patterns we find in the Book of Mormon and other ancient scripture, we frequently question the decisions of those men and women as if we were truly removed from the situation and it was completely foreign to us in our mighty, prosperous present day. As Dr. Kerry Muhlestein from BYU observed:

We ask ourselves, “What were they thinking? What is wrong with them?” Yet I have found that we should never ask ourselves, “What is wrong with them?” Instead we should ask, “What is wrong with them and me?” If ancient Israel struggled with something, surely we struggle with it as well. We should not ask ourselves if we struggle with the things that tempted them; rather, we should ask how we do the same thing.

(Kerry M. Muhlestein, Why We Must Be Wholeheartedly Holy, May 12, 2015) ↗

I believe it is pride that blinds us to the similarities between our current age and the civilizations of old. For some reason, despite the many, many, many warnings, we feel that we are above all of those things. It's as if we determined we had advanced through "scientific discovery" and "intellectual enlightenment" to a place where we were well beyond the reach of the destructive influences that doomed humanity so long ago. Yet prophets have repeatedly warned us that, by many measures, we have grown more proud and wicked than even those men and women we read about. Why do we presume that we may enjoy all the blessings we want without the necessary obedience to the laws upon which those blessings are predicated? We have been deceived by a Great Lie.

"Gun control" is one of the many chosen vehicles driven by a society that simultaneously belittles the husband and wife, beguiles the youth, and betrays the children. As I've stated before, I believe it to be a smokescreen that, at its very best, incites good men and women to a vastly inferior pursuit. At its worst, though, and we have no reason to believe that the powers that drive it are not aware of this, it is an avenue by which agency can be stripped from man while convincing him that it's actually for his own good. God does not operate in this manner. It's better for man to die free than to live in captivity. The more I have studied this topic and the current powers that support it, the more convinced I am of the similarities between our present day and the most hazardous times in scriptural history.

In such times, we should draw nearer to the Savior by thought, word, and deed—in everything! His name should always be ready on our lips and in our hearts, and should drive our political decisions, our conversations, and our commitments. Only in Him is there safety, a sure foundation, salvation, and peace. Any man, group, or society that seeks to place any other policy or contrivance in His place as a means for producing His fruits will eventually reap what they sow. We are surely reaping even now.

[Ian]

a mass stabbing occurred last weekend in a "gun-free zone" mall in minnesota. the terrorist used a knife to stab nine people, before he was shot by a shopper with a concealed gun. the shooter is an NRA-certified instructor. he owns a gun range and training facility in minnesota. here's his website: tacticaladvantagemn.com.