Gun Control and Self-Defense:

Striking the Right Balance

by CAPP-USA

Catholic Social Teaching and Gun Control Pros and Cons

Gun ownership is an issue where there is legitimate diversity of opinion.

The Catholic Church does not have an official, comprehensive teaching on gun control, but she does on issues like human dignity, the common good and self-defense.

Is Self-Defense a Right?

Yes.

“It is the right of those who are attacked to defend themselves”. (Pope Francis)

“Love toward oneself remains a fundamental principle of morality. Therefore it is legitimate to insist on respect for one’s own right to life.” (CCC, 2264)

“Christian moral theology has never condemned legitimate personal or corporate self-defense”. (Statement to the UN)

“The Church accepts that everyone has the right to defend one’s life against mortal danger”. (Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, 3.6)

In Fact, Self-Defense is a Duty!

“Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty”. (CCC, 2265)

Indeed, “To defend oneself is not only lawful but also an expression of love“. (Pope Francis)

“Preserving the common good requires rendering the unjust aggressor unable to inflict harm.” (CCC, 2265)

What About the Sacredness of Life?

“The Incarnation reveals to us, with intense light and in a surprising way, that every human life has a very lofty and incomparable dignity.” (Pope Benedict XVI)

“The act of self-defense can have a double effect: the preservation of one’s own life; and the killing of the aggressor….the one is intended, the other is not.” (CCC, 2263)

“Someone who defends his life is not guilty of murder even if he is forced to deal his aggressor a lethal blow”. (CCC, 2264)

What About “Thou Shall Not Kill”?

“The Church’s Tradition has always consistently taught the absolute and unchanging value of the commandment ‘You shall not kill’…to kill a human being, in whom the image of God is present, is a particularly serious sin.” (Pope St. John Paul II, 54-55)

However

Pope St. John Paul II notes that the Fifth Commandment “implicitly…encourages a positive attitude of absolute respect for life”. (Evangelium Vitae, 54)

What does this mean?

There are ”situations in which values proposed by God’s Law seem to involve a genuine paradox. This happens for example in the case of legitimate defense…Certainly, the intrinsic value of life and the duty to love oneself no less than others are the basis of a true right to self-defense.” (Pope St. John Paul II, 55)

“Consequently, no one can renounce the right to self-defence out of lack of love for life or for self.” (Pope St. John Paul II, 55)

And, “one is bound to take more care of one’s own life than of another’s.” (CCC, 2264)

When Does Self-Defense Go too Far?

The Church warns that “If a man in self-defense uses more than necessary violence, it will be unlawful”. (CCC, 2264)

Bottom Line

Every person “can come to recognize the sacred value of human life…and can affirm the right of every human being to have this primary good respected to the highest degree.” (Pope St. John Paul II, 2)

“The act of self-defense can have a double effect: the preservation of one’s own life; and the killing of the aggressor….the one is intended, the other is not.” (CCC, 2263)

What About Gun Control?

With self-defense being both a right and a duty “Excessive intervention by the state can threaten personal freedom and initiative”. (CCC, 1883)

The principle of Subsidiarity  “Insists on necessary limits to the State’s intervention…inasmuch as the individual, the family and society are prior to the state and inasmuch as the State exists in order to protect their rights and not stifle them”. (Pope St. John Paul II, 11)

With self-defense being both a right and a duty, limitations on exercising this right should be approached with the utmost caution and discernment for both protecting this right and the common good.