Guns, Government, and the Right to Life

Author’s note: This article stems from a lively conversation I was having with friends. Our conversation happened before the assassination of Charlie Kirk. And, since then, another church shooting has taken place. As a Canadian, I have a different experience with firearms than my American friends. Now, I want to make it clear that I fully support the right to bear arms in the most basic sense, and I enjoy using guns for recreation and hunting. Also, I am not advocating for a Canadian gun legislative mentality as if it should be adopted by the United States; there are defects to how firearms usage is regulated in my country as well. In any event, it is my intention to offer a nuanced perspective to the “gun debate” from a Catholic perspective and to avoid the sloganeering and truisms that permeate the political discourse. 

When speaking about freedom or liberty as Catholics, we must always keep in mind that we have a different understanding than the liberal version, which undergirds post-Christendom nation-states such as the United States and many other nations that have reformed their governance since the revolutionary eras.

For a Catholic, freedom exists in the psychological sphere (free will) and moral sphere (what we ought to be permitted to do based on natural law principles). Certainly, we all enjoy unlimited psychological freedom in the most basic sense, but we have limited freedom or restricted liberties in the moral sense. In essence, we must distinguish between what is colloquially called “freedom” and what a Catholic would understand as true liberty and its dependency on rights and duties. The modern notion of freedom is not a Catholic concept, so any use of the term in the modern sense is illegitimate for Catholics.

I cannot advocate for a “freedom” in the modern sense if it does not correspond to a true right. A true right must be attached to an obligation or duty.

For example, I cannot, as a Catholic, say “I am free” because my government permits me to say anything I want. In that sense, I am actually not truly free because I exist in an environment with no restraint and, therefore, am in a position of moral chaos or anarchy. It would be like saying a child is “free” because he can “do whatever he wants.” That child is not free in the true sense—he is not free to develop as a child because he is not protected from the dangers that would harm his development. This is why “free speech,” as it is understood today, is not consistent with Catholic thinking. 

Now, I do have a duty to speak the truth under normal circumstances; so I should be permitted to do so, and the state should support that. That being said, moral constraints could even stop me from “freely” saying true things in certain circumstances. Thomas Aquinas, for example, says that it is not advisable to correct a heretic in all circumstances—or a sinner, for that matter—because it may cause him to sin more. In a situation like that, assuming I had an understanding of the atmosphere, I could be sinning myself if I “pushed” a man with the truth knowing it would tick him off more.

Now, when it comes to something like guns and the license we have to use them, we must immediately take into account multiple factors.

First, what is the nature of the gun? Why was it built? To what end?

We know that guns are designed to inflict harm on another being, whether human or animal, which necessarily makes them social instruments because their purpose is to kill/harm someone or something besides ourselves. Therefore, the permissions we are afforded by both the moral law and the state are not absolute because they must necessarily conform to precautions that assure the public welfare or common good as much as possible. 

An easy example would be something like, “You aren’t allowed to carry a loaded machine gun into a school unless duly authorized and the situation is so grave that the risk to the public outweighs the risk of not having said gun.” I think reasonable people could imagine a scenario wherein this is reasonable. If so, we recognize that the right to bear arms or own guns does have sensible limits, even if we disagree on what those limits are.

Second, who should and should not be allowed to own and use a gun? Should we have mental health restrictions? Age? Criminal record prohibition? We know that guns are social instruments, and they are lethal; therefore, like with an automobile, for example, which is also lethal and social, we have restrictions in place regarding intoxication, age, vision, etc. 

Again, in principle, restricting some people from owning and using guns is not by itself against a true notion of freedom because the social nature of the instrument means that the common welfare must be considered before we can establish what right one has to use said instrument. This corresponds to what Thomas Aquinas says: “The common good is the end of each individual member of a community, just as the good of the whole is the end of each part…The common good transcends the individual good of one person” (Summa Theologiae, Part II-II, Question 58, Articles 9 and 12).

Third, assuming people can own and use guns, we must consider the stipulations under which it would be lawful to do so.

Morally speaking, Catholics cannot advocate for a blanket permission, such as a “stand your ground” law. While a person on your property could be a threat, it is also the case that we must respond to threats with proportional force. In Canadian policing, for example—and I imagine this is common—there is a “one up” principle: a man has fists, so the officer can take out his baton; a man has a bat, so the officer can take out his Taser; a man has a knife, so the officer can take out his gun; the man has a gun, so the officer can shoot. This corresponds with natural law. 

Also, speaking as a Catholic, our primary intention cannot be to kill but, instead, must be to protect. The nature of guns is lethal; there is a moral hazard involved which can cloud judgment, which is important to consider. So, it cannot be argued in the strict sense that every man has the right to protect himself using lethal force against an intruder in all circumstances—because not every altercation warrants lethal force due to the obligation we have to preserve life unless other lives are clearly at stake.

Fourth, recalling the social nature of guns, it is also reasonable from a Catholic perspective that the state has the authority to undertake the protection of citizens as its own affair in an effort to eradicate the possibility of lethal force being widespread. For example, a Catholic state could rightly ban the use of firearms under all circumstances except for hunting, and this would not be immoral per se. 

Now, if the state failed to afford reasonable protection, it would be unjust. But let’s say a state had extremely harsh penalties for the use of lethal force to the point where it has basically disappeared. This is, in fact, the case in many countries that have extremely strict gun laws. The penalties for using a gun improperly are so severe that virtually everyone is deterred. This is one manner of policing, and it is reasonable, even if others may disagree with it. 

Of all our personal rights, the right to life is fundamental because it makes the others possible. So, the state has the authority to heavily restrict the use of guns if it can demonstrate that the severe restriction thereof results in a better preservation of life than widespread gun ownership and usage. Now, the opposite argument could also be made, and great thinkers such as Thomas Sowell have shown with precision that, at least in America, counties with more lawful gun ownership have lower rates of crimes like home invasion. I am not saying a Catholic must advocate for severe restrictions on gun ownership, only that he has a strong foundation if he chooses to.

If we take a nation like Singapore, for example, but for the paganism, I imagine traditional Catholics would love that style of governance. The crime rate is basically zero, and this is because they are very liberal with the death penalty for criminals and violent offenders. In essence, only the most hardcore of criminals even dare to dabble in gun use, and that is at the level of very sophisticated organized crime, which largely does not concern the safety of the average citizen.

Switzerland is another example of a nation with extremely low murder rates; but, funny enough, they have a very high rate of gun ownership. Their murder rates are low even though gun ownership is high because the penalties for using them outside of sport or militia training are extremely severe.

Canada is ranked seventh globally in gun ownership, and its murder rate is almost three times lower than that of the United States. In America, gun ownership is three to four times higher. Now, this does not mean there is a direct correlation, but it also demonstrates that having liberal gun allowances does not necessarily result in more liberty—because the right to life, the fundamental freedom, is much more at risk in America than in Canada or Switzerland, for example.

If we were to compare the American ethos versus the Canadian or general European ethos, the murder rate is much higher in the United States than in Canada, Singapore, Switzerland, etc., as is the rate of gun ownership. It must also be remembered that these statistics account for legal guns.

Now, one nation that has made it almost impossible to use guns for personal protection is England; and the common narrative is that in England everyone is stabbed because they don’t have guns. Well, their murder rate is 0.95/100,000, and in the United States it is almost 6—5.7/100,000. You are almost six times as likely to be murdered in the United States as in the United Kingdom; yet in the United States, you can own and use guns in virtually all settings for home protection.

Ultimately, if we consider freedom from a Catholic perspective, it cannot be boiled down to “I have guns so I am free” because guns are necessarily a social instrument and, therefore, must be considered in light of how a Catholic should consider rights and freedoms as a whole. In virtually all developed nations, gun ownership is much lower, as is the murder rate, which means the right to life is no more at risk in nations that have more restrictive gun laws. Of course, virtually all states fail in protecting other basic aspects of the right to life, but we are here considering the gun issue.

Freedom, as such, does not exist in a vacuum and cannot be boiled down to a single precept, especially not gun ownership.

While I understand and sympathize with the desire to protect one’s own parish, we must consider that the need to protect it stems from the fact that it is not protected by the state—at least not adequately protected. But it is conceivable from a Catholic perspective that the state would protect churches and penalize citizens harshly for the use of guns outside of strict circumstances—and that this would better facilitate the safety of the citizens, which is demonstrable worldwide.

It is possible to argue that, from a perspective of true freedom, it is not desirable to have wide gun ownership as such if it does not result in the protection of life commensurate with other comparable nation-states that demonstrate better protection of life with less permissive gun laws.

Lastly, regarding the issue of church burnings and vandalism, according to CatholicVote, at least 522 Catholic churches in the United States have been subjected to arson, vandalism, or other hostile acts, including 75 arson attacks or attempts. In comparison, since May 2021, at least 85 Catholic churches in Canada have been burned down or severely vandalized. 

When comparing population sizes and percentage of national population identifying as Catholic (30 percent in Canada, 20 percent in the United States), these rates of harm to churches are comparable, and it doesn’t seem that one nation is more or less safe than the other regarding vandalism and arson. Again, if more permissive gun laws meant safer churches, there is no evidence for this, as there is also no evidence that having fewer guns means churches are more at risk.

Briefly, we could consider that Canada has had only three total school mass shootings (four casualties or more) in recorded history. In only ten years, America has had 11, and this does not include the mass shootings of churches, which seem to be increasing. Are students more “free” in America? Demonstrably, they are not—because they are at a higher risk of being killed, even though gun ownership is higher.

Of course, one could argue schools should have armed guards—fair enough. But there are no armed guards at schools in Canada, and it seems there are no shootings. The most recent school shooting in Canada, classified as a “mass shooting,” involved the death of two teachers and two students in an off-campus altercation, which means it is even a stretch to include it as a mass shooting in a school setting. Ironically, the last shooting was done by a native man from a reserve, and it is easier to get guns on reserves because they are not policed by normal jurisdiction. He probably would not have been able to access guns—he was 17 at the time—if he did not live on the reserve. 

I understand that this topic is visceral and cultural in an American context, so I want to reiterate that I am not advocating for a Canadian or European approach to be applied to America. And I fully support the principle of gun ownership and home protection as such. All I am hoping to do is present Catholic principles that cut through the politically charged noise that reduces the gun conversation to political actors yelling epithets at each other.