By 
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to allow local communities to regulate firearm ownership, weighing in on a high-profile federal case that could significantly reshape the nation’s gun laws.
The case before the high court, Viramontes v. Cook County, concerns a regulation enacted by Cook County, Illinois, banning more than 100 types of semiautomatic weapons, including the popular AR-15 platform.
Two plaintiffs, Cutberto Viramontes and Christopher Khaya, sued to dispute the regulations under the Second and 14th amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The lawsuit argues that the Supreme Court should rule on the case “to guarantee fundamental Second Amendment rights and to address the confusion in the lower courts” regarding Supreme Court precedent.
In their amicus brief regarding the legal dispute, the U.S. bishops urge the court to “[preserve] the traditional authority of political communities to regulate weapons.”
The “autonomy of local authority” is a significant part of “America’s historical tradition of federalism,” the bishops write, comparing it to the long-standing Catholic principle of subsidiarity, which holds that the authority closest to a local need is best suited to tackle the issue.
The principle of federalism does not allow for the wholesale redefinition of the Second Amendment, the bishops write. But, they argue, a “uniform constitutional standard need not require uniform firearm policy.”
Guns have historically been regulated differently throughout the U.S. depending on the locality, the bishops say, and the U.S. Constitution “does not require every community to exercise … its authority to regulate weapons identically.”
The prelates further argue that modern advances in weaponry mean firearms like AR-15s are “fundamentally dissimilar” from the standards of the 18th century; such weapons are “dangerous and unusual,” the bishops suggest, and are thus open to reasonable regulation.
Though the issue was brought to trial due to the local regulation, the ultimate question before the Supreme Court is whether the Second Amendment “guarantee[s] the right to possess [the] AR-15 platform and similar semiautomatic rifles.”
In the past 20 years the Supreme Court has significantly affirmed Second Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution, including in the landmark 2008 case District of Columbia v. Heller, which upheld the right to own a firearm unconnected with service in a state militia.
Those rights were broadly expanded in subsequent Supreme Court rulings such as 2010’s McDonald v. Chicago and the 2022 decision NYSRPA v. Bruen. The latter decision upheld a constitutional right to carry firearms for self-defense.
In the 2024 decision United States v. Rahimi, on the other hand, the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment does allow for individuals to be disarmed if they have been found to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of someone else.
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The bishops ought to stay out of politics.
They do very little else but opine on politics.
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How do they keep shooting themselves in the foot without a gun?
Amen Deacon.
They should stick to keeping the church in line. Which they seem to have trouble doing.
Guns are not the problem. Rather, it is the people who do bad things with them.
Banning rifles will only affect law-abiding citizens who use those rifles to defend themselves and their families against people who do not abide by the law.
With all due respect to the USCCB, they should focus on the Catholic Church’s matters instead of trying to undermine the Second Amendment.
Guns are the problem. Every civilized country that has restricted guns has reduced deaths by gun violence. It isn’t rocket science.
No woke leftists are the problem. But you’ll never understand.
Susanne is 100% CORRECT. Sound statistics don’t lie.
And subsequently raised the death rates from non-gun violence.
The murder rate (regardless of weapon) is quite steady regardless of gun laws. It will go up or down immediately after laws are changed, and then return to its prior rate.
This is because weapons do not cause murder, people who hate do. Also because even a person with below average intelligence can think of an alternative weapon in less than 30 seconds.
And even a person with below average intelligence can fail to see that guns kill many more than any other weapon. Nice try at gaslightling.
And four times more people die annually in Europe from heat than die in the US from gun violence. Perhaps Europe should be mandating air conditioning.
Also, after smarmy Morton’s Grove, IL passed a law banning handguns (in 1981), Kennesaw, GA passed one requiring heads of household to own a gun and ammunition. Yes, there are exceptions, e.g. for convicted felons or people with religious convictions, and nobody’s ever prosecutred for not having one anyway; the point is that the assumption is that there is very probably a gun in the house. Kennesaw’s crime rate promptly dropped like a rock and has stayed that way. Seems fairly obvious that gun ownership isn’t the problem.
“And even a person with below average intelligence”
Ironic.
“person with below average intelligence can fail to see”
Don’t you mean “can not”?
Throughout history, the majority of AUTHORITARIAN regimes gained and retained power through weapon restriction and confiscation: These regimes were not ‘civilized’ unless you consider the murder of millions of their own citizens to be ‘civil.’
1) USSR. In 1918, a decree by the Council of People’s Commissars required all arms be surrendered: “As a means to benefit the entire population, all institutions [including families] within civil society, are to hand over all the serviceable and faulty rifles, machine guns and revolvers of all types, including cartridges and ammunition of any pattern;” failure to surrender arms or opposition to surrender subjected a person to imprisonment.
2) China: After 1949, all private gun ownership was outlawed.
3) N. Korea: From 1948 to present, private gun ownership does not exist.
4) Nazi Germany: Hitler’s 1938 gun law loosened rules for loyalists but banned Jews and political opponents from owning firearms.
5) Bulgaria, E. Germany, Hungary
6) Cambodia (Pol Pot regime, 1975–1979): Disarmament enforced before and during the genocide, leaving millions vulnerable.
7) Uganda (Idi Amin, 1971–1979): Weapons were restricted to loyalists, used to terrorize rivals
8) Venezuela (Chávez & Maduro, 2012–present).
9) Cuba: Civilians are generally not allowed to possess any firearm without explicit government authorization, rarely granted.
~mizoguns.com; mises.org; legalitylens.com
Your school of rocket science didn’t grant you a degree, did it?
Another ridiculous and false statement. True, people in the UK generally don’t get shot due to gun restrictions. They just get stabbed with knives and beaten with construction hammers. People are the problem, not guns.
Athanasius, don’t forget that they also get arrested if they fight back.
Indeed. Indisputable. Good for you telling the truth to these people! You are the voice of truth here.
Germany in the 1930’s, The USSR under Lenin, China after Mao, Cambodia under Pol Pot, and post-Revolutionary Cuba all experienced an elimination of gun violence committed by ordinary people, and those societies all flourished as a result.
You cannot be serious with that bit about societies flourishing? Do you know how many millions were killed by the governments of Lenin, amO, Pol Pot, etc.? Because of gun confiscation and restriction, the people had no means to defend themselves. As a result, millions DIED. Do you seriously consider that to have been societies which ‘flourished’?
I’m thinking that Ennasus Eel must have been displaying sarcasm. Surely it was sarcasm.
Predictably wrong as always Susan Lee. Killing by governments always increase as they become increasingly totalitarian, impossible to avoid without an armed citizenry, and state sanctioned murders are never recognized and counted as murder within liberal narratives of world events.
Additionally, the real cause of civilian murders, through poisoning, strangling, knifing, and most of all, abortion, which you support, is the undermining of a civilizational moral code, the very thing Bishops and other liberals spend their lives bending over backwards to ignore.
Your “moral code” seems in direct opposition to Christ’s, Ed
So you believe Jesus hates his Sermon on the Mount upon which I base my life? And you believe Jesus has changed His mind about the eternal, unchanging reality of truth upon which I base my life? And you believe Jesus shares your belief that inconvenient life is suitable for extermination, opposition to which I’ve dedicated a large part of my life?
You tell him Susanne. I trust your obviously educated and considered judgment on matters of morality.
Gun violence can be reduced with simple, tightly written federal gun laws, mainly BCs and safe gun storage. Of course, criminals won’t obey them – but they don’t have to. These laws work well in our peer nations, as evidenced by sound statistics.
“sound statistics”
Define.
The Second Amendment recognizes the inalienable right to self-defense that any level of government is mandated to honor.
If our bishops would take a remedial course in the Catholic religion, they might learn about things such as human rights and moral imperatives as divine endowments and never political inventions.
Edward J Baker – MCGA Making Catholicism Great Again!
This is my house Bishops, my wife, my family. I have a responsibility to protect them. You attend to your responsibilities and get out of my way.
Personally, I’d like to see the USCCB treated as “vexatious litigants” and debarred from their incessant amicus curiae briefs.
I may just buy another AR.
I’d buy one, but I live in Washington State. Our power-tripping government here outlawed them a few years back.
How many AR’s do you have?
“How many AR’s do you have?”
Enough.
TPR – MCGA Making Catholicism Great Again!
Weird how I have managed to live a full and complete life in the country, in the city and in the suburbs and never needed a firearm? I’ve even managed to hunt without one! Maybe because I don’t need to overcompensate for something that I lack?
Is there a single adolescent cliche that you bypass? And the abortions that you support involve crushing skulls, no firearms necessary.
Which “bishops” wrote that… my guess is that staff (laity or priests) at the bishops conference wrote that.
Do we believe that each local community should be able to regulate freedom of religion? If not, why not?
The point of God given rights is that they don’t come from the state and shouldn’t be infringed by the state… any state.
Factually incorrect claims about the dangerousnes of modern firearms compared to historic arms should not be the basis for observing and protecting the inalienable snd God given right to self defense AND the means to defend yourself.
I don’t understand why our bishops feel a need to tweak the 2nd Amendment. Surely there are better things to turn their attention to?
I don’t care what need they “feel”. It’s not their call, they have no competence, charism or mandate in these matters.
They also don’t have homes, families or wives to defend, they’ve never been awakened in the middle of the night because the branch that broke in the wind banging on the house sounded like a forcible invasion attempt and realize the immediate need to rouse yourself, identify the noise, assess it and respond according. WE live in the world of Jamel McGriff and other innumerable feral predators, not them. I avoid confrontation, but I will not pusillanimously retreat, either and I will in circumstances I think present mortal danger, kill or be killed.
Their job is the vitality of the Church, not to insert themselves into a thinly veiled attack on my right to use the weapon of my choice for defense or to opine that states or municipalities should have a right to abrogate my rights.
Any rational person viewing the state of the Church sees a long-term decline, most especially in a squandered endowment of prestige. With some exceptions they have produced aging and inadequate census of priests, overworked and under suspicion due to past episcopal malfeasance. Couples that cohabitate, not marry, contracept and don’t even bother to Baptize the few offspring they are having. Empty pews on Sunday and confession lines on Saturday. Diocesan bankruptcies abound, and they treat it as a “fresh start” and effective fiscal management, rather than a shameful crawling to civil courts to evade creditors.
Most Bishops strike me as effete, effeminate and ineffective, a challenge to the charity of tolerating the incompetent. Some, such as Cupich, McElroy, Seitz, Bejarano (had a Mass with a drag queen, and apologized to the deviant class, so naturally promoted by Leo, part of his change of “attitudes” campaign?) and Stowe strike me as subversive ecclesial weevils that could substitute for syrup of ipecac.
Given the correlation in the past of sexual incontinence, laxity or libertinism (Bernardin, Gumbleton, McCarrick, Weakland, etc), with leftist activism and ecclesial disorder, I’d like to know how many Bishops are compromised by their personal peccadilloes. Whatever the appointment process, it is clearly is deficient.
I’m just so glad I’ll never likely meet these men without chests. The urge to correct what is no doubt a pillowy, limp handshake with the proper application of grip force would be overwhelming and I’m sure some would incur digital dislocation or fracture as a result. I’m sick of wolves and chihuahuas in miters.
Your comment illustrates the difference between having strong feelings and making a strong argument.
You begin by asserting that bishops have “no competence, charism or mandate” to speak on firearms policy. Yet the Church has always spoken on moral questions that intersect with public life: war, poverty, labor, immigration, capital punishment, marriage, and the protection of human life. Whether one agrees with the bishops or not, violence, public safety, and the conditions that promote human flourishing are plainly moral concerns.
You then appeal to your experience of wanting to defend your family. Fair enough. The desire for self-defense is natural and legitimate. But that does not settle the question of what regulations are constitutionally permissible or socially prudent. A personal fear, however understandable, is not a substitute for public reasoning.
The larger problem is that most of your comment never addresses the bishops’ argument at all. Instead, it attacks their masculinity, appearance, motives, and character. Calling bishops “effete,” “effeminate,” “without chests,” or “weevils” does not demonstrate that they are wrong. It merely demonstrates contempt.
You also seem to suggest that because some bishops have led poorly or have been associated with scandal, bishops as a whole should be disregarded on unrelated matters. That is a logical fallacy. An argument stands or falls on its merits, not on whether the person making it is flawless.
Most strikingly, you end by fantasizing about injuring bishops through an intentionally crushing handshake. That passage does more to undermine your credibility than anything the bishops could have said. It projects precisely the kind of aggression and glorification of force that many people find troubling in our public discourse.
You are free to disagree with the bishops’ position on firearms. Many Catholics do. But disagreement is not refutation, and insults are not evidence. If the bishops are wrong, explain why their reasoning is wrong. Ridicule is not an argument.
The moral teaching of the bishops’ moral outrage is misplaced. Within the Amicus brief itself, the USCCB repeatedly cites Church’s teaching on human dignity as the basis for its argument to the SC. It claims its concern for the vulnerable and the innocent as foundational.
When was the last time we heard from the USCCB on the number and the severity of deadly assaults against the vulnerable and the innocent within their mothers’ wombs? Where are the USCCB BRIEFs to the Courts relative to the mortality rate of human dignity due to the protected legal practice and use of abortifacients and sundry sorts of abortion procedure? Compare the numbers.
A slim sense of reason will reveal the USCCB on the wrong side of traditional Catholic teaching on methods of mortal indignity.
Evidently you are not familiar with most of us here. TRP argues from reason, longstanding traditional Catholic teaching, and passion. You are free to disagree, but be advised. For the fork is honed, ready for use, and has the evidence of centuries directing it.
Merion, I think we’re talking past each other.
Your first response shifts the discussion from the bishops’ statement on firearms to abortion. Catholics can certainly debate priorities among social and moral concerns, but that is a different question from whether bishops may speak on matters involving violence, public safety, and the preservation of human life. The Church has never confined itself to a single issue, no matter how important that issue may be. If it did, Catholic social teaching would scarcely exist.
I also think your criticism of the USCCB’s attention to abortion is difficult to reconcile with reality. For decades the bishops have devoted enormous resources, public advocacy, legal efforts, educational campaigns, and pastoral statements to that subject. One may wish they would do even more, but it is hard to argue that they have been silent.
As for your second reply, citing “longstanding tradition” and “centuries of evidence” is not a substitute for demonstrating where the argument succeeds. An appeal to authority or history only carries weight when the reasoning itself is shown.
What prompted my response was not that someone
disagreed with the bishops. Catholics frequently disagree with bishops on prudential judgments.
Rather, it was the manner in which the disagreement was expressed. Much of the original post focused on disparaging personal characteristics, assigning motives, questioning the character of various bishops, and indulging in imagery of physical domination. None of that establishes that their position on firearms is mistaken.
If the contention is that the bishops have misapplied Catholic principles or misunderstood constitutional questions, then those claims can be argued directly.
Instead, much of the discussion seems to revolve around whether certain bishops are sufficiently masculine, courageous, or ideologically acceptable. Those considerations may generate applause from like-minded readers, but they do little to illuminate the actual issue under debate.
Catholic intellectual tradition at its best has always emphasized careful reasoning, charitable engagement, and serious examination of opposing viewpoints. Measured argument is persuasive precisely because it does not need to rely on mockery or personal denigration. That is the standard I was trying to defend.
No. Generally the arguments are ad homenim attacks. BTW threats of bullying the newbie don’t work 😉
Tyler T: We’re making America great again!!!
This will drive that poster (I don’t want to assume gender, there was a small number of girls named Tyler) nuts is that Tyler is a Millennial, (that’s easy, Tyler was unheard of before 1970, spiked in the mid 90’s and plummeted since then) part of the political left, bachelor’s degree in arts, humanities or social sciences, working in the tax exempt, government or education, maybe in HR.
Tyler T. : No one needs to be told that everything has moral implications. Even a decision to get out of bed in the morning can be affected by potential illness considerations outweighing daily responsibilities.
But when bishops virtue signal by inventing a questionable moral principle for a prudential judgment of the indisputable moral absolute of self-defense, they have no special competency. And it is not so out of line to note a pattern of disappointing liberal weakness masquerading as Christian meekness among our bishops.
Chihuahuas can be very protective and fierce little dogs.
Thankfully some bishops differ on this issue. But I wish the rest would find better causes to support.
Pitchfork: yes the Church is in a bad state, but perhaps change is in the air: many young men are seeking God, the Church and the priesthood, vibrant new religious orders are replacing the old dead ones, religious life on our college and university campuses is in a better n state than it has been in many years. Look at what the Dominicans are doing. Let’s look at the bright side and be thankful for all the good things that are going on. Let’s praise God for the good things on the Church and let’s encourage and support them.
And they refuse to demonstrate any capacity to refrain from projecting all invading border crossers as saintly. And at the risk of having Susanne Lee calling this comment ad homenim, they don’t seem to recognize the possibility of a single murderer, rapist, or sex trafficker among them.
You don’t understand? Haven’t you ever observed the human need to pretend to be moral as compensation for not being moral?
If we can contemplate overturning the 14th amendment and the 19th by executive fiat then no amendment is safe. No matter how ‘sacred” it may be to some who idolize their firearms.
You need to stop freebasing leftist rage bait.
Pitchfork:it’s easier to throw stones, than to heal wounds!
Br. Jacques: we’re making America great again!!!!
It’s also easier to repeat inane slogans or offer vapid platitudes than to reason.
Repeated nonsense, illogicalities, and fallacies are not cured by little band-aids.
The second amendment was specifically designed and included to protect citizens from a tyrannical government. Although the founders did not know what progressive ideology was at the time, they were prescient in recognizing the dangers that ignorant ideologues could pose to the welfare of the nation and the freedoms we enjoy under the Constitution.
Rush Limbaugh said it best. “You know why there’s a second amendment? In case the government fails to follow the first one.”
Suzanne: making America great again!!!!!!
Communities cannot contravene what has been guaranteed by the United States Constitution WHICH IS THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS.
What don’t these stupid bishops not understand??
Don’t understand, don’t care or actively ignoring?
Well, they’re progressives, which means that their thinking is disconnected from reality, truth, and historical fact. A sad and embarrassing state of affairs.
“thinking is disconnected from reality”
Except they generally don’t think, they emote.
When I want to know what the political perspective of an adult is, I concoct some banal and benign question about something that is either apolitical or doesn’t telegraph any of my sentiments and let them answer.
If the answer is “I feel” then I understand immediately, I’m dealing with a REgressive (for all of their belief that they represent forwardness, positively, open-minded ness, thoughtfulness they really just want a command and control society) who lives in a space where the law of the land is their emotion, they don’t think and so reason will be ineffective. Here’s an example:
“I feel everybody should make a $25 minimum wage”.
A thoughtful person will say “and then what” and realize employers will respond in ways that don’t benefit the person they FEEL they are helping.
Some will increase requisite skills or experience, some will cut employment hours, some will cut benefits, some will substitute technology, some will will reduce hours of operation or close marginal operations, reduce product offerings.
For the regressive locked in the sphere of a world they confect ex nihilo, derivative effects simply aren’t a consideration-that’s why they become so accusatory and enraged when questioned. Informed concerns are dismissed as mental or moral failings. It’s easy to feel, it’s difficult to think and thinking thoroughly.
Most haven’t gotten past the understanding that no, every little girl can’t have a pony, and no you can’t live on ice cream. Maturity subordinates desire, the regressives make it the sole consideration.
P.fork,
I find it interesting that your comment draws such a sharp distinction between feeling and thinking, yet much of your analysis seems to rest on broad psychological assumptions about people with whom you disagree rather than engagement with their actual arguments.
You appear to divide the world into two categories: people who reason and people who emote. The difficulty is that this framework allows you to dismiss opposing views before examining them. Once someone has been classified as a “regressive” who is governed by feelings, there is little need to address the substance of what they are saying.
The minimum wage example illustrates a legitimate point, namely that policies can have unintended consequences. Serious people across the political spectrum recognize that. Economists, legislators, and scholars routinely debate second- and third-order effects. But it does not follow that anyone who supports a higher minimum wage is motivated solely by emotion, nor that anyone who opposes it is uniquely rational.
What strikes me most is the certainty with which you attribute motives and mental habits to millions of people. You describe an entire class of political opponents as incapable of reasoning, uninterested in consequences, immature, and governed by desire. Yet that is not an argument. It is a characterization of one’s adversaries. It tells us more about how you view them than whether their positions are correct.
There is also a certain irony in lamenting that others become “accusatory and enraged” when challenged while simultaneously referring to them as “regressives” who inhabit a fantasy world and lack adult reasoning abilities. That language is not the language of detached analysis. It is the language of contempt.
Indeed, the comment itself seems to display the very tendency it condemns. You portray vast numbers of people as emotionally driven, irrational, and incapable of serious thought, yet offer little evidence for such sweeping conclusions. The result is a portrait of political opponents that is so exaggerated that it begins to resemble caricature rather than careful observation.
The strongest arguments generally begin with the assumption that intelligent, sincere people can disagree. Once we conclude that those who differ from us are simply incapable of thought, genuine discussion becomes impossible. At that point, we are no longer evaluating arguments. We are diagnosing our opponents.
Intellectual maturity consists not merely in asking “and then what?” about policy proposals, but also in asking the same question about our own assumptions regarding the people with whom we disagree. If we are willing to scrutinize the reasoning of others, we should be equally willing to scrutinize our own tendency to reduce complex human beings to simplistic stereotypes.
P. Fork,
Re: “This will drive that poster (I don’t want to assume gender, there was a small number of girls named Tyler) nuts is that Tyler is a Millennial, (that’s easy, Tyler was unheard of before 1970, spiked in the mid 90’s and plummeted since then) part of the political left, bachelor’s degree in arts, humanities or social sciences, working in the tax exempt, government or education, maybe in HR.”
This comment is a perfect illustration of what happens when someone mistakes stereotyping for insight.
Unable to address the substance of my arguments, you retreat into amateur demographic profiling. You have no evidence regarding my age, politics, education, profession, or personal background, yet you confidently construct an entire biography from a first name and then congratulate yourself for the exercise.
What is remarkable is that you present this as a demonstration of discernment rather than prejudice.
Imagine someone responded to your arguments by announcing that you are probably a retired boomer, consume a steady diet of talk radio, possess an inflated sense of your own perceptiveness, and mistake confidence for intelligence. They could invent an elaborate story explaining why you believe what you believe. It would be every bit as evidence-free as your speculation about me. The difference is that most people would recognize such behavior as lazy and unserious.
The irony is that you spend a great deal of time complaining about people attributing motives, diagnosing opponents, and avoiding arguments. Yet here you are, attempting to discredit not by refuting a single point made, but by constructing an imaginary social profile and inviting readers to dismiss on that basis.
That is not argumentation. It is astrology for political commentators.
Even your confidence in the exercise is revealing. You seem to believe that identifying a few cultural stereotypes grants you access to hidden truths about a person. It does not. It merely demonstrates how readily you substitute caricature for evidence. Real intellectual rigor begins with acknowledging what one does not know. You, by contrast, appear to regard ignorance as an invitation to speculate.
Most tellingly, none of this advances your position by even an inch. Suppose I am exactly what you imagine: a millennial, politically left-leaning, humanities educated, and employed in the public sector. So what? My arguments still stand or fall on their merits. Likewise, if I turned out to be a seventy-year-old conservative engineer working in private industry, your arguments would not suddenly become stronger.
The reason you have abandoned the discussion for demographic guesswork is obvious: arguments are harder than stereotypes. One requires evidence and reasoning. The other requires only imagination.
You seem very concerned about being judged by your words. In this case, your words have judged you quite adequately.
Mention the 2A and is a right snowflake blizzrd!
What was that about “ad hominems”?
In their amicus brief regarding the legal dispute, the U.S. bishops urge the court to “[preserve] the traditional authority of political communities to regulate weapons.”
What “traditional authority”?
I regard the USSCB as a domestic enemy.
CWR… to be intellectually honest you b should report that the Conference had no such concern about subsiarity in the 80s and 90s when Federal Gun control laws were being enacted. In fact I am pretty sure they supported those laws. So to invoke this moral principle now is dishonest.
The 2nd Amendment is actually about states rights, The right of states to have a militia (or National Huard) today to serve as a counterweight against a national standing army. Those “Originalists” on the Court should know this. The 2nd Amendment restricts the Federal Government, not the states from enacting gun control.
My grandfather hunter deer with a lever action 30/30. He did not need an AR-15 with 30 round magazine. What next, M-60 machine guns for deer hunting? How about quad .50 cal anti aircraft hardware for duck hunting?
During my years in the Marine Corps, I fired many different weapons. I don’t understand guys who didn’t serve and their need for military hardware. Are they compensating for something?
From its palatal headquarters in WDC, the useless, bloated and very expensive USCCB has once again showed its true colors. This bishops conference is a political monstrosity feeding on the very Catholic families they are supposed to lead to Christ.
Does anything not shame or embarrass them?
Are the federal funds cut off still?
William: Making America great again!!!!!
I’ve had deer meat in my freezer from a hunter that uses an AR-15 type rifle.
We had someone try to hunt coyotes here with the same sort of rifle.
I don’t know what the AR hunting advantages are exactly but some people like them. I enjoyed the deer meat but we’ve never had anyone take out the coyotes successfully. They’re extremely smart . If there’s ever an apocalypse, coyotes and leprosy-carrying armadillos will still be here. You just can’t get rid of them.
“don’t know what the AR hunting advantages are exactly but some people like them.”
That’s not the reason for the preference. The native round of the AR-15 is 5.56MM or .223. The projective is very light (typically ~60 grains) and while muzzle velocity is fairly high, in many states it’s illegal to hunt deer with anything less that .243 6mm. Truthfully, if I was a deer hunter, I’d use a smaller round (.243/.270). You don’t need the recoil. IF I was using an AR and didn’t need huge range, 6.5mm X 39MM “Grendel”.
Some reasons for the popularity is:
1,) Polymer/metal stock that can be folded and easily replaced if desired/necessary. No risk of breakage.
2.) Componentized construction allows easy replacement of triggers, barrrels etc.
3.) Wide array of useable ammunition for a variety of purposes. 5.56/.223/.224 Valkyrie/6.5M Grendel and others. 5.56 can also use .223.
4.) Picatinny Rail/M-Lock also customized attachment of lights/straps/scopes/bipeds, etc.
As for the people that think this is the last word in lethality, the military just created a new round to replace 5.56 in some applications due to is limitations. 6.8 SPC or in its civilian version .277 fury.
The left is just following its Alinsky playbook here.. Find a target, freeze it..
Yes, the military has a new rifle and a new round. It’s about time. The M16 was adopted in the 1960’s. We can do better. We spent trillions of $ on the Air Force. Time for the grunts to have a modern rifle.
Real men hunt deer with a lever action 30/30. They don’t need a 30 round magazine.
You have to hunt them at night with a night vision scope. There is some technology now that some of the avid hunters use; it’s quite amazing what they can tell on their phones.
They wanted to protect and ‘live with them’ in Dearborn when they were a problem. Then one killed a Merino ram at Henry Ford’s little farm, but I’m not sure if they started hunting them or not then. Very adaptable and easily learn your tricks.
My next door neighbor told me a coyote tried to kill both of his little dogs recently but he saved them in the nick of time. The coyote afterwards attacked a White Pyrenees a few houses down. Someone from San Diego told me people in her neighborhood use Kevlar coyote-protection vests for their dogs.
I still find bones from neighbor’s goats and sheep that coyotes left in my pasture.
When I’ve mowed back there the coyotes will stand their ground right up until the mower’s a few yards away from them. When I return to make another round, they’re back in the same place looking straight at me.
Our coyotes are large. Supposedly they crossed with red wolves.
They know when you carry a rifle and will disappear into the woods. Minus that, they show little fear of people.
Remember Casper (Great Pyr) from Georgia that fought a pack of 11 coyotes and killed 8 of them? His bill was $15k
Since the issue isn’t about hunting, what relevance does your grandfather’s weapon have to the discussion?
People were discussing using AR’s for hunting. I brought up the fact that deer hunters don’t really need military hardware. Indeed, some old school deer hunters would question the masculinity of hunters who need a 30 round magazine.
Since the issue isn’t about masculinity…
Answer to your final question: No.
A 2023 article in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine reports a study on what percentage of US veterans owned firearms. Slightly over 50% of US veterans own (an average of three) weapons, while nationwide, only about a third own firearms. (Ammo.com).
You are quite correct that the purpose of the 2nd amendment is about a counterweight to federal power. Therefore the weaponry allowed to the citizens should be sufficient to oppose federal power. That is why citizens have weapons that soldiers have.
Even as far as a tool for hunting though, I don’t think there are many people who choose to restrict themselves to the technology their grandparents used. Why should guns be the one tool trapped in the 1930s? There are many improvements to make them safer, have less recoil, be quieter, more accurate, and more effective. This allows more people to use them (even with physical disadvantages or disabilities), with more pleasure and fewer adverse effects. Which is the general purpose of improving tools.
William, no, you are wrong as liberal parroting inevitably has it. Were you to actually read what the Second Amendment actually says, you would learn that noting an advantageous implication of an inalienable right does not and cannot exist without first recognizing that inalienable right. Learn the meaning of subjunctive.
William: Making America great again!!!!
Is that all you got? Parroting MAGA schlock? I doubt that you know the difference between an AR-15 and an AK-47.
The US Bishops can just trade places with their counterparts in the DNC…no one will notice any difference.
CWR commentators need to cut the bishops some slack.
Always remember, the bishops are beholden to their Lord and Savior, the Democratic Party.
Maybe they’ll revise the Pater Noster. Francis expressed a desire to revise it, so..
Our father, who art in Washington….
Once again, our formerly Catholic bishops demonstrate that they are little more than the concubines of the Democratic Party. Utterly clueless and utterly useless as Christian shepherds. Abolish the USCCB, before the Catholic Church gets laughed out of America.
You dislike them because you refuse to submit to their teaching?
No one is oblighed to be submissive to the episcopate when the episcopate is wrong, heretical, contradictiory to doctrine, or foolish.
Errors have no rights and errors have no authority.
Imagine if the bishops weighed in on the new Massachusetts law allowing abortion up to birth. Or maybe even did their job and excommunicated politicians who supported it. I don’t recall what part of Cannon Law pertained to the 2nd Amendment, but I do seem to recall it discussing abortion somewhere in there.
Seems like a lot of Protestants on board here.
The bishops and higher up the chain should worry about the pedos in the church. They are showing that they are pawns to push agendas, like the depopulation pushing jabs.
Weird how you can care about more than one thing.
Weird how you can’t care about more than one thing.
I care about ALL the things that violate the right to life.
And pseudo-Catholics.
Not at all, and as usual, you say nothing of substance that adds anything to the discussion.
We have that in common, at least.
Perhaps gun owners rather than Protestants, Br. Jacques?
What’s that saying? Thou does Protest ant too much.
Br.Jaques: You mean opposition to an all too frequent Protestantized episcopate?
Our country was based on checks and balances.with the final check being the citizens. Would you rather have government control like China? Foolish.
Just for the record, I find the bishops’ stand repugnant in the extreme.
And for the record I find gun idolators repugnant as well.
Vindicta vitae felium et cistae vini!
Sicut ceterae partes meae parvae sunt, sic tormentum meum magnum esse debet.
Humility signaling bears no wisdom.
And there’s a big difference: JoAnn finds a position repugnant. You find people who dare to disagree with you repugnant. Not their positions; them.
Gun idolatry is a position, Leslie.
You didn’t say idolatry. You said idolators. You slapped a pejorative label on people who support gun rights (how dare they disagree with you!) and then said you find those people repugnant. Not their position; them.
Hoplophobia is treatable.
Fed! Fed! Fed!
There seems to be little logic to the ban. They are banning semiautomatic rifles because they have pistol grips, folding stocks etc. Hand guns also are semiautomatic as they can be fired as often as you pull the trigger. A quick internet search lists hand guns use d15 to 20 times more often in homicides than rifles.
Most homicides in urban areas,often drug dealers killing other drug dealers,are done with cheap handguns. School shootings seem to be done with assault rifles.
Yes, and often with stolen handguns. Don’t ever leave a firearm in an unlocked vehicle.
Oswalt told the taxi driver he had curtain rods in the long sleeve he was carrying to work.
Oswald
Why must the bishops opine on every issue under the sun, including
matters in which they have NO expertise? Anything can be labeled a
“moral” issue and thus grounds for episcopal interference. They are
diluting their influence. Focus on the things that really matter.
Gun violence matters.
You prefer stabbings or beatings?
Suzanne: Christ matters. Now say that 5x!
Yeah, Christ told us to put down the sword. Say that 5x!
He also said sell your coat and buy a sword
Luke 22:35-37
Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition
35 When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, did you want anything?
36 But they said: Nothing. Then said he unto them: But now he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise a scrip; and he that hath not, let him sell his coat, and buy a sword.
O little one. A good and thorough reader of scripture knows that Jesus told Peter to put his sword into its sheath. He did not ever tell all the people to put their swords away.
No, typically you abuse Our Lord’s intent. Raising a sword in opposition to those instrumental to His divine mission was wrong in that instance. But protecting the innocent is a Christian moral imperative.
Francy, you’re right. We need bishops to focus on Christ’s agenda and not that advanced by the Democrat Socialist Party
Moreover by getting involved in a Bill of Rights issue they align themselves with the authoritarians in this country who think more laws will solve problems when all those previously passed accomplished squat.
Am I we in thinking that these weapons are made to kill people?
Sorry Wrong in thinking
Have all the U.S. bishops gone mad? They should be advocating for total abolition of all such murderous weapons. It is obvious they are unfamiliar with the history of the Second Amendment. Peacemakers should advocate the abolition of all lethal weaponry, exceptions include law enforcement, hunting, gun clubs.
Raymond: study the Constitution and stop with the limp-wristed nonsense.
So rocks, crowbars, knives, vehicles are all to be banned? All have been used for murder.
This nonsensical action by the malinformed USCCB makes me want to leave the Catholic Church and cut off all future generous donations. The pope is protected by so called “Assault” weapons, but I suppose we peons are to write ourselves off if someone decides to hunt us down and murder us. PATHETIC! Maybe the conference of bishops should move themselves to Iran with an unarmed civilian population rather than infringement upon the law abiding citizens of the USA. By the way, read the Bill of Rights!!
William,perhaps in the misty past the National Guard was supposed to be a counterbalance against the Federal standing Army. That concept is long overcome by events and is no longer valid. Recall Little Rock. At the end of the day, the Army National Guard answers to the Army. The TAG, the state Adjutant General takes orders from the Army, not the state Governor. Once the Army federalizes a state’s National Guard it belongs to the Army. In a national mobilization in a real war, the active Army buys time for the National Guard to stand up. The Guard is in no way a check against the active Army. Retired Marine. Semper fi, brother.
Perhaps, but in the early days of the Republican, a state militia was controlled by the Governor of that state. The concept of a National Guard serving as a counterweight to a federal army is outdated, but it was true in the early days of our Republic. When the Constitution was ratified, this was the thinking.
The National Guard still has a role with natural disasters and civil disturbances, being under the appropriate Governor.
When were you in the Corps? I was on active duty 1973-1976.
My deer hunting uncle thought anything above .270 was overkill-causing excessive cavitation and exposure to excessive recoil for no benefit.
He also thought and lever action was the preference people who watched too many 50’s Westerns and thought Lucas McCain’s hip shots were real. For that matter, if you think there’s a magic size of magazine that determines real manhood, go full out. Use only single round rifles with the minimum allowable caliber for that state.
Stupid Buckeyes have the most byzantine requirements, so get yourself a .45-70 Government, the preferred round of statists everywhere. (According to the movies, you can use it on T-Rex, so..) <>.
My uncle was a thoughtful informed man, (military experience, never much brandished though, in that respects he was like his (our) Marine Uncle who landed at Tarawa, and did Hiroshima clean up, it makes me wonder why you constantly pull out the GEA, what inadequacies are YOU attempting to compensate for)
So I’m going with my Uncle’s advice on the matter, but since I’m not looking for CWD and hate the taste of venison, as it’s much like your ruminations, not something with any personal benefit, distasteful and possible dangerous to consumption. I suppose in the event of a Mad Max scenario, I could choke the deer meat down, though.
How many AR’s do you have?
More than you want me to have, but maybe fewer than you.
As much as you would like to divert from the issue to reject me, my motivations and methods:
Tyler T: “We are diagnosing our opponents.”
Also Tyler T: “Your comment illustrates the difference between having strong feelings and making a strong argument.”
Also Tyler T: “What strikes me most is the certainty with which you attribute motives and mental habits”
I made a statement that the Bishops have no charism, competence or mandate to opine here Your response? They have always opined on “moral” issues, without demonstrating how it is a moral issue, because you cannot. The existence and locus of civil authority is a legal issue and a prudential matter, not a moral one. That’s why it’s in an Amicus brief, not a pastoral letter.
You could have nuked my argument with refuting examples, such as evidence of specific expertise, but it doesn’t exist. Likewise, there is no mandate to chime in. In fact, there is an adage that when the Church is not obligated to speak, it is obligated NOT to speak. Even if I agreed with them, I would disagree with the use of the office to attempt to influence the court. I note that there was no Episcopal complaints about the use of AR-15’s to arrest Mark Houck. Why not? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
A miter is not an exemption from the need to exercise the virtue of prudence, nor is the concurrence of an echo chamber.
Nor have the bishops on the whole demonstrated effective Diocesan management that might suggest they have that ethereal quality of “wisdom”. The entire record of the last fifty years is an unmitigated, scandalous disaster. It’s not some Bishops that have failed, it’s most.
In addition don’t “seem” to state anything (we just had an article here about weasel words, read it). I say what I mean and mean what I say, and it’s rather obvious you aren’t used to unequivocal statements. So here’s more plain talk that will likely discomfort you. The left is composed of the emotionally incontinent, the ignorant, the indolent and those that manipulate them. That’s why are immersed in vapid and dishonest slogans. “My body, my choice”, “love is love”.
George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, Tom Steyer, Bill Gates are definitely not emotional, they are coldly and ruthlessly calculating.
Yet for all your pompous “wall of text” criticisms you discredited yourself with calumny. I wrote “normal application of force” and you construed that as intentionally injurious. When I shake another MAN’s hand (not women, children or the infirm). I offer and expect a firm grip.
Invariably, males of the political left don’t offer a firm handshake and I can only assume that’s incapacity (which is often obvious-Cupich looks like a fork is a challenge) or their inculcated restraint-which I understand, because I see how from an early age, boys are treated as “defective girls” and immersed in a culture of capitulation.
P. Fork,
What I find most problematic here is not any single conclusion, but the set of assumptions that make those conclusions seem self-evident to you.
You begin from the premise that questions of civil authority, law, and public policy can be neatly separated from moral reasoning. But that distinction is precisely what is at issue. The reason religious leaders comment on matters of war, poverty, immigration, criminal justice, economics, or firearms is not because they possess technical expertise in those fields. It is because all exercises of political power involve judgments about human dignity, responsibility, justice, and the common good. Those are moral questions whether one likes the answers or not.
More fundamentally, your argument treats competence as if it were a prerequisite for moral witness. By that standard, almost no one would be entitled to speak on public affairs except technical specialists. Yet democratic societies are built on the opposite assumption: that moral and civic questions belong to everyone, including people whose expertise lies elsewhere. A bishop is not expected to be a constitutional lawyer. He is expected to bring moral principles to bear on questions that lawyers and judges address through other methods.
There is also a deeper inconsistency. You argue that the bishops lack the wisdom or credibility to comment because of institutional failures. That criticism may well have force regarding their authority or persuasiveness. But it does not establish that they have no right to speak. If moral failure disqualifies an institution from making moral arguments, then no political party, corporation, advocacy group, newspaper, university, or citizen would be left standing. The validity of an argument depends on its reasoning, not on the spotless character of the speaker.
The most revealing part of your response, however, is the repeated effort to divide people into categories of the emotionally incontinent, the ignorant, the indolent, the calculating, the strong, the weak, the masculine, and the defective. This framework does not illuminate political disagreement; it merely explains away disagreement. Once opponents are reduced to psychological or anthropological types, there is no longer any need to grapple seriously with why intelligent and conscientious people might arrive at different conclusions.
In that sense, you exemplify the very thing you condemn. You accuse others of substituting motives for arguments while repeatedly explaining entire groups of people through presumed motives, deficiencies, and character traits. The result is not analysis but taxonomy.
The central question is not whether bishops are wise, whether progressives shake hands firmly, or whether certain billionaires are calculating. The question is whether moral considerations have a legitimate place in public debates about law and political authority. Your argument assumes the answer is no, then treats that assumption as a conclusion. I do not think that premise survives serious examination.
Apparently, you think after being dismissed for calumny, conceit, diversion and logorrhea, you still exhibit enough of what one critic of former SCOTUS AJ Anthony Kennedy described as “ponderous self importance” to think I’m going to wade into that Gamma wall of text to find a needle in the haystack. In other words TL; DR.
P. Fork,
Interesting. After accusing others of calumny, your response is to mischaracterize my argument, refuse to engage it, and then congratulate yourself for not reading it.
You claimed the bishops should remain silent on public questions because they lack competence and credibility. I explained why neither premise establishes the conclusion. If that is “logorrhea,” then perhaps the problem is not the length of the argument but the absence of an answer to it.
As for calumny, it is difficult to take the charge seriously from someone who spends paragraphs assigning entire classes of people motives, defects, psychological pathologies, and moral shortcomings rather than addressing their arguments. That is not analysis; it is caricature.
Still, thank you for clarifying your position.
Rather than defend your claims, you have elected to declare them self-evident and dismiss any challenge as too long to read. That is certainly one way to avoid the burden of argument.
I suppose “TL;DR” is more economical than a rebuttal.
Just stop please. Not sure what you’re trying to accomplish here, but you yourself are not adding anything substantive to the discussion here, and you are hypocritically not following your own counsel as far as making arguments.
Attie,
“You’re not making arguments” is not itself an argument.
Neither is “please stop.”
“spends paragraphs”
Is this a serious complaint?
J. Fred,
No. “Spends paragraphs” modifies what follows, not the length. Grammar can be helpful in these discussions.
Actually, Forkhead, Tyler T. is right and you yourself prove it so with your admission of the ruthlessness that asserts itself unaccountable. Your own approach also exacerbates that problem.
Scripture tells us about wisdom of taking counsel and of the multiplicity of counsel.
No-one is set apart from the moral dimension and all are accountable on it. It is right to contribute what one knows and quite often imperative when it will be salient, regardless of who will be doing it.
And ultimately the clergy are not removing responsibility on those who will be making the decision -which rests with the latter. There MIGHT be bad advice from clergy and the one with the responsibility for the decision is still going to be accountable for following that or not and for the decision he makes. But if there is good advice and he doesn’t take it he is not absolved “because he wasn’t supposed to take advice from clergy”.
So you intervene in a dispute between two other posters with name calling?
How else would he interject his incoherent run-on sentences on American politics as a foreigner with knowledge or respect for our customs, laws or traditions, who refuses to understand we need his intrusions like a fish needs a bicycle?
errata: “withOUT knowledge”.
I understood what you said.
I have never had a trouble with US Border agents. Not once. The opposite, they were always and everywhere welcoming and helpful. They make a point of reading motives and trying to be accurate in their reading of motives; and they do it very well in fact. Always hospitable and regular going.
At La Guardia, the Immigration Officer wanted to know if I could find my way around NYC. So I mentioned a sort of map of main streets, the essential bridges, landmarks and the compass, north, south, etc. Then he asked about mode of travel and I said mainly taxi, which I had used in the past. Good, he said, so you know the drill, take care. Sure enough the taxi I got as I exited the airport, decided he would go north after crossing the Queensboro Bridge, after having been told Herald Sq. Manhattan. I let it go for a couple minutes and nothing changed, so after another couple minutes I asked the driver if the tag posted in the passenger cabin, was his and he said yes. When I told him he needed to make the u-turn he became profuse apologetic and he reset the meter.
Crossing the Amabssador Brige one time, to Detroit, I went through the usual stop with passport checks, I was driving. “We’re going shopping in Sterling Heights” and the Guard returned them with beaming smile, have a good day, you might want to avoid I94 there’s works going on and you’d likely get delayed.
Another time, Ambassador Bridge again, am driving, we were at the end of a queue of about 7 or 8 cars to the Guard booth and all of these cars got pulled aside for detail checks, including mine. 5 or 6 of the trunks got opened but not ours; and everybody got shuffled inside. All “white people” and I guess by the plates I saw, all American. Shortly two men were ushered deeper inside some office and after that within 20 minutes of the stop, the Border guard called me over to hand back unchecked passports and ID’s and let us go. “Why did you get called in? Sheesh!”
You never know why you might get pulled aside or questioned. That happened to one of my children in the Montreal airport. Questioned, finger-printed, -the whole 9 yards. They almost missed the international flight their family had already boarded. They never received an explanation. I’m guessing they fit some profile or resembled someone on a security list.
Promoting giving and taking advice is not an attack on anything. Considering advice often involves dividing -or, forking, if you will- one’s attention and mental faculties; by which to suspend ideas concurrently, even in succession, for processing, weighing, comparing, contrasting.
“Promoting giving and taking advice is not an attack on anything. Considering advice often involves dividing -or, forking,’
Argumentum Ad Hominem.
Appeal to asserted virtue – prompting forking of reasoning allows the one being prompted to multiply lateral thinking avenues and distribute his attention onto missing sections, without having it done for him.
You can’t be right if you don’t say anything, and his responses are toxic amalgams of fallacy, floridity, indignity and loquacity. In all candor, your last paragraph is so incoherent with that run-on sentence, it’s opaque.
The only thing “asserts itself unaccountable” is that of the Ad Verecundiam arguments from the episcopacy. Once again, this is a (contrived) legal issue, not a moral one, and the Bishops have no charism, competence or mandate to plead with civil courts on this matter as it is one of the existence and locus of jurisdiction. Anybody with a brain understands this is an agenda being pursued at the margins.
When one considers the present state of the Church, the indulgence using an office to advance private preferences using pewsitter dollars is an obscene misuse of time and money. See meiron, Francy and Crusader above.
Now, I must repeat a prior admonition that you seem to obstinately ignore. When discussing American domestic civil matters; the disordered opinions of foreigners who have contempt for our customs, laws and traditions aren’t helpful or welcome. Confine yourself to the affairs of your own nation, even though you decline to name it. So if you would, kindly Sierra Uniform.
Irregardless.
You’re free to accept or ignore the advice whether you think it’s good, or bad, or American, or not American, or American-like, or not-American-like, or badly phrased, or coming from an American, or not coming from an American, or whether it’s coming from an American website or a non-American website, or from clergy. It could be very good and important advice and still you’re free to reject it.
Anyway it’s a common human response to say, “I’m not taking that from you.” Nothing to do with nationality. Well, you know that much Pitchy.
Manipulating a name (pseudonym) as a display of contempt is rather childish.
Unless there’s a sense of humour to intuit it. Even call it physics, as in conservation of energy.
There’s a stream of dialogue going among non-US and US people you realize its goodness after you become aware of it and how it generates. A culture intercourse diorama, if you will, among associates of every description, between doctors and patients, church groups, professional exchange, art appreciation, anniversaries. The list would be very long; and it would encompass conversations in physical settings in the US and everywhere else where such of them meet from time to time.
People in that area of life take it very seriously how they respect one another and guard their common ground in human dignity. Never to be trifled with. And they are always on the lookout for new acquaintances.
My tact could also be a sort of foot-in-the-door approach the other party understands perfectly. Not that I say he DOES understand it so; but he could and I didn’t fail to try. God bless him. Maybe some of the blessing will land on you.
Amazing Physics In Daily Life
Hong Nguyen oe9pl
Physics life hacks
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qgGSTSdD5rc
Well over 60,000,000 American human persons have bern murdered by doctors’ scalpels and suction machines. When will these instruments of murder be outlawed?