by We caught a brief bit of CBS Sunday Morning today as we were getting ready to return home from the 1st Annual East Tennessee Blogger Shoot put on by Dennis Badurina of Dragon Leatherworks. More on the blogger shoot in another post.
One of the stories featured was about the Rev. Rob Schenk, an evangelical minister, who is asserting that you can’t be both pro-life and pro-gun. His “conversion” to the anti-gun side came after the Navy Yard shootings near his home in DC.
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When Mo Rocca, the CBS correspondent, asked how it was un-Christian for a man or woman to want to defend his or her family with a firearm in case of a home invader. The response floored me.
“Well, first of all you’re making an immediate decision that if someone invades your home, they are going to die,” Rev. Schenck replied. “So you are ready to kill another human being in your home. That brings about a big ethical question for the Christian. And we’re told in the Bible, we’re even to love our enemies.”
(Rocca)”Even a potential intruder? Someone who’s been coming into your home to hurt you?”
“Absolutely. Is it always God’s will that I survive a violent confrontation with another human being? I’m not sure that’s always God’s will.“
I do not pretend to be a Bible scholar. If you asked me to produce a Bible verse to refute Rev. Schenk I would be hard-pressed to do so. That said, I firmly believe that under God’s law as well as under natural law I have the right, nay the obligation, to defend both myself and my family. Protecting the innocent against the depredations of violent criminals is a moral duty. If I have to use a weapon such as a firearm to do that, so be it.
I think we are seeing a concerted effort by both the mainstream media and the gun prohibitionists to use people like Rev. Schenk to “shame” us into accepting more and more gun control. I refuse to be shamed for wanting to protect my family, for wanting to enjoy the sport of shooting, and for any other in my mind legitimate use for firearms.