The gunnists are always ready to be insulting, I’ve noticed, to blast others for their stupidity. I will answer as best I can, though I suspect it will not make a dent.
First, of your basing your gunnism on the Old Testament, there is little that I can say. It is an unChristian choice, given all that the OT says that we no longer follow, but it is yours. My logic not thought out? I believe I have a far more consistent hermeneutic of the OT and what in it is set aside by the NT than you do. You’re pulling out violent stories at random and claiming that justifies your guns under the ignorant principle that “God never changes.” If so, you have a lot to answer for that the OT asks you to do that you’re not doing. You and your multiple wives and slaves will have to work this out amongst yourselves, perhaps as you’re offering your sacrifices at the temple in Jerusalem, how you are going to be a follower of Jesus but also maintain that the teachings of the OT (a world, I might add, where it appeared that God gave the military orders directly) justify vigilantism. I will also observe that every time the “turn the other cheek” passage is mentioned, people like you never give a New Testament answer.
About the 2nd amendment, I made it clear that I was addressing the originalists, who maintain that the intent of the constitution was what the founders had in mind. An intelligent person would, first, not insult my intelligence, since this is an argument that has been made by better legal minds than yours. But then, an intelligent person would realize that the founders never, ever imagined a gun that could shoot multiple shots in a second, that could pepper a room with bullets in an instant. What, then, did they have in mind? Do you know? If, in fact, they had no reasonable limit on what constituted a personal weapon, then what prevents you from having a nuclear bomb?
I have heard the argument (among these postings, in fact) that the 2nd amendment is to prevent a repressive government. Well, frankly, I don’t want you and your guns deciding what a repressive government is, and overthrowing it. I don’t trust you to do that. That’s what votes are for. Who are you to decide, just because you have a gun? And, by the way, as great as your AR-15 is, it’s not going to be much match for even a small force of federal troops. This is the gunnists most frightening argument.
You suggest that my whole piece is wrong because according to you, I got the stats wrong on the AR-15. I can (and did) find numerous sites by gun nuts bragging of this 800 rounds number (one claimed 900). Other sites talk about the availability of a part for your gun that overrides the semi-automatic feature so it becomes, essentially, an automatic weapon. Others show magazines that hold many more than 30 rounds for the AR-15. But suddenly you’re all, “Oh, that’s an exaggeration!” If it’s an exaggeration, it is one that your fellow gun enthusiasts take great pride in bragging about, because you’ll find such claims for the AR-15 all over gun sites, whether they’re true or not. So get off your high horse on that one.
I agree fully that police (and soldiers) don’t always make good choices. But they have something you don’t have: the authority of law and order behind them. They are not only trained with firearms, but empowered to enforce laws, and backed up by and regulated by courts. Do they do it right all of the time? No, but I trust them more than I trust you, for all kinds of reasons having to do with checks and balances and oversight and judgment. Yes, cops shoot people unnecessarily. But so do private gun owners. Something gunnists have never been able to answer effectively is the fact that we have more accidental gun deaths in the US than anywhere in the world, and more suicides by guns than anywhere in the world. Guns may not kill people without people behind them, but the fact is that people are stupid, and they use guns badly and carelessly, and without guns careless and stupid people wouldn’t cause as many gun accidents as they do now.
Finally, let me make it clear that my intent in this piece was to address the making of guns a fetishistic expression of American Christianity. I understand why people like guns. I understand their need for them in some cases. I say again, I don’t understand how Christians can make guns so centrally important, to essentially fuse them in as an element of their faith, in light of the New Testament and the teachings of Jesus. I cannot argue against your legal right to have your guns at this point in time. But to maintain the vengeful, militaristic attitude that most gunnists have, you have to flat out ignore Jesus.