Jews For The Preservation of Firearms Ownership, Inc.
P.O. Box 270143
Hartford, WI 53027
Phone (800) 869-1884
Fax (425) 451-3959
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH - HANDMAIDEN OF GENOCIDE
by Richard Stevens
JPFO Firearms Sentinel Editor
JPFO URGES CHRISTIANS TO CHALLENGE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH’S
GOAL OF DISARMING INNOCENT CITIZENS
WEBMASTER'S NOTE: Be sure to show your outrage to the Presbyterian
Church by e-mailing them at presbytel@pcusa.org
& presclt@unidial.com. You
can find their resolution in question at:
Expressly aiming “to disarm our homes and communities,” the General
Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) passed a resolution this year
which demonstrates the illogical and the dangerous goals of the “gun control”
lobby. The PC-USA Commissioners’ Resolution 98-19 makes a “call upon all
of its members to:
[a] intentionally disarm the handgun and assault weapon arsenals in the their homes,
[b] seek ways to disarm the homes of their communities, and
[c] seek ways to develop community strategies and create sanctuaries of safety for our children,
so that all of our children may come to identify and value themselves and others as the precious children of the family of God that they are, and that they may come to learn peace for their lives and peace for this generation.”
Disarming the Victims
The PC-USA has officially supported the “gun control” agenda for 30 years. Beginning with a general call for “control [of] the sale and possession of firearms of all kinds,” the PC-USA later advocated state and federal legislation to regulate every aspect firearms ownership by the “general public.” The PC-USA called for registration and licensing of gun purchasers and owners, background checks and waiting periods. All of these proposals ostensibly grew out of the PC-USA’s concern about “gun violence”(1)
The 1998 Resolution, however, drops the pretense of “regulation” and exposes the ultimate plan of “gun control,” which is to disarm law abiding citizens. According to the introductory text of the Resolution, the PC-USA favors total disarmament because of statistics about the “firearm-related death rate among American children,” and because “many children in our nation are dependent upon guns, gangs or guerrilla warfare tactics for their source of identity and family of belonging.”
Yet nothing in the 1998 Resolution indicates that the Church seeks to disarm criminals or to deter crime. The Resolution also ignores the thousands of reported cases in which law abiding citizens used firearms to deter or stop crime. Taken on its own terms, the Resolution says that because violent persons endanger us and our children, we must therefore disarm ourselves and all of our peaceful neighbors.
Where is the Sixth Commandment?
The PC-USA professes to be a Christian church. As such, the Ten Commandments of G-d(2), as delivered by Moses, should be a foundation of Church law and policy. Yet Mosaic law apparently plays no part in PC-USA’s “gun control” gospel. Instead, the 1998 Resolution quotes from its internal magazine “Peace Notes,” and cites statistics from Handgun Control, Inc.
G-d himself defined the law about violence. In the Sixth Commandment, G-d declared “You shall not murder.”(3) The Sixth Commandment focuses exclusively upon the potential wrongdoer, and orders him or her not to commit murder. Instead of proclaiming G-d’s law, the PC-USA Resolution lobbies secular authorities to disarm the victims of crime.
Totally absent from the 1998 Resolution is any mention of the causes of crime, or the moral breakdown in American society, or the culture of calculated terror and violent murder that pervades American television and entertainment. The Resolution could have called for Americans to strictly observe the Sixth Commandment; it could have urged Church members to teach children (and adults) the absolute nature of the law against murder; it could have condemned the entertainment culture of violence. Instead, the Resolution targets and demonizes non-violent gun owners, and makes self-defense seem immoral.
Handmaiden of Genocide?
Disarming non-violent people has produced over 57,000,000 fatal consequences in the 20th Century. In each of the eight largest genocides of our time, the innocent victims were first effectively disarmed by “gun control” laws.(4) In each of these cases, the government turned evil and murdered its own defenseless citizens. In nations where citizens widely owned firearms, by contrast, there were no such mass killings.
No “gun control” group’s statistics about accidental shootings or sporadic criminal violence can possibly compare with genocide. Yet the PC-USA Resolution lacks any mention of these well-known mass murders of disarmed people. Mouthing the fatal language of British Prime Minister Chamberlain’s pre-war compromise with Adolf Hitler’s Nazi aggression, the Resolution calls for “peace for this generation.”
The PC-USA would have to be willfully blind to advocate a policy whose consequences paved the way to wholesale human slaughter. Members of that Church should seriously question the moral values of their leaders who advocate disarming innocent people (and thereby endanger millions of people).
Racism Under the Cloth?
Naked racism is the dirty little secret of American “gun control” laws. The history of “gun control” laws shows that they were first enacted to prevent Black people, both slave and free, from having firearms.(5)
The PC-USA has supported registration and licensing of gun owners and guns, waiting periods, and restrictions on sales and possession of firearms by law-abiding citizens. Now, under the 1998 Resolution, PC-USA wants these citizens totally disarmed. Every one of these positions has roots in the pre-Civil War and post-Civil War laws designed to keep Black people under control. Those “gun control” laws worked -- they first kept Black people enslaved, and later helped white racists intimidate and oppress free Black citizens.
As it is not politically correct nowadays to teach the historical truth about the racist origins of “gun control” laws, it is quite possible that PC-USA leaders did not know these facts. Perhaps they did not know that disarming innocent Black people was the goal of “gun control.” Now that they know, however, these leaders should renounce their “gun control” stance. They have no excuse for continuing the legacy of slavery and civil rights abuses by advancing the cause of “gun control.” If for no other reason than knowing how much violence and oppression unarmed Black people and other minority groups suffered in America, the PC-USA should reverse its total disarmament stance.
Deliverance By State Police?
As a practical matter, if the honest, non-violent citizens are unarmed, then the only defense they have against aggression and crime would be the government’s agents. The PC-USA Resolution thus urges people not only to disarm themselves, but to place their trust in the armed police.
Trusting the police to protect citizens from crime is foolish, because the police have no legal duty to protect anybody.(6) Courts have repeatedly held that the job of the police is to protect society, but that job does not impose a duty on the police to protect any particular person.(7) Under the law, a person fearing an attacker has no guarantee that the police will protect him or her. The police have no legal duty to respond to individual distress calls.
The result of the PC-USA Resolution’s policy would be to render innocent citizens defenseless against criminals, without providing any hint of how these citizens will actually be protected. The Resolution does not even recommend prayer to G-d for protection.
In the name of “peace in our generation,” the Church’s Resolution:
disarms innocent people,
fails to teach G-d’s Sixth Commandment against murder,
concentrates power in the hands of government,
ignores the billion-dollar murder-for-fun video and film industry,
and leaves citizens defenseless against criminals and oppressors.
Presbyterians and Christians nationwide should be appalled. They should demand an explanation for the PC-USA’s dangerous views. Be sure to show your outrage to the Presbyterian Church by e-mailing them at presbytel@pcusa.org & presclt@unidial.com.
JPFO invites PC-USA leaders and members to share a dialogue on these issues which are so critical to preserving human life and religious liberty.
Notes
(1) Minutes of the 116th General Assembly (1976), p. 103; Minutes of the 202nd General Assembly (1990), pp. 605-606; Compilation of PC-USA Social Witness Policies.
(2) In Jewish secular writings, to show respect, the full name of the Almighty is not spelled out; accordingly, a letter is omitted here.
(3) The usual translation of the Sixth Commandment is “Thou [you] shalt not kill.” Many Jewish and Christian authorities agree that the word “kill” refers to “murder,” not to killing in justified self-defense.
(4) See Jay Simkin, et al., Lethal Laws (JPFO: 1994).
(5) See Aaron Zelman & Richard Stevens, Gun Control is Racist! (JPFO: 1997).
(6) See Dial 9-1-1 and Die! (JPFO Special Report: 1992).
(7) See, e.g., Bowers v. DeVito, 686 F.2d 616 (7th Cir. 1982); Morgan v. District of Columbia, 468 A.2d 1306 (D.C. 1983).
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