Boston’s Roman Catholic archbishop, Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley, has called for a total ban on military-lookalike semi-auto rifles and full capacity magazines as well as universal background checks for all prospective gun buyers, according to The Pilot, a diocesan newspaper.
In a statement made in response to the violence at the gay nightclub in Orlando earlier, O’Malley issued a statement calling for gun control and followed it up with an interview f WBUR-FM a couple of days later.
The cardinal has advocated for such gun control measures in the past, including after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in 2012.
“These types of weapons,” O’Malley said, “should be for military, for police, not for recreation or something that should be available to the public.”
As if to give greater weight to O’Malley’s gun control agenda, The Pilot included in the same issue a reported on the US Conference of Catholic Bishop’s positions on gun control, which are nothing new, plus a supportive opinion piece by Moises Sandoval, a columnist with the Catholic News Service.
