Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich recently ignited a controversy when he wrote an op-ed piece in the Chicago Tribune, calling for more and tougher gun laws.
Noting that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops “has consistently called for reasonable regulation and controls for guns, especially handguns,” Archbishop Cupich focused on the shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon and the on-going violence in his own city.
He complained that, “The Second Amendment’s original intent has been perverted by those who, as Pope Francis recently commented, have profited mightily. Surely there is a middle ground between the original intent of the amendment and the carnage we see today.”
Archbishop Cupich also noted that the Bishops’ conference has called for a ban on so-called assault weapons.
“Let’s be honest,” Cupich wrote. “The Second Amendment was passed in an era when organized police forces were few and citizen militias were useful in maintaining the peace. Its original authors could not have anticipated a time when the weapons we have a right to bear now include military-grade assault weapons that have turned our streets into battlefields. Recently, the city of Chicago adopted a tough ordinance to tightly regulate gun stores here. I applaud Chicago’s leadership for taking this important step to protect our children and families. For this measure to truly be effective, however, the General Assembly must pass a similar law, especially considering how many guns are sold in gun shops located outside of Chicago.”
In his closing remarks, it appeared that Cupich may not have done much homework on the subject when he insisted “We must band together to call for gun-control legislation.”
There are, by some counts, thousands of gun control laws already on the books.
