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Evolving Christian Attitudes Towards Personal And National Self-Defense, David B. Kopel
Evolving Christian Attitudes Towards Personal And National Self-Defense, David B. Kopel
David B Kopel
This Article analyzes the changes in orthodox Christian attitudes towards defensive violence. While the Article begins in the 19th century and ends in the 21st, most of the Article is about the 20th century. The Article focuses on American Catholicism and on the Vatican, although there is some discussion of American Protestantism.
In the nineteenth and early in the twentieth centuries, the traditional Christian concepts of Just War and of the individual's duty to use force to defend himself and his family remained uncontroversial, as they had been for centuries.
Disillusionment over World War I turned many Catholics and Protestants …
The Great Gun Control War Of The Twentieth Century--And Its Lessons For Gun Laws Today, David B. Kopel
The Great Gun Control War Of The Twentieth Century--And Its Lessons For Gun Laws Today, David B. Kopel
David B Kopel
A movement to ban handguns began in the 1920s in the Northeast, led by the conservative business establishment. In response, the National Rifle Association began to get involved in politics, and was able to defeat handgun prohibition. Gun control and gun rights became the subjects of intense political, social, and cultural battles for much of the rest of the 20th century, and into the 21st.
Often, the battles were a clash of absolutes: One side contended that there was absolutely no right to arms, that defensive gun ownership must be prohibited, and that gun ownership for sporting purposes could be, …