John Lott has a post today, where he list a number of instances where private citizens (and one off duty police officer at his home) used their guns to defend themselves from people with bad intentions.

Do you think someone would ever try to rob a store if they knew everybody in the store had a gun?

As I’ve mentioned before, gun ownership is part of my recommended crime solution for people living in high crime areas. Don’t let the thugs be the ones with all the guns taking over your community. If you feel the police in your area have failed you, laws to take guns from “everyone” will fail you too. Because then only the thugs will have guns. When more good people in high crime areas own guns, crime suddenly goes down!

Some Christians feel that members of the faith should be pacifists, but they neglect the fact that Jesus asked his own disciples to arm themselves!

He was not asking them to prepare in that instance for “spiritual warfare”. Nope, he was asking them to arm themselves with the weapons of that time. He knew it was getting close to the time where he would be arrested, because of course God’s son would know such things in advance. So he wanted to ensure that his arrest took place as it should. Without any attempts to actually kill him before the crucifixion and without the disciples being killed before they themselves should die.

So when a sword was used inappropriately, Jesus informed them to put the swords away and it was OK for him to be arrested.

Jesus knew his disciples having swords would temper any additional aggression beyond his own arrest.

Given Christ himself requested that his own disciples arm themselves, it is foolish to claim that Christians should never own a gun. To the contrary, Christians should own a weapon for their own personal defense. To be taken by authorities for the sake of the Gospel is one thing, but to die at the hands of a greedy thug is another and not the way to go!