Cardinal Joseph William Tobin
Cardinal Joseph William Tobin (AP Photo/Domenico Stinellis)
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Amid a mounting debate in America over the constitutionality of gun control, Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark has entered the fray with a different argument: That people should voluntarily forgo their Second Amendment rights for the betterment of society.

“I honestly believe it is the best thing we can do to change the culture of violence that threatens us today,” Tobin said.

“Let’s voluntarily set aside our rights in order to witness the truth that only peace and never violence, is the way to build a free society that is lived concretely in our homes, our neighborhoods, our communities, our nation and our world,” he said.

Tobin made the plea in a recent letter, “Pray for an end to all instances of violence,” where he calls on community leaders and Catholic bishops, himself included, to call for a “synodal effort” to actively resist gun violence. He proposed a threefold process that includes prayer and work, advocacy, and voluntary self-restraint from the Second Amendment. …

With that in mind, Tobin made the case that while legislation and regulations are necessary, in the case of gun violence, as with all life issues, it’s equally as important to “regulate our behavior in order to protect the vulnerable and ensure the common good.”

“It’s true that we have a Second Amendment right to bear arms, but rights always involve responsibilities – in this case, the responsibility to protect the innocent and to secure public safety and good order,” Tobin said. “The mass shootings we are witnessing almost weekly now are a serious threat to the lives and well-being of all people.”

In the cardinal’s threefold synodal process, he echoes what other U.S. prelates have said, stating that prayers alone aren’t enough to adequately address the issue. Instead, Tobin said that Catholics must combine prayer with action to prevent the root causes of gun violence.

— John Lavenburg in Newark Cardinal Asks Americans to Voluntarily Forgo Right to Guns

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213 COMMENTS

    • The very day he VERIFIES that every Catholic in the world has given up their guns, then we can talk.

      No promises and I am not holding my breath.

        • Exactly…Which were recently used by the Swiss Guard to fire upon an individual that drove through the Vatican gate. Weapons carried by the Swiss Guard include: The Swiss Guard in their function as bodyguards are equipped with the SIG Sauer P220 pistol and the SIG SG 550 assault rifle (or its SG 552 variant) also in use by the Swiss Army.

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      • Even if every Catholic does give up their guns, the criminals will still have theirs.
        His idea will create a field day/open season for criminals. What a B.S. idea!

    • What a naive fool. And maybe if we pass laws against molesting children, Catholic priests will stop molesting children.

      • I think you mean that if we get rid of Catholic priests, children will no longer be molested.. (at least according to the way he applies his logic to firearms)

        • Public school teachers molest more children than Catholic priests do. Both are a problem.

        • Correct Art. John is showing us why we have propaganda (it works). People always think about the Catholic church instead of the school system when it comes to that.

        • “the responsibility to protect the innocent”…

          Apparently innocence and gun ownership are mutually exclusive in Tobin-world.

      • John,

        Not at all naieve. As a former Catholic priest, I’ve been reading Church pronouncements for a long time. They have their own way of encoding intent in flowery, beautific language. Example: “…set aside our rights to witness the truth…” That is Church talk for ‘You really ought to let us tell you what to do.’

        God gave us rights that Tobin says we should set aside. That is not naievite’, that is direct intent to say “You should listen to me because I have authority”.

        • As an evangelical, I have to admit that some evangelical leaders play the same evil game.

        • @LifeSavor, he may have some authority, but not the authority to nullify or set aside basic human rights.

        • What better place than the Church for satan to do battle. If you can corrupt the clergy how much more to corrupt the flock. Not everyone in the Church loves Christ including some in positions of respect.

      • maybe he wants to to get rid of your guns so you can’t shoot him when he he tries to molest your kids …

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    • “In this case, in order to protect the innocence of the children in our flock, the clergy will voluntarily remove our genitalia.”

    • I guess he missed that part of history in 1930s Germany when people of the Jewish Faith gave up their guns for the New Reich. I guess that just proves that old saying. Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat history. When the whole world falls down on its knees and worships our one true God, then and only then will it be safe to lay down its arms.

      • He also ignores the fact THAT MANY IN “THE CHURCH” supported the “final solution” the NAZIs perpetrated upon humanity… and NOT just the JEWISH population.

    • yeah,he’s a liar and he ain’t my father! For when a strong man armed keepeth his palace his goods are in peace. Luke 21:11.

    • I am Catholic and proud of it but I will never give up my guns. If he wants a free society then he much accept an armed society.

  1. This is a personal RIGHT, and ABSOLUTE PERSONAL CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT!

    If a person wishes to forgo a Right, that is their choice.

    I hope this cleric realizes that if American Citizens give up their Constitutional Rights, the first thing that will be totally destroyed will be the Right of Religion and ALL Churches will be replaced by the State Church!

    Please look at History! Let’s not repeat it here in the USA!

    • THE STATE will be the church and THE PARTY will be the anointed prophets. Speaking negatively, critically, or even sarcastically against THE STATE or THE PARTY will be considered HERESY and will be dealt with by the state’s inquisition.

      Think apocalypse cult on a national scale.

      • As the cult takes over the Church more and more, and faster and faster, your words here will seem prophetic to those who don’t yet see it.

  2. Tobin must be an ancient word for ‘never been mugged, never owned land a gang wanted and in fact, never been on his own.’

    Or as my granny used to say, “if being naked and handcuffed in a public place makes you feel secure, you might be a liberal.”

  3. Mr Tobin – When you again have a man of God running your organization and have driven the Communists out (and of your state), get back to us with your drivel.

  4. And during The Crusades they said…”People must “voluntarily” give up their gold, farms, daughters, and lives in order to build a free society “.
    Not so sure that those “volunteers” would agree with them either.

    • I have read that in the year 999AD the rumor spread that the New Year would bring the Apocalypse. Sort of a Y1K thing.

      People panicked and gave all their wealth to the Church hopes of entry into Heaven.

      The Church apparently still holds much of it.

  5. These guys just never get it, do they?

    They demand that innocent people give up their rights in the unreasonable hope that evil people will stop doing evil as a result.

    This soft hearted, soft headed cardinal is one of the reasons why criminality is rampant in todays United States.

    • Indeed. Another “way to build a free society” is to shoot evil people who would make you not free.

  6. No can do card. Nothing personal but Moms and Dads need to keep children protected from child molesters, etc.

  7. im a recovering catholic
    so i can say this:
    some people would say
    “ill give up my guns
    when the catholic church
    gives up on covering for pedophiles”
    i would agree with that inasmuch as
    until they get that particular problem solved
    they really should be too busy
    to be involved in anything else
    such as “guns for nobody”
    (except for the military and police)
    which we all know
    was the major plotline
    in the movie “schindlers list”

      • I won’t, I don’t much care who guards the Pope or with what. As a former member of King Henrys Apostates, I regard the advice of Jesus as the only worthwhile advice on arms from a religious authority when he said “Sell your cloak and buy a sword.”

        • Rusty,

          AMEN, brother! Jesus was NOT a pacifist (c.f., moneylenders, temple). Peace is an aspiration, not a policy.

        • Been busy lately but I try to make sure to sprinkle at least a little sarcasm around every day.

  8. While we’re at it we should make taxes voluntary. We should all pay taxes for the good of society so there’s no need to make them compulsory. I can be assured that if I pay taxes that my neighbor will as well, just as I can be assured that if I give up my weapons my neighbor would as well.

    That or I’d be a sucker…

  9. “People Must Voluntarily Give Up Their Guns In Order to Build a Free Society”

    Hes not really saying that.

    He’s talking about root causes of ‘gun violence’ which are the mentally ill mass/school shooters and criminal elements.

    Even God and Jesus in the bible advocated for ‘arms’ usage to defend against such violence. The Catholic church even endorses and recognizes the use of arms to defend home and self and others if needed. Even God in the bible warned, basically, that to disarm was to invite aggression that wanted to take your freedom which is why he basically blessed the Isrealites in using arms and force to take the ‘promised land’.

    And although his ‘approach’ is one of ‘regulation’ his real meaning is on the root causes of ‘gun violence’ which are the mentally ill mass/school shooters and criminal elements.

    • Not really what he’s saying. Correct that he says people SHOULD rather than MUST give up guns, but he’s basically calling for the general public to disarm so that miraculously the dangerous people with guns will somehow be rendered peaceful. That’s the 3rd point of his plan, after #2 which is to demand action (wording that exactly parallels Bloomberg’s astroturf Moms) from government to keep communities safe. Ignore whatever authority his religious title gives him, and he’s just another garden variety gun-grabber who thinks restrictions for everyone will reduce violence committed by a minority of troubled and/or criminally-minded people. It’s faith-based violence prevention.

      • “Not really what he’s saying. Correct that he says people SHOULD rather than MUST give up guns, but he’s basically calling for the general public to disarm…”

        no, he’s not saying what the article title says… and he’s not calling for a general disarm even though the media is pitching it that way.

        he’s putting forth that people can choose to not have firearms as a way to a means and to act responsibly if they do have firearms, but they still have a second amendment right to have firearms.

        this is nothing new. its catholic church dogma and has been since the middle ages. He’s just phrased it a little differently for the times. I was raised with it, it used to be taught more openly.

      • “It’s faith-based violence prevention.”

        It certainly is. Because Jesus said to, “sell your cloak and buy a sword”. You can have all the faith you want and that’s a good thing. You just keep that sword in your hand because you just might need it. When your faith is tested.

        • Chris, Louisiana Senator John Kennedy said, “I believe in love, but I own a handgun just in case………

  10. “Tobin made the plea in a recent letter, “Pray for an end to all instances of violence,””

    You can’t pray away (in)human nature, padre.

    This is the sign of a Marxist-Fascist, the promise of utopia, straight outta ‘1984’.

    “Freedom Is Slavery”… 🙁

  11. The last time I checked, we already live in a free society…at least, we used to. Giving up guns doesn’t make one a citizen of such a society: in my book it disqualifies you from being one, rather demoting one to the rank of serf and the role of victim.

    If the pseudo father wants to dream, let him dream. But if he wants to present it like some religious revelation for the rest of us he can do of in a corner and do what his fellow celibates have been supposed to do over the centuries to get themselves by.

  12. A constant in human behavior since our creation is the ability to be vicious, a reason why we are the apex predator on this planet. The veneer of civilization is extremely thin and tenuous and will not change until we change our basic nature and that will probably be never.
    Give up my guns?
    I think not.

  13. Well I guess he never listened to Ben Franklin about giving up freedom for a bit of security deserves neither.

    • Considering the catholic church is responsible for the elimination/murder of more indigenous people and societies than any other group, religion or government. In the history of humanity. All in the name of their God.

      • Sorry, that is absolutely untrue. Communism is responsible for the elimination and murder of more people in just 100 years than every other ISM out there, to include the Catholic Church and Islam. You shouldn’t make stuff up.

  14. LMFAO
    Laughing in the face of shear stupidity!

    This hasn’t created freedom or peace in any society throughout the history of the human condition. Not a single time. What it does create is subjugation and tyranny. It’s the reason the 2nd Amendment is there to begin with.

    If you can just stand there and let yourself be murdered, that is a problem with you.

  15. Those willing to voluntarily give up their guns are noth the ones committing violent crimes with them. So……

  16. The pudgy, protected little cardinal should take his message of giving up your guns to the blue inner city shitholes and try it out there. Once he gets that whole gang thing sorted out and they all stop murgering each other and folks around them, maybe then folks wont be tooling up for self defense in the numbers they are. But then again, there is that whole tyranical gubberment thing to contend with………

  17. Sure, now go see how well that message is received in the “Hood”. Or with the same crowd that demands we the people hand over our right of self defense and self determination to them. Go see how willing those with criminal or authoritarian intent are to disarm themselves.
    Sorry preacher, but, unless and until you can give me an ironclad guarantee that no criminal, angry child, pissed employee, potential dictator, or petty bureaucratic tyrant in some position of power cannot get a weapon and cause harm to me or my decedents or disrupt the lives of the innocent citizens of this or any other country, will I be willing to even discuss giving up my right to keep and bear arms. Since there is no way such a guarantee can ever be given, there is no chance of me or mine volunteering to be disarmed.

  18. I suspect this “church leader” has not read the Bible. And he may not be educated to know that millions of disarmed Christians were gassed to dead and put into the ovens in WW2. Along with millions of jews and other people.

    If he had read the Bible he would know that there was “gun control” in biblical times. And christians suffered because of it.

    And he doesn’t know that Jesus used a weapon for righteous violence.

    • “…he may not be educated…”

      You’re far to generous. 10:1 this is like that dude who’s getting booted from one of the Southern Baptist groups for going full on “Christ supports PRIDE!” from the pulpit. It’s not that he didn’t fucking know.

      Of course he knew. He made a conscious decision to push something directly contradicting the Christian doctrine and did so using his position of authority within the Church to do it because he thought he would benefit from it.

      If you wanna be all theological about it, he jumped in bed with the Devil at the first opportunity and did so for earthly riches. No way a Catholic Priest doesn’t know at least some history of atrocities against Christian disarmed populations in the 20th Century, especially since many of those groups were actually Catholic. The damn Unitarians know about this.

      • I believe this so-called “Church leader” is a practitioner and preacher of “Liberation theology”. Something that I understand was very popular back in the 1980s. They made excuses for atrocities committed by Rebel forces in many Central, and South American countries. They were simply replacing their current murderous dictator, with another murderous dictator.

        I was being facetious. I should have used the “sarcasm switch”. You’re correct this guy knows exactly what he’s doing. He is what the Bible spoke about on false prophets or false Church leaders.

        I don’t care what their religion is. If a self-described “believer” is telling you to disarm, that is your red flag warning, that they are an example of what a false prophet is.

        Unfortunately there are a lot of fools following these false leaders. But you can take the religion part out of it if you want. Because there are plenty of non-believers who believe you should be disarmed.

        • Apologies for my malfunctioning sarcasm detector.

          I will disassemble and inspect the unit before proceeding further.

  19. I wonder if the good cardinal believes that sodomy of a young boy by a priest is a violent act or a nonviolent act?

    • Perhaps the priests were just ahead of their time??? Since it seems to be acceptable now for dr@g Queen story hour.
      Also it’s acceptable to have children dance in a sexual nature before h0m0sexual men at strip clubs. While they toss dollar bills at the “dancing boys”.

      Or perhaps it’s just acceptable if it’s done for atheistic H0m0sexual men. Personally I don’t see a difference between a believer or a non believer who sexually exploits children.They both should have a bullet put in their head.

      btw
      Happy pride month.

    • Many priests believe that is not in violation of their vows of celibacy in a certain interpretation. Especially those who ran religious order boarding schools for indigenous children.

      • Way back in the early 1990s and somewhere in a CNN video archive. There is a story about a middle age tenured college professor who was arrested. And with his arms handcuffed behind his back, he says repeatedly to the television cameras, that “there’s nothing wrong with having sex with native boys”.

        Apparently he had spent some time in the Pacific Island chains. It seems he had discovered that certain Island societies, did not frown upon adult men having sex with very young boys. Or at least that is what he believed.

        G@y sex tourism.

  20. As I am a non-Catholic, non-Anglican, non-Orthodox Christian, I regard his claim of authority over society at large, and me in particular, to be quite amusing.

    • N64456:
      You’re making an assumption not justified by the facts. Just because Tobin’s naive doesn’t mean he’s a child molester. And despite what’s being bandied about in this thread, the ODDS are against it. There are a whole lot of Catholic clerics who are not child molesters. Though not now practicing, I was raised Catholic, and I never knew a Catholic cleric who was even accused of such a thing.

      • The priesthood/convent was always a parking spot for the homesexual children of devout Catholic families in the 1800s and 1900s… Being a gay man/lesbian was an embarrassment to Irish, French, and Italian families; and the priesthood (or nunneries) were perfect answers for both the priests/nuns to be among like kind, and for mothers/fathers to brag about their kids “serving God” without raising any embarrassing inquiries from social busybody of the day.

        BTW, I was also raised RC, and remember 1/3 of the priests from my parish getting busted in a gay sex ring back in the 80s (along with some well know local public servants)… I wouldnt trust any of them around my kids or grandkids.

        I said what I said

  21. I think there is a big difference between a big city Christian and a small rural town Christian. And there shouldn’t be. But It’s just an example of the divide we have in our society.

  22. Take a long look into your soul and try to see yourself misusing firearms or if you have bad enough anger issues to do so. I have had a bad temper most of my life and alcohol was always involved. After I stopped drinking(for good), I took that look and bought firearms to protect my family and myself.
    I do not think I could take another’s life without a damn good reason, removing the alcohol from the equation was the answer.

  23. Communist countries definitely meet the Cardinal’s criteria for policies and laws to “regulate our behavior in order to protect the vulnerable and ensure the common good.”

    Though I do recall a priest from Poland who wasn’t all that keen on the socialist way of governance….🤔

  24. Tell you want Padre, you get all the criminals and tyrants to give up their guns and I’ll “think” about giving up mine.

  25. Yea right, Padre telling me how to live my life, He should be more concerned about the alter boy at a priest convention and leave important matters to us adults. You would think he could remember what happened after disarming the citizens in Eastern Europe in the late 30’s, we know how that turned out.

  26. He should give up his imaginary friend first. Religion is 100x more dangerous and killed more of humanity than anything short of the plagues.

  27. it all sounds so good. However coming from a leader of a criminal organization that has, among it’s many crimes protected and enabled Child Molesters to use their authority to have sex with children that were told to trust these priests as servants of God, is just laughable.

    Even at the highest level, priests and leaders in the Vatican have been out attending drag shoes and using homosexual prostitutes in Rome itself. The prior Pope attempted to reform and fix many problems and just gave up, to be replaced by a homosexual Jesuit.

    How anyone is. member of this faith, is beyond me.

  28. One of the most difficult things that people seem to grasp is that there is nothing in the entire universe that has not been born out of violence. Absolutely nothing. To this particular man of the cloth I say that that Jesus himself is part of human history because of violence. It’s something the world will never be free of. Like dust. It’s (in part) a by-product of God given free will.

    • Prndll, you only say that everything in the universe was born out of violence because you obviously believe in evolution. Evolution is not a fact no matter what you’ve been told. If one knows the facts, one will find that it takes more faith to believe in evolution than the faith it takes to believe in the Bible.

      e

      • well, you tell me…

        From my point of view, the concept of life on this planet exists as a result of violence. even the act of giving birth is violent. That’s why most women get drugs now.

        As to evolution, there is a misconception about it. We are made by the hand of God. That is absolute. But so is the Earth and all the life within it. Understanding the science of what is referred to as ‘cosmic rays’ does not require the believe that man came from apes. Although God made apes too. Having a belief in the creator and savior, the most high, the great I AM does NOT mean being convinced that the Earth is flat. It is perfectly acceptable to be a Christian and have a scientific understanding of the world around us. That is infact part of it.

      • Ya know, there are those that honestly think that if we do finally get absolute undeniable proof that extra terrestrial intelligent life exists that it would mean that there is no God and therefore any such proof would have to be withheld from the world. It’s preposterous! It would in fact be even MORE proof that there actually IS a God. As if we need more.

        We are here for HIS glory. Understanding that has nothing to do with wether or not he made other things aswell.

        People forget that Satan was/is an angel too.

  29. Psalm 144:1
    Blessed be the LORD, my rock,
    who trains my hands for war,
    and my fingers for battle.
    *********************
    Lord, make me fast and accurate.
    Let my aim be true and my hand faster
    than those who wish to harm me and mine.
    Let not my last thought be “If only I had my gun”.
    and Lord, if today is truly the day you are to call me home,
    Let me die in a pile of brass.

  30. that’s his stance and he’s sticking to it. he knows it’s fantasy.
    the only way giving up my 52 would make any difference is if i bonked him in the head.

  31. It’s understandable that Cardinal Tobin prays for a Pax Romana. A peace dictated from on high; and no better place than Rome.

    Being a man of faith, not of deeds, he fails to recognize: “How’s that working out for Y’all?

    What about the arguments for diversity and inclusion? That every voice be heard? That slave and master, the governed and the governor, be armed equally? Why this compulsion to centralize the power of the sword?

    Ask the North Koreans, Venezuelans, Chinese, Cambodians, and Viet Namese.

    • The master-slave thing works a bit differently in the dialectic of diversity.

      It’s part of the whole Critical [Insert Thing Here] ideology and is the root of a phrase like “the black face of white supremacy”.

  32. Well I guess that’s the ultimate turn the other cheek!
    However, I wonder, if the Cardinal were locked in an inescapable room with a gun and cell phone on a table and in walked a Charlie Manson with a knife, which object he would pick up.

    Again though, the idea that guns save lives and help prevent crime, never seems to occur to folk like this.

  33. Just another stupid comment from someone who does not see the world as it really is! He’s in Newark for goodness sake! When he starts saying the police or NG needs to go into the slums of Newark and take the guns away from the gangs (and put them in jail) then I could begin to listen to him. Just another busybody who wants to plame the gun and not the person behind the trigger.

  34. Tell me you don’t understand what God says about the fallen nature of humanity in the Bible, without saying exactly that.

    Or even about the God ordained responsibility of government to bear the sword against evil doers rather than letting them run free harming the populace. That’s not very loving. But it is ignorant.

  35. Separation of church and state. So no, but thank you very much for the suggestion. It will be treated with all due regard.

  36. I follow a bit of catholic news, even though I’m neither catholic or even christian. The thing about the modern catholic church is that it’s almost entirely been taken over by leftist. Most of the US bishops are far more concerned with making sure their members vote the right way and not looking after their spiritual life. Even the current pope is an honest to god communist. Specially he was involved with ‘liberation theology’ which is basically catholic communism.

  37. In 1948 there were roughly 146 million people in the U.S. Today there are roughly 330 million people and we now have over 400 million deadly weapons floating around in the hands of viscous, and often drug crazed naked apes. Again in 1948 we had far, far less guns loose among the people than we do now. Robert Reich was correct when he revealed that studies prove that when there is an increase in gun ownership there is a corresponding increase in violent crime and murder and most murders are husbands killing their wives not from strangers breaking into a home in the middle of the night, 83% of gun homicides are the deaths of women.

    Way back in my college years one of my professors told me about a study that has stuck in my mind over the years. It goes thusly:

    An experiment was conducted whereby the experimenters deliberately abandoned a car and then they watched what would happen to it.

    In the country people reported an abandoned car but did not touch it as it was not their property.

    In the suburbs people stole things off of it like the battery and the tires.

    In the city the people were so crazy they actually attacked the car and destroyed it.

    I think that example goes a long way in explaining how overpopulation in an area does the people more harm than good as it causes all kinds of aberrant human behavior. When you mix in a surplus of deadly weapons is it any wonder we have mass murders every day?

    It is also known that when there is an increase in population there is not an equal increase in mental illness but rather an increase in mental illness far above the increase of the population. When you mix guns into a volatile situation you have mass murders. Foreign Countries have mentally ill people too but they do not have the mass murders there like we do because they control who can get a gun and many nations outlaw concealed carry and even ownership of the handgun and the assault rifle as well. The result overall is a safer society to live in as their statistics prove it beyond all doubt.

    Carrying a gun emboldens people and they often use guns and kill people for the most trivial of reasons, like road rage and even fighting over a parking space. Try and tell me that concealed carry makes you safer, only a far right paranoid moron would believe that. And that pop gun pistol you carry does you no good at all when a maniac with an assault rifle is shooting at you from 400 yards away like Paddock did. The Band that night who were all armed with pistols said they were helpless to defend themselves and they said they had changed their mind about not needing some serious new gun control laws.

    • dacian, the DUNDERHEAD, Here we go again with your “studies”. How come you never produce a single one? So what is we have more guns in circulation that people? BFD!
      It seems that none of those guns has ever committed a crime. It also seems you Leftists refuse to do anything about the mental illness problem. Yet you cite it all the time?
      The only people who are ’emboldened carrying a gun” are your criminal buddies that you also refuse to do anything about.
      For about the 5000th time, civilians do not have “assault rifles” in spite of you your vivid protestations.

      • He has a thing for naked apes and toxic masculinity. Is that what he gets good and hard at his antifa troop’s banjo recital night?

        Hey lil’d, another entry for your files.

      • Speak for yourself, my ar14 just jaywalked and kicked a puppy on it’s way to rob a bank. Evil incarnate.

      • N64456, You are giving him too much credit. I don’t think he has anything but hot air in between his ears.

        • Hush (and Walter),

          I vacillate between “rocks in his head” and “”vacuum where his brain is supposed to be” – YMMV. That he is an uneducated, babbling idiot AND a liar is indisputable.

    • You seem to willfully ignore the fact firearms are used for self-defense and the defense of other the majority of the time. Some studies have indicated firearms are used in a defensive manner 2.5 million times per year in the USA. You seem to spend a lot of time here, pumping out the same old lies and misinformation. You,sir, need a new hobby.

    • So your saying people should not be stupid enough to attack the gun itself?

      Ok but that has no relevance to this discussion.

    • That’s an interesting study to be sure. I remember a professor telling us about a study that showed 99.9% of Internet Trolls are sad, lonely, pathetic losers who are socially maladjusted and get their jollies by annoying people they don’t agree with.

      • I think he’s mixing ADHD medicines with very cheap alcohol. Think Thunderbird or a vodka that could also work as paint remover.

        • Hey lil ‘d, you got the combination wrong again… it’s six puppie uppers mixed with two doggie downers, not the other way around.
          And you’re sure that 83 percent of the victims killed by Naked-Ape Capitolvanians are actually women?… that only leaves 17 percent of the rest of the equation to account on black gang on gang violence.
          Did you and your pals all ditch math class and go huff silver spray paint ?

    • dacian, what I get from your “study” is that country people, the ones you like to ridicule, have restraint from taking what is not theirs. You suburban and city folk are deranged animals who don’t have a moral compass and can’t be civilized. Is that the point of this “study”

      I have a better idea for you, but the censors may not appreciate it.

  38. “It’s true that we have a Second Amendment right to bear arms, but rights always involve responsibilities – in this case, the responsibility to protect the innocent and to secure public safety and good order,” Tobin said. Sorry Bishop, my guns keep me and my family safe. Bishop, you need to go pray all the criminals repent and give up their evil ways and all their guns FIRST. Once you have accomplished that, please let me know. Thanks, A Lapsed Catholic.

  39. This is worthless coming from a person with no personal possessions and a life that he believes to be merely transitory and disposable at the whims of his god. Worse still, he has a great big coat of damnation armor that protects him from all but the most evil of the most evil—the last of 5 Cardinals in history to have been murdered occurred in 1993 and none of the 5 have been killed in the US.

    I do recall a Bishop in LA that was murdered at home earlier this year; that one seems to have been a personal interaction, as the vast majority of murders are, but maybe if the Bishop had been armed he’d be around to talk about his defensive gun use of the day.

    • “I do recall a Bishop in LA that was murdered at home earlier this year;…”

      And his wife, if memory serves.

      Odd thing, his home was not exactly in the ‘hood, if you know what I mean… 🙁

      • Fun Fact:

        Robbery boys don’t tend to ply their trade “in the ‘hood”. Simply because there’s very little of value to steal.

  40. The Church has been occupied territory since the hierarchy embraced usury and kabbalism during the “Renaissance” ( a “rebirth” of paganism). http://judaism.is/new-order-of-pharisees.html The problem only worsened in the 1920’s when the Communists sent hundred of perverts and Communists into the seminaries and then multiplied their own kind to subvert the Church. The overt occupation peaked at the illegitimate “Second” Vatican Council. Since then the Chair of Peter has been empty.

    • Kabbalism, ahh shucks I thought you was going to say cannibalism.
      If humans would eat more humans the world would be a better place. Abortion debates would be a thing of the past. Global Warming, a whole bunch of stuff would go away if human children had to worry about getting eaten by their grandpa(no Joe, not that kind of ate).

    • WordPress is digital thought police. When you commit a thought crime your message is sent to moderation purgatory.

  41. Well people should give up religion to avoid being brainwashed about an invisible man in the sky. Religion is responsible for more world wide deaths than anything else.

    • Remember this day that you read on TTAG how someone told you that one day you would be present before the Lord MLee. You still have time. And no, communism is the greatest killer of mankind.

  42. Two right I hold very dear are my “right to keep and bear arm” and my “right to worship”
    The Priest needs to stay in his field of expertise, and clean it up while keeping his nose out of Constitutional issues that he apparently knows very little about.

  43. Seriously? A Catholic priest saying we shouldn’t be able to protect ourselves? Well, the Catholic Church also supports predatory behavior by its own people and theft by government actors, so it is not really a surprise to me.

    My disappointment in the Catholic Church continues to be well-justified. That breaks my heart and keeps my wallet closed. Cardinal Tobin should find some humility. Or just retire; that would be good too.

  44. I posted an early draft-ish thing of this last night because motomike42 is, apparently, a glutton for punishment. This is a moderate revision. It’s longer than I’d like, partly due to trying to create a readable structure for WP, but breaking it into multiple sections simply makes no sense and destroys the cohesion so I’ve chosen to keep the math parts of this all in one place.

    Again, you can always copy+paste into a text editor of your choice for an easier read. Or you can read it in pieces, whatever buoys your watercraft. I even went with smaller paragraphs just for Sam’s eyes.

    ===

    Building off of my previous “ultra basics” post, a couple of things that I’m going to reference back to repeatedly are statistical games being played by propagandists and also the super basics of emotional and associative manipulation. I’ll build off these further in the future, but this is the basement floor level of what I’ll be rambling on about repeatedly on the statistics front:

    A Very Short Introduction to Statistics for Propagandists

    ***
    This isn’t a primer on statistics generally, it only covers a couple key facets that are most useful to the conversation at hand. Mostly, this isn’t pure math but statistics applied to observable human group behavior.

    Therefore, I’ll skip some of the scary math details and I’m not going to get into the weeds of how specific statistical games are played either. The general point here is that any of the individual games being played here need not capture everyone, only a certain percentage. What percentage varies depending on the goal and the overarching strategy being employed. Generally, the goal would be “interlocking fields of fire” where these games are run in multiple ways at the same time to get a certain number of people with each one, adding those groups together forms a critical mass that achieves the goal.

    These tactics are also useful for exposing contrarians and *troublemakers*, often in advance but that’s a topic I’ll come back to.

    Also, for the sake of simplicity, I’ve invented a couple of terms here, they’re the headings in italics.

    ***

    Statistical Preconditions for a Takeover

    It has long been known within the discipline known as “Organizational Behavior” that directing or capturing a company, NGO, government or group doesn’t require a majority to agree with the direction or position being taken.

    There are several ways to do this which don’t require a majority and are well known. Capturing leadership requires very few people to agree with you but requires proper targeting of individual people who may or may not be resistant to your plan. Alternatively, leadership can be taken over via infiltration of the organization’s management. These are specific tactics that are used regularly but which are not always possible or easy.

    The easier approach from a “cold open” stance is to get about 20% of the population to agree with you, or at least claim to. Sounds a lot like the Pareto Principle, huh? (Pareto Principle: Sometimes called the 80/20 rule. 20% of people own 80% of the assets, 20% of people in an organization do most of the work or the first 20% of effort yields the vast majority of the useful results.)

    Now, provided that your 20% of agitators and those adjacent to them are intransigent, relatively aggressive in pushing their concepts and kinda mean to those who resist openly, the other 80% of people within the organization will tend to defer to the 20%’s wishes to avoid conflict. This is especially true in workplaces where most people just want to work and go home, they don’t want drama. DEI plays heavily on this in its opening stages of taking over an organization.

    Other methods, which are often more basic, are commonly deployed on even larger scales, like countries or state-wide elections. These usually involve the creation of excess fear and tend to produce something like an oddball normal curve with a 30-40-30 distribution. Which, *oddly enough*, tends to be a good baseline for the political breakdown of the US with a two-party system. *Weird*, huh?

    Unfortunately, in this case the 40% who don’t know or care and the 30% who are opposed (the 70% majority) tend to be ruthlessly demonized because this distribution tends to come from fear-based manipulation tactics. This actually allows for a core cadre of true believers, perhaps as low as 3%, (with 27% somewhat adjacent to them for various personal/professional/emotional reasons) to run the show.

    This is particularly true of a society with regard to totalitarianism and responses to perceived threats. It is why strongmen and dictators can take over when they do not have anywhere near majority support. See the Red Revolution in Russia for an example of an extreme minority taking over shockingly quickly once in the position to do so.

    This is exactly how the Stasi was established, how it maintained control and why it was even more feared than the KGB. The “adjacent” to the “3%” were an army of informers. A very small group of politicians and their henchmen lived rent free 24/7 in the minds of the entire population and controlled the population’s behavior to a shocking degree. The Stasi even used this for internal control within their organization, because they were lovely people.

    Note: The above plays on group dynamics only. Leadership positions can complicate or uncomplicate the propagandist’s job depending on several factors including the personality of the leader, organizational structure and organizational culture (“corporate culture” as it were). Some leaders will resist, others will fall easily into the 40% that won’t resist. Others will be in the 3-30% that are for whatever this move is. This can be further complicated by incentive structures, which is a Game-theoretic topic for another time. We’ll return to this when covering “entryism”, a favorite tactic of the Left for influence injection into various organizations to puppet them for further propaganda purposes as part of creating a wide net of “interlocking fields of fire”.

    Sampling the Fringe for Normalization

    In statistics we can pull a sample from anywhere we like on a normal curve and create a new normal curve from that new sample provided we have enough data points to do it.

    In propaganda the specific number of data points isn’t of concern the way it is in hard statistics. This is because with proper media discipline data points can be essentially manufactured or we can control the majority’s perception of the number of datapoints. Regardless, the principle is essentially the same.

    A selected sample is chosen from the fringe of a population. This group will be selected specifically from an area several standard deviations from the norm and will display a set of characteristics we wish to have become “the norm” for the larger group that makes up the original normal curve. This is a very, very common tactic.

    The new “curve” (that is our selected examples chosen specifically for being a certain type of outliers) is then presented repeatedly over time via various outlets until it appears normal to the target audience. A new pattern has been created in the minds of audience who will then attempt to extract a meaning from that pattern. They will also, undoubtedly, try to pass on both the pattern and their preferred meaning from it to other people that they know.

    If the sample has been carefully curated, which isn’t very hard to do, then the meaning that most people will extract from the pattern is highly predictable. I will return to this topic in basic brain mechanics, but for now the point is that our brain seeks patterns and then to derive some meaning from the existence of those patterns. Meaning generally defined as an “impetus for action” or “what we should do” based on the observed pattern.

    For example; A road seems to have a high number of drunk drivers between 4pm and 7pm, or perhaps you’re just told that it does by several people. What does that MEAN? It means we should avoid that road at the specified times if at all possible and if this is not possible then we should drive that road with the utmost caution being on the lookout for the specific threat of drunk drivers (you’re not looking for giraffes or armies of circus clowns wandering across the roadway because these are not the threats you’ve been advised about).

    This facet of human cognition has several uses but for our purposes this is how you can set groups against each other with ease, especially if they use different media without much crossover. Gun owning folks don’t watch much of The View, but suburban soccer-mom types do.

    Hence, The View is a great platform to screech about how the AR-15 is the gun “that’s killing children!” and other such nonsense. We can now statistically predict that people who watch The View often will take a dim view of AR-15 owners. Further, we can predict that since we’ve basically slandered AR-15 owners without their knowledge these gun owners will statistically tend to react poorly to suggestions that they don’t care about the safety of school children especially since that’s untrue and they have no idea where this abhorent accusation is coming from.

    And just like that you have two groups who are arguing, with a mutual growing distaste for each other and neither group really knows exactly why this is happening. A few more media spin cycles and the two groups just generally don’t like each other. They will now find it quite hard to discuss things in an adult manner with each side assuming the other enters the situation in bad faith because they are, generally, bad people.

    In terms of gun control more generally, we can talk about a few high-profile mass shootings a lot. Just beat the shit out of that drum for a while, maxing out the hype. “Waving the bloody shirt” as it were.

    If we keep doing this, we can create the illusion that these things happen all the time for a large percentage of people who, really, don’t pay much attention but notice the “din in the background”. They hear about something often so they will tend to assume that whatever that thing is, it happens often. When we combine a healthy number of the 40% of people who don’t tend to pay attention/care that much and our 30% of believers, we don’t need to get anywhere near 100%, half-plus-one will do, of the people who don’t pay much attention and we have an overall majority. We’ve just manufactured a majority viewpoint if we did our job right. If we fell short we still have a nice plurality as the base from which to start our next attempt from.

    This can be played in either direction, creating for example, the illusion that a company always gives to charity or that something bad happens more than it really does.

    Specifically with regards to gun control; Back this with some data you’ve carefully chosen, some wordplay and some “experts” who’ll say what you want and you will successfully create the impression that the worst kind of mass shootings, and also the rarest, are actually dangerously commonplace. I mean, even the doctors and scientists are worried!

    You have now created a major safety concern in the mind of a portion of the public and you are now in a position to offer a solution to the perceived problem.

    And remember, you don’t need a majority of people to believe this to make good headway. Also, note that some of the people you snare with this will act as your missionaries, carrying the message to other people who trust them. Mary doesn’t pay a lot of attention to the news, but Sheryl sure is freaked out about the massive number of school shootings. Mary’s not sure if that’s true or not, but better safe than sorry and she likes and trusts Sheryl, which to some degree makes Sheryl a trusted source. Mary may, and statistically probably will, even repeat this game of telephone with other people in ways that get blurry very fast because the information transmission will rapidly change but generally contain the same overall message and tone of alarm. Perfect.

    This accomplishes what I refer to as “injecting something into the zeitgeist”.

    What solution shall we offer to the anxiety we intentionally manufactured? Obviously, the solution we wanted to offer before but couldn’t sell to a disinterested Mary and Sheryl without building a market to attract them first.

    It could be gun control or you could run in the other direction. What you put through the door you’ve opened is entirely up to the propagandist doing the pushing. This technique could be used to sell something educational like Nova or Planet Earth. Or it could be outright slander against a religious, political or other minority. What sort of cake comes out of the oven is up to the baker.

    Some examples of sampling the fringe:

    This technique can, and is, used to fuel what I’ve referred to as “generational warfare”, both sides of the “culture war” and, most obviously if you’re looking, sales of safety equipment.
    One can sample the fringe of college kids and can then create the perception that they’re all blue haired commies in gender studies departments or they’re all 4.0 science majors.

    Or we can sample the fringe of retirees and all Boomers become greedy fucks who just want their Social Security, national bankruptcy be damned, hate their own children and don’t give a shit about how they ruined the country or maybe they’re all kindly old folks who love handing out Werther’s Original.

    If we’re dicks about this, statistically, both sides now have a relatively large number of people who just generally dislike the other group and, especially using the internet, will make that quite public. This acts to reinforce the perceptions going forward, like a phased array antenna. Good luck generating a useful conversation between the two groups now (which was part of the point). This is part of “social atomization”, something Lenin was a fan of and which I will return to later.

    This little gem of a tactic is fucking everywhere in society these days partly because of rage-bait media strategies and known differences in media consumption which can add to the effect.

    In this instance, that is sampling the fringe, it’s not about what you want to sell, pick a sale and sell it. It’s how you sell it. Subarus, gun control, Lysol… whatever you want. You just need to think about how to select your sample in a way that creates a reasonably predictable outcome in those who come to believe your sample is actually the norm.

    Chris Farley shitting in boxes with a guarantee printed on the outside, and then selling them, comes to mind. He had free time, after all.

  45. Your Eminence,
    All due respect Sir,
    but,
    No,
    as in,
    Hell No.
    I’ll not be giving up my guns anytime soon.

  46. Methinks the good Cardinal, has been burning and inhaling more than Frankincense out of his Thurible.

  47. Ben Franklin was asked how long the USA will stay a Republic and he said so long as people don’t give up their rights to be armed against their own government and tyranny. My fire arms will stay where they are and be used to keep the piece against all tyranny

    • He did? Please indicate where that quote can be found? I believe he actually said “A republic, madame, if you can keep it”. Nothing about guns.

    • He was off on that one. There are plenty of republics which don’t have anything like 2A. We’re very much the anomaly.

  48. Right, give up OUR guns so we can have a free society. Just like Nazi Germany, Russia, China, and all the other countries that have tyrannical dictatorial governments.

  49. Hey lil ‘d, you got the combination wrong again… it’s six puppie uppers mixed with two doggie downers, not the other way around.
    And you’re sure that 83 percent of the victims killed by Naked-Ape Capitolvanians are actually women?… that only leaves 17 percent of the rest of the equation to account on black gang on gang violence.
    Did you and your pals all ditch math class and go huff silver spray paint ?

  50. This cardinal needs to remove his rose colored glasses…giving up our firearms won’t solve the violence problem. Evil has been with us since the beginning of the human race.

    I seem to recall that the first recorded homicide was committed between two brothers; one wielded a rock to murder his brother. Getting rid of guns won’t remove the evil that can oft be found in the hearts of men…

  51. In his picture he is giving the world the finger, obviously, he needs to get back to molesting young boys, and leave firearms alone. He would feel that no one else should have weapons. What an ass hat.

  52. Literally doing the devil’s work.

    “Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.”

  53. That’s a hard no…I wonder if has an old Altar Boy problem that someone kept the file on and now he’s being leveraged? …or ,equally likely; he’s merely another one who regards the faithful as sheep to be eventually processed into mutton when they can no longer be sheared?

  54. Some people make the inaccurate assumption that men of the cloth are observant and have a reasonably respectable intellectual level. I’ll give this guy the benefit of the doubt and assume he’s been consumed with studying catholicism and has no inkling of what has occurred on the world throughout history. If someone who spent a vast portion of their lives learning how to sing and dance for example, I probably wouldn’t think to consult with them to get their opinion of the best way to run wiring in my house. Stick to wearing your ridiculous costumes and lighting candles, and leave living in society to those who actually do it.

  55. The pope and the entire vatican are all disciples of the devil and the New World Order.That’s why you never hear them condemning atrocities against other christians in other countries.They want you to give up your guns so their tyrannical masters can have their way with us(concentration/extermination camps to follow)!!!

    • Let’s remember WHO it was that signed the infamous Concordat with the Hitler regime in the 1930’s.

    • Thank you for speaking the truth.
      The roman catholic organization is truly satanic, worse than piss-lam and its pedo-prophet
      Everyone who remains in the rc organization will burn in hell for eternity.
      Repeating … roman catholicism is 100% evil.
      Lucifer is its demigod.

    • Indeed. The Roman Catholic church has been evil from the day it was founded. It has embraced corruption of every kind and used violence and intimidation to gain and keep power. The pope has never been the voice of God on Earth, even when there were three of them. I grew up a Catholic, went through all the early life rituals and rites, and left as soon as I had the choice. It always felt empty and evil to me.

      We are all shepherds of our own souls and responsible to God, not man.

      • Mikial, Sorry but there are many Catholic priests and laity, that are God fearing and righteous. The Catholic Church is a “vehicle” for salvation. There are some leaders in the Church who are working at cross purposes.

        madmax, you have to have been asleep during your history classes.

  56. You and your congregation for the propagation of the faith first padre. Then MAYBE. But unlikely.

  57. You are confused, I think. You meant “Satan”, right? “Lucifer” is another name for “Prometheus”, who gave men fire – not a synonym for “Satan”.

  58. Thomas Paine, writing to religious pacifists in 1775:
    “The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The balance of power is the scale of peace. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside. Horrid mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived of the use of them; the weak would become a prey to the strong.”

  59. People like him are either grievously naive or willingly stupid to think that no guns would mean no crime or violence. Let’s just say for the sake of discussion that guns do not exist. How does he expect a fat, out-of-shape person like himself to survive being attacked by a young, strong criminal with a sword, knife, club, or just bare hands? There would be no equalizer in society and bullies and criminals would dominate everyone else by virtue of being tougher and meaner. He is a fool. But then, all Liberals are deluded fools with the exception of those who are just plain corrupt and evil.

    • Maybe he expects to die in an attack; maybe he thinks that’s the sacrifice that will get him into Heaven? Or maybe he expects his eloquent words to soften the heart of the criminal and cause him to stop hacking and slashing…and saving that soul will get him into heaven?

      But that never helps an oppressed people. It requires a firm spine and the muscle and commitment from men much harder than the priest who never works a field or fixes a home.

      It certainly required somebody bigger and badder to stop Hitler’s genocide. Gentle words from a soft teddybear-shaped cardinal did nothing.

  60. “It’s true that we have a Second Amendment right to bear arms, but rights always involve responsibilities – in this case, the responsibility to protect the innocent and to secure public safety and good order,” Tobin said. “The mass shootings we are witnessing almost weekly now are a serious threat to the lives and well-being of all people.”

    Tell me, when will all those who commit mass shootings in Chicago going to take responsibility?
    Oh, wait, they dont because they are criminals!

  61. As a true believer in God and the US Constitution I only have one thing to day to the Cardinal
    and that’s “OY-VEY”.

  62. So, in his perfect world, when guns are gone, there will be no more violence. Nope. What about a sword, knife, screw driver, hammer, pitch fork, baseball bats; etc. Guess he’ll want these gone too.

  63. RISE AND RISE AGAIN TILL LAMBS BECOMES LIONS
    MULON LABE
    REMEMBER THE ALAMO
    DAMN THE TOPEDOS FULL STEAM AHEAD

    ALL I GOT TO SAY ABOUT DAT

  64. Of course he wants to disarm his flock, the greatest threat to pedo priests is gun toting alter boys. Armed alter boys don’t get ass-raped in the name of the father, son, and holy penis!

  65. American Patriots learned the hard way that to give up their guns was to give up their freedoms. They don’t teach that in the Communist-run schools anymore. Most of the rest of the world never learned that truth. That’s why America has stayed free since 1776.

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