Newark Cardinal: Achieve ‘Peace’ by ‘Voluntarily’ Giving up 2A Rights

Newark Cardinal Joseph Tobin says Americans should “voluntarily” give up their Second Amendment rights in order to achieve “peace” over “violence.”

Crux published Tobin’s comments, noting he admits Americans “have a Second Amendment right to bear arms” but he believes the right is eclipsed by “the responsibility to protect the innocent and to secure public safety and good order.”

Therefore, Tobin observed, “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.”

In lieu of voluntary disarmament, Tobin also pushed for Catholics to contact their elected representatives and push for more gun control.

He said the achievement of additional gun laws are part of “[regulating] our behavior in order to protect the vulnerable and ensure the common good.”

On July 13, 2017, Breitbart News looked back on Chicago’s handgun ban, which lasted from 1982 to 2010. During that time, Chicago witnessed homicide numbers that far surpass the numbers witnessed since the ban was ended.

For example, Chicago saw nearly 4,400 shooting victims and over 760 homicides in 2016.

And 2021 saw 797 homicides in Chicago, leading Breitbart News to observe it was the deadliest year in a quarter century.

However, the high death numbers of 2016 and 2021 were far outdone when the handgun ban was place. The Chicago Police Department reported there were 850 homicides during 1993, which is nearly 100 more homicides in 1993 than CNN’s figure of 762 homicides in 2016. Moreover, the Chicago Police Department shows there were 930 homicides in 1994; 921 homicides in 1991; and a startling 940 homicides in 1992.

The surge in Chicago homicides during the 1990s came at a time that law-abiding citizens were barred from owning handguns for self-defense.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010. and he holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.