Cathal Barry
The Irish-born Bishop of Dallas has criticised as “cowboy” the gun culture in the US.
Bishop Kevin Farrell, who was born in Dublin, insisted the “cowboy mentality” that existed in the US with regard to guns was leading to thousands of deaths in the country every year.
Dr Farrell told The Irish Catholic that he supported the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution which protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms, however, he warned there had “to be certain limitations to those rights”.
“We do have to have certain restraints on who can have guns and who can sell guns.
“You can’t sell tobacco or liquour without a licence so why would you not need a licence to sell a gun? It’s just not logical. This is a really serious matter,” he told this newspaper.
Courage
Praising President Barack Obama for the executive actions he announced recently to curb gun violence in the US, Dr Farrell said he was “pleased that somebody had the courage to actually do something about this because I find that our congress in the United States sees this as a political issue and not as a moral issue”.
“Certainly every moral issue is also a political issue but we have to think about the welfare of the citizens of the nation and I think that’s what is being neglected.
“There has to be more control over the sale of guns and who can purchase a lethal weapon because we’re not talking about hunting rifles we are talking about guns designed to kill people and that is an important distinction that is often lost,” he said.
Writing in an online blog post, Bishop Farrell said President Obama’s actions were the “first steps in correcting gun laws so weak that they are ludicrous”.
“It is absurd that terrorists, criminals, and mentally unbalanced people can freely and openly buy weapons not intended for sport, but designed to kill people.
“Let us pray that our legislators will see this as a human and not a political concern so that gun violence can be mitigated through appropriate legislation that allows us to live in a safe environment while respecting our Second Amendment rights,” he said.