Historian Gary Wills compares guns to the Biblical god Moloch:
The gun is not a mere tool, a bit of technology, a political issue, a point of debate. It is an object of reverence. Devotion to it precludes interruption with the sacrifices it entails. Like most gods, it does what it will, and cannot be questioned. Its acolytes think it is capable only of good things. It guarantees life and safety and freedom…Its power to do good is matched by its incapacity to do anything wrong. It cannot kill. Thwarting the god is what kills… The answer to problems caused by guns is more guns, millions of guns, guns everywhere, carried openly, carried secretly, in bars, in churches, in offices, in government buildings. Only the lack of guns can be a curse, not their beneficent omnipresence.
Gary Wills is a former Northwestern professor who has written widely on both religion and American history. He wrote a detailed review of the Second Amendment for the NY Review of Books in 1995.
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