Has God Given You the Right to Own a Gun?

The Right to Self-Defense and Property Protection

Is the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution a God-given right? Let's be more specific. Has God given you the right to own a gun? Now obviously there are no guns in the Bible, so you won't find a verse that says, Thou shalt own a gun.

Yeah, there's that verse in Luke where Jesus says to buy a sword, but that's not saying you have the right to own a gun. Let's look into God's law, where in Exodus 22 -2 we read the following, If a thief is found breaking in and is struck so that he dies, there shall be no blood guilt for him.

So God has given you the right to defend yourself. But defend yourself with what? The word for struck in Hebrew is the verb nekal, which means to smite. So when a thief is struck, it does not mean that he was just punched in the face or knocked in the head and accidentally dies.

The thief was struck so as to be killed. And he could be struck with anything, even a sword or a spear. Now if we gave that law a modern application, we might understand it like this. If a thief is found breaking in and is shot so that he dies, the person who shot him is not guilty of wrongdoing.

Notice that the passage is not merely about defending one's own life. This is about defending one's property. You have a God-given right to defend yourself and your family and what you own. If you kill a thief who breaks into your house at night, you're not guilty.

And if thieves are known to break in with guns, it's probably a good idea that you own a gun. Hasn't God given you that right? When we understand the text.