'Only A Fool Believes Gun Control Will Solve The Problem': Archbishop Charles Chaput Reacts To Rash Of Mass Shootings Around U.S.
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- On Monday, Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput reacted to the mass shootings that took place in Ohio and Texas. But his reaction was a different view from local leaders who are calling for a ban of assault weapons and stricter gun laws.
"...Only a fool can believe that 'gun control' will solve the problem of mass violence,'" he wrote in his weekly column on the Philadelphia Archdiocese website.
Since becoming the city's archbishop in 2011, Chaput has been on record as a conservative.
However, the archbishop wrote he supports thorough background checks and more restrictive access to guns for anyone looking to purchase one.
Before coming to Philadelphia, Chaput was the archbishop in Denver when the shooting at Columbine High School shooting happened.
He recalled that experience in his column.
"The experience taught me that assault rifles are not a birthright, and the Second Amendment is not a Golden Calf," he wrote.
The column ended with Chaput saying that there will not be a change until we look deeper than "treating the symptoms in culture of violence."
"The people using the guns in these loathsome incidents are moral agents with twisted hearts. And the twisting is done by the culture of sexual anarchy, personal excess, political hatreds, intellectual dishonesty, and perverted freedoms that we've systematically created over the past half-century," he wrote.