"Do we really want peace? Then let's ban all weapons so we don't have to live in fear of war," said the pontiff.
While on the surface, the disappearance of all weapons might suggest the inability to do violence, in reality, it would mean the certain annihilation of the West as a civilization.
For starters, the pope seems to forget that violence and the things that motivate it – hate, envy, rapacity, and plain old evil – do not need weapons. Had he turned to the book he claims to represent, the Bible, he would have seen that the first act of violence, of murder – that of Cain against his brother, Abel – did not require weapons, just a violent and envious will. The brothers "were in the field [when] Cain rose against Abel his brother and killed him." Genesis 4 does not shed light on how this first fratricide occurred, but it was most assuredly done without a formal weapon – maybe a large rock, a branch, or simply Cain's bare hands.
And it is from here that one understands why the West would be swept away without weapons and walls – another defense mechanism Pope Francis wishes to see eliminated. The same hate, envy, and rapacity that some non-Western peoples have for the West – understood in the context of a "clash of civilizations" – would remain, but there would be little to stop it, deter it, or keep it at bay.
Contrary to first appearances, were all weapons around the world instantly to disappear, that would not lead to an even playing field, where, if it comes to it, men limited to fighting with their fists would more or less maintain the status quo. For starters, in a world still largely defined by civilizations, the people of the West are much fewer in number than those of the rest of the – mostly third and desperate – world.
This is especially on display in the West's interaction with Islam. One need only look to Western European nations, where the interplay of emasculated Western males and aggressive Muslim migrants is on constant display. Thanks to the latter, Sweden has become the rape capital of the world. That is not because Muslims use weapons, or are stronger, or are more numerous – they are still a tiny minority – but because many Swedish men have been so indoctrinated in passivity that they are not even able to protect their...