Religious Leaders, Universal Life Church Call For Tighter Gun Controls In Wake Of Colorado Shooting
July 20th, 2012
The Universal Life Church extends its condolences to those affected by the shooting in Aurora, Colorado this morning.
Many left-leaning religious leaders are already speaking out against the proliferation of guns in America following the violence that occurred in the early hours of the morning on Friday, July 20 in Aurora, Colorado when James Holmes, 24, walked into a movie theater there and opened fire. In the resulting chaos, 10 people – men, women, and children as young as nine months – were killed and over 60 wounded; two have since died from the injuries they sustained in the shooting.
These religious leaders see lax gun control laws as being directly responsible, in part, for the massacre. They claim that having tighter regulations would have prevented, or made it more difficult, for Holmes to acquire the four guns, including an assault rifle and shotgun, that he brought with him on his rampage.
Kathryn Mary Lohre is one such religious official. She is the president of the National Council of Churches, a coalition of churches which represents 37 faith groups, approximately 10,000 congregations, and 45 millions Americans, which passed a broad resolution amongst its member churches in favor of gun control in 2010.
In response to the shooting, Lohre called on the country’s leaders to “seek policies that will foster greater peace in our communities and throughout this country.”
Rev. Welton Gaddy, president of the 185,000-member Interfaith Alliance, requested that people across all creeds and religions to unite and comfort the victims of the tragedy.
“We as a nation need to be done forever with the thought that killing settles anything,” Gaddy said.
Numerous Christian figures have spoken out against gun violence via social networking sites.
San Francisco-based writer Anne Lamott, who frequently discusses Christianity in the books she writes, tweeted, “Is no one going to say that these massacres [wouldn’t] happen if the crazy men had to use bats or hammers?”
Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and editor of the Catholic weekly magazine America, tweeted, “Gun control is a pro-life issue… Pray for the families of the victims and for an end to the taking of life by senseless violence.
Good Universal Life Church ministers worry about the safety and well-being of their fellow citizens before they argue for their ability to possess dangerous weapons.
The Universal Life Church echoes these ministers’ sentiments. We abhor the proliferation of guns, from handguns to assault rifles, and urge the federal government to pass stricter gun control laws. Our home city, Seattle, is currently undergoing its most violent year in recent memory; there have been more gun-related homicides in the Emerald City so far this year than there were in all of 2011. The City of Seattle is currently looking into passing measures that will limit what guns are allowed in city limits, and the ULC commends their proactiveness. If only the rest of the country was as willing and interested in protecting their communities as our city council is with theirs.
The Universal Life Church is alarmed by how eager many Americans are to go out of their way and attempt to pass religious laws banning things like same-sex marriage, yet how reluctant these same people are to relinquish control over objects which cause 100,000 injuries – and approximately 30,000 deaths – every year. The ULC staff is unsurprised that pro-gun advocacy groups like the National Rifle Association (NRA) are yet to make official statements on the massacre, and we eagerly anticipate reading the typical “blame the person, not the gun” excuses that they will inevitably release.
For better or for worse, religious organizations wield considerable power over the hearts and minds of spiritual Americans. Most of America, including many of those who are members of organizations like the NRA, profess to believe in the teachings of a man who preached about things like compassion and caring. The Universal Life Church is absolutely of the opinion that were he alive today, Jesus wouldn’t have to think for a second before condemning the prevalence of guns in American society, and the subsequent gun-related violence that is found here. Along these lines, the ULC condemns those who have the power to halt gun-related violence or speak out against lax gun laws yet choose not to do so for reasons of political or economic convenience.
Universal Life Church ministers who have the power to alter gun laws (i.e those who sit on sit councils, work in state government, and the like) should consider the ULC’s position on gun regulations and consider the events that unfolded in Aurora today. We sincerely hope that these ministers find it in their hearts and schedules to push for a safer, gun-free America.
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Your logic is flawed, and it bgirns into question your ability to properly use research methods. The absence of a person with a gun to stop the Westroads shooter cannot logically be used as evidence that guns can help stop such violent attacks. Unless you can prove that a person was kept from bringing in a gun to Westroads, your hypothesis is mere speculation. Again, the absence of a fact (a person with a gun could have stopped the shooter)cannot be used to make a leap in logic that had something taken place, i.e., a person with a gun could have stopped the shooter, the shooting would not have taken place. In simpler terms, the fact that guns are banned from Westroads is no evidence whatsoever that if guns were allowed in Westroads, the shooting would have been any less likely whatsoever. Your logic is flawed, presumably because to support your thesis, you need to make such unsupported leaps in logic that are pure nonsense. More guns are bad. Less guns are good. In this case, security should have had guns, and they should have had the courage to stop someone who they saw with a huge bulge in his jacket, which they admit to have seen prior to the shooting. And I also see no reason why it took dispatchers two minutes to call out an officer after getting the 9-11 call for the shooting. That seems like a very very slow dispatch time.