Statement from Bishop Susan Brown Snook | Bishops United Against Gun Violence
The Gun Safety Working Group offers its assistance in your consideration of EDSD’s Resolution 24-05: Require Individual Congregations to Consider Declaring their Church Property as Weapon-Free Zones (adopted at the 2024 Diocesan Convention).
The resolution does not require you to declare your campus weapon-free. Your church must consider adopting such a policy. We hope that you will reach a decision that is right for your church through thoughtful discussion of our Christian teachings, prayer, and inclusion of facts and/or opinions relating to gun safety.
This resolution implements a similar resolution previously adopted at The Episcopal Church’s General Convention in 2012. Our Bishop, The Rt. Rev. Dr. Susan Brown Snook, in her Bishops Statement on Gun Violence (May 2024), urged each parish in our diocese to consider declaring itself a Weapon-Free Zone. We encourage all congregations to start their consideration process now. Both General Convention’s 2012 resolution and Bishop Snook’s statement take into consideration our calling as disciples of Christ to be peacemakers, to commit to nonviolence, and to honor the sanctity of life. While there are different views as to how we can best provide a welcoming, peaceful, and secure environment in our beloved churches, we can all agree that we want to gather without fear for our safety.
Diocesan staff and the Gun Safety Working Group have launched a Gun Safety webpage to help you discern whether or not to adopt this policy. Over the next few months, we intend to add information that may be of help throughout the process: discernment, development of policy, and policy implementation (should you choose to declare yourselves weapon-free).
Below are the initial steps toward discerning if this is right for your community.
Thank you for your action on this critical initiative, and let us continue to pray for peace, both within our walls and in the world around us.
In Peace, Paul Conry and the Gun Safety Working Group
