May
13
2025
Gun Safety Working Group Offers Resources
The Gun Safety Working Group is pleased to offer support as your congregation begins the process of considering Resolution 24-05: To Require Individual Congregations to Consider Declaring Their Church Property as Weapon-Free Zones, adopted at our 2024 Diocesan Convention.
Resolution 24-05 calls upon each parish and mission in the Diocese to formally consider adopting a policy that designates church property as a weapon-free zone. While it does not mandate any congregation to take this step, it does require discussion and discernment at the local level. The resolution recognizes the unique contexts of each community. It upholds the importance of local autonomy while also affirming our diocesan commitment to promoting peace, safety, and the sanctity of life in our worship spaces.
This diocesan resolution echoes a similar action taken by the Episcopal Church at its 2012 General Convention. It is also supported by Bishop Susan Brown Snook’s Statement on Gun Violence (May 2024), in which she urged every congregation in our diocese to begin considering a weapon-free policy. Both the 2012 General Convention resolution and Bishop Susan’s statement in May 2024 are rooted in our call to be peacemakers, honor the sanctity of life, and create spaces of welcome and safety.
To assist you in this discernment, the Diocese has launched a new Gun Safety Resource Page, designed to help congregations at every stage of the process—from initial conversation through policy development and, if chosen, implementation.
The site includes core resources to guide your discussions around Resolution 24-05. We encourage your congregation to begin this important conversation now. Thank you for your commitment to fostering communities where all feel secure and at peace.
In Christ’s peace,
Paul Conry
Gun Safety Working Group, Chair
Paul Conry
Gun Safety Working Group, Chair
P.S. – If you would like support in your discussions through detailed presentations, simple conversation, or additional resources to consider, please reach out to the Gun Safety Working Group. We are excited to help your community. Contact the Gun Safety Working Group Here
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Category: #Advocacy
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I understand the love and concern that goes into this sentiment. In actuality every shooting incident appears to happen in a publicly declared gun-free zone such as a school or church. And law enforcement famously can’t stop these shootings after they begin because reaction time by arriving at best can be 5 minutes or more, during which additional victims can be shot. A few such gun-free zones have helped to mitigate such violent acts by a military or law enforcement church member carrying concealed weapons who are able to stop the melee of victims being mowed down by shooting the shooter when a clear line of fire presents itself nearby.
If this seems a scenario not belonging in a church setting, it has already happened in isolated settings, If Episcopal churches are going to support gun-free zones, they owe their members some sort of policy in which at least one or two church members are going to alternate at each Sunday service. Here are two examples of churches that have been able to instantly stop the shooter, one by shooting him and the other none violently without the use of a gun.
West Freeway Church of Christ shooting: On December 29, 2019, a gunman opened fire during a service at the West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, Texas, killing two people. Jack Wilson, a volunteer member of the church’s security team, shot and killed the gunman, ending the attack in less than six seconds.
Geneva Presbyterian Church shooting: On May 15, 2022, an armed parishioner was able to hog-tie the gunman after a shooting at the Geneva Presbyterian Church in Laguna Woods, California, preventing further injuries and fatalities.
Hi Leigh. Thank you for commenting on the article about the Gun Safety Working Group offering resources. You raised the issue if Episcopal churches were to support designating their campuses weapon-free, they need to have the flexibility to allow some sort of armed security.
Yes, the resolution process does have the flexibility for each congregation to allow exceptions in their policy. Each congregation develops its specific policy to reflect its theological grounding, core values, culture, and community identity. The policy could include a blanket exemption for law enforcement, church security, or exempt any other person approved by the church leadership to carry weapons.
Secondly, you raised concerns that being weapon free increases the risk of active shootings. A 2024 UC Davis study showed more active shooting cases occurred in gun allowing establishments than gun-free ones. Active shootings were 62.5% less likely to occur in gun-free establishments than in gun-allowing places. The researchers concluded it is very unlikely that active shooters are targeting gun-free zones; conversely, gun-free zones may be protective.” Here are links to that study and follow up discussion.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanam/article/PIIS2667-193X(24)00164-9/fulltext
https://rockinst.org/blog/the-role-of-gun-free-zones-in-reducing-firearm-violence/
Hi Paul,
Checking whether contact form works.
Gun Safety seems to have slipped off most recent EDSD newsletter. 🙁