Resources to Respond to Gun Violence

May 24, 2022

Office of Government Relations

Since at least the 1970s, The Episcopal Church has resolved to support legislation that would reduce the risk of gun violence. More than a dozen times, General Convention has urged Congress to act to restrict the ownership, sale, and use of firearms, to do all it can to prevent gun violence, to limit the availability of weapons, and to lament the lives broken and destroyed by violence. We have recognized the efforts of Bishops United Against Gun Violence, and commended the leadership of young people who desperately want to end this violence. Decades later, we see gun violence continuing on a daily basis, in communities with high rates of violence, acknowledging the disproportionate impact in communities of color and the impact of racist violence. We acknowledge the harm caused by intimate partner and family violence, the lives lost to suicide, and those terrorized by mass shootings.

We reiterate today our urgent call for legislation that will restrict who can own firearm s, require background checks, eliminate loopholes, tighten laws against gun trafficking, require gun safety training, fund gun violence prevention programs, and address gun violence as a public health crisis.

In light of tragic and horrifying killings in Uvalde, Texas, we reiterate again the particular obligation we have to protect children. As expressed by General Convention in 2000, we “call upon Episcopalians to seek ways to develop community strategies and create sanctuaries for our children, so that all may come to identify and value themselves and others as the precious children of God that they are, and that they may come to know peace in their lives and to create peace for future generations.”