While the Christian conservative movement has long held the Second Amendment in high regard and seemingly didn't have much interest in considering gun control, the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, might have begun to change some minds.
As CNN wrote, "Many Christians are wrestling with gun control, an issue they once held as a sacred, untouchable right. For years gun control was championed by Catholic and mainline Protestant churches, but now many evangelicals are joining the growing choir of Americans asking what can be done."
As such, here are seven Christian denominations with liberal stances on gun control:
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1. Catholic Church
A month after Sandy Hook, the
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops released a statement in which they reiterated the gun control statement the organization had made in 2000. In part, it read, "1. Support measures that control the sale and use of firearms, 2. Support measures that make guns safer, 3. Call for sensible regulations of handguns, 4. Support legislative efforts that seek to protect society from violence associated with easy access to deadly weapons including assault rifles, and 5. Make a serious commitment to confront the pervasive role of addiction and mental illness in crime."
2. Lutheran
All the way back in 1993, the Churchwide Assembly adopted a resolution in which it called for, "Passage and strict enforcement of local, state and national legislation that rigidly controls manufacture, importation, exportation, sale, purchase, transfer, receipt, possession and transportation of handguns, assault weapons and assault-like weapons and their parts, excluding rifles and shotguns used for hunting and sporting purposes, for use other than law enforcement and military purposes."
3. Anglican
A few days after Sandy Hook, Rowan Williams, then the archbishop of Canterbury, said guns use people, too. He also said that Americans had the technological capabilities with firearms to make mass shootings more likely, and he called for more gun control. “When we have the technology for violence easily to hand, our choices are skewed and
we are more vulnerable to being manipulated into violent action," Williams said, via The Blaze.
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4. Presbyterian
For more than three decades, the Presbyterian church has been in support of gun control.
According to the Presbyterian Mission Agency, the gun control advocacy began in the late 1960s after a rash of political assassinations, and the church has reaffirmed those statements in 1976, 1988, 1990, 1998, 2000, and 2008.
5. Methodist
Violence and violence to children are two of the Methodist Church's biggest concerns, and among other possible solutions to the massive problem, it has called upon its congregations to educate the community on gun violence and violence prevention, to "advocate for the eventual reduction of the availability of guns in society," and to "support federal legislation in the US Congress to regulate the importation, manufacturing, sale, and possession of guns and ammunition by the general public."
6. Baptists
While a Southern Baptist spokesman wrote a letter to President Barack Obama saying that he hoped any kind of gun control didn't infringe on the rights of the Second Amendment, Richard Land also said he supported mandatory background checks for all firearm purchases.
7. Quakers
In this Peoplesworld.org post, one Quaker explains how he and his colleagues came up with the wording of this gun control statement: " "We ... oppose permitting guns in public areas where there are children. We oppose access to weapons that are never appropriate for civilized use. ... Quaker testimony expresses ... that the answer to violence is not more violence. Instead it is a path that turns away from fear, hate, vengeance; that turns instead towards love, hope, forgiveness, compassion, and kindness."
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