Gun Violence and Public Safety

Gun violence plagues our society. Our country suffers a tragic toll every year – 84,000 gun-related non-fatal injuries1 along with 33,000 gun-related deaths, nearly two-thirds of which are suicides.2 In Minnesota the average is more than one firearm related death every single day (427 total deaths in 20133). The frequency of needless killing in the U.S. and Minnesota is appalling, especially when compared with low gun-related death rates in other nations.4

Religious Principles

JRLC’s four faith traditions each stress that human life is sacred. To harm another is to break faith with God (Numbers 5:6-7a). Our Abrahamic teachings make it clear – laying violent hands on a human person is equivalent to laying violent hands on God. Inviolable and universal human worth is the foundation that guides many of our ethical beliefs. Thus it is our duty as people of faith and conscience to protect human life.

God calls us to be peacemakers, and “repairers of the breach” (Isaiah 58:12). Our faith calls us to confront our culture of violence and the cheapening of human life. We are called to actively work through anger and fear, to pursue love and compassion, and to help build social mores that reward understanding, and reject violence as an answer to conflict.

The solution to everyday gun violence is complex, and will require deep social change. Faith communities can lead the way. We must re-dedicate ourselves to justice, to building communities of prosperity and peace. We need to aid people who are angry, distressed and in need of help. We need to admit that violence-soaked entertainment has harmful emotional, psychological and spiritual effects on people, and make decisions to no longer invite so much of it into our homes and onto our personal electronic devices. We must do a much better job of identifying and treating depression and other mental illnesses.

We believe gun laws are part of the solution too. Guns are too easily accessible in Minnesota. Other nations and many other states have safer gun laws that help foster lower rates of gun violence. Faith communities across the country have consistently called for peacemaking, improved public health and safety, and common sense gun regulations. In the pastoral statement, Responsibility, Rehabilitation, and Restoration: A Catholic Perspective on Crime and Criminal Justice (2000), the U.S. Catholic Bishops wrote, “We support measures that control the sale and use of firearms and make them safer (especially efforts that prevent their unsupervised use by children or anyone other than the owner), and we reiterate our call for sensible regulation of handguns.”

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