Vice President Joe Biden, the head of President Obama’s task force to curb gun violence, held meetings with both supporters and opponents of stricter gun restrictions, and his task force is set to make its recommendations by next Tuesday. Biden met with a dozen religious leaders Wednesday night, when he urged them that there was moral reason to take action.
New polling shows that religious leaders agree. According to a survey from the National Association of Evangelicals, nearly three-quarters of evangelical leaders support increasing restrictions on guns as a way to curb America’s gun violence epidemic, according to a release from the organization:
When asked whether the government should increase gun regulations, 73 percent said it should.
“Evangelicals are pro-life and deeply grieve when any weapons are used to take innocent lives,” said Leith Anderson, President of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE). “The evangelical leaders who responded to the NAE survey support the Second Amendment right to bear arms but also want our laws to prevent the slaughter of children.”
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops also called for increased gun regulations in the wake of the Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. “With regard to the regulation of fire arms, first, the intent to protect one’s loved ones is an honorable one, but simply put, guns are too easily accessible,” USCCB said in a December statement. As far back as 1978, the USCCB has advocated for stronger gun restrictions, including “the registration of handguns” and “the licensing of handgun owners.” In the 1978 statement, the USCCB said it believed “that only prohibition of the importation, manufacture, sale, possession and use of handguns (with reasonable exceptions made for the police, military, security guards and pistol clubs where guns would be kept on the premises under secure conditions) will provide a comprehensive response to handgun violence.”
And Daniel Darling, an evangelical pastor in Chicago, where 87 percent of the city’s 500 homicides were gun related last year, wrote that people of faith should “advocate making it harder for people to acquire guns, even sensible weapons purchased for self-defense or hunting. Gun ownership should be a privilege earned by good behavior and conferred only on the most trustworthy of our citizens.”
A majority (52 percent) of religious people supported stricter gun laws in a survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute in August 2012, months before the Sandy Hook massacre focused the nation’s attention on gun violence. (HT Faith In Public Life)
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