Community Violence — Gun Control

ELCA Churchwide Assembly Action CA93.06.10

Passed by the 1993 Churchwide Assembly in Kansas City, Missouri.

Resolved
To communicate to Congress and the President of the United States the urgent concern of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America regarding the violence associated with the widespread availability of handguns and military assault weapons and [regarding] our support for the Brady Bill and other controls over the manufacture, sale, and private ownership of handguns and military assault weapons;

To call upon all of our congregations, synods, and appropriate agencies to work for the passage and strict enforcement of local, state, and national legislation as appropriate, that rigidly controls the manufacture, importation, exportation, sale, purchase, transfer, receipt, possession or 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;

To refer the memorials of the Sierra Pacific Synod, Grand Canyon Synod, Northwestern Ohio Synod, and Metropolitan Washington, D.C., Synod, to the Division for Church in Society, instructing it about the urgency of developing a "Message" on the subject of guns, community violence, and alternatives to violence for possible adoption by the ELCA Church Council at its spring 1994 meeting; and

To request that this "Message" be used as the basis for a process of deliberation throughout the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America on the subject of guns, community violence, and alternatives to violence, and proposed legislation; and to suggest that this "Message" may be used in preparation for possible action on this matter by the 1995 Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.