Prose & Comments: The Shelter Island Presbyterian Church responds to the shooting in Orlando

Shelter Island Presbyterian Church mourns with our sisters and brothers in Orlando, specifically those within the LGBT community, in the aftermath of the senseless shooting at the Pulse nightclub.

Just a few hours after the shooting, we gathered as a community to hold the victims in our thoughts and prayers. However, we firmly believe that thoughts and prayers are not enough. Action is needed and is, indeed, long overdue.

We, the church, find our nation’s idolatrous obsession with guns to be antithetical to God’s intention for peace and justice. Likewise, silence on the church’s part is equally antithetical to God’s call for us to be instruments of peace and justice.

We, the church, believe it to be a travesty that it is often easier to purchase an assault weapon than it is to access affordable mental health care in this country.

We, the church, mourn the fact that a grossly disproportional amount of victims of gun violence are members of racial/ethnic minorities.

We, the church, lament the fact that this nation has too often prioritized individual rights over social justice. We, the church, support a nation-wide ban on assault weapons like the one legally purchased to slaughter 49 people in Orlando.

We, the church, are not opposed to the 2nd Amendment. However, we believe that the historical context in which it was written is rarely included in the conversations revolving around its interpretation. We recognize that, at the time the 2nd Amendment was created, a trained person could fire at a rate of approximately four times a minute while pausing in between to reload. Today, an untrained person can legally purchase a military assault rifle and slay dozens of people in a matter of seconds. The capability of such mass destruction was simply nonexistent at the time the amendment was created.

We, the church, urge all Shelter Islanders to contact our local representatives in the U. S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate and let them know we want stricter gun laws, including a ban on all assault weapons in civilian hands. We recognize that such laws are not a complete solution to the complex, systemic reality of gun violence. However, it is a tangible step in the direction of social justice.

We, the church, hereby declare the facilities of Shelter Island Presbyterian Church to be a gun-free zone. Only law enforcement officers are exempt from this policy. This policy has been in action since the SIPC Session approved the “SIPC Child Protection Policy” in 2015. Simply put, the people who are Shelter Island Presbyterian Church welcome people, not guns. We believe the church to be a prophetic witness of peace.

We, the church, will donate all offerings received at our Sunday, June 26 worship service to the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance Gun Violence Fund. This fund will help families with funeral expenses, support emotional and spiritual care for church leadership, and provide other resources to help communities recover from atrocities such as the one in Orlando. We invite all Shelter Islanders to contribute to this fund or another similar fund of their choosing. Those islanders who would like to join us may do so by sending their tax-deductible donation to Shelter Island Presbyterian Church, P.O. Box 612, Shelter Island, NY 11964, and writing “PDA Gun Violence Fund” in the memo line.

— Shelter Island Presbyterian Church