Bishop Sutton Leads Interfaith Mission to Challenge Gun Violence

By Val Hymes
March, 2010

Bishop Eugene Taylor Sutton led a group of 15 ecumenical religious leaders to Annapolis March 11 to support comprehensive legislation to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and to strengthen enforcement of laws covering gun sales.

As chairman of the Ecumenical Leaders Group of the Central Maryland Ecumenical Council, Bishop Sutton urged the General Assembly to support the Firearms Safety Act of 2010. He emphasized the unanimous endorsement by all the major religious denominations in Maryland – Protestant, Jewish, Orthodox and Roman Catholic – to stop the flood of guns to criminals without infringing on the Second Amendment rights of law- abiding citizens.

The religious leaders met earlier with Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and discussed a number of important issues in addition to gun safety including environmental protection, public education, housing and health care. Addressing education concerns, the Governor expressed his support for the BOAST tax credit which, said his press secretary Shaun Adamec, will offer a tax credit to business donors to public and nonpublic schools ”It could help stem the flow of closures of private religious schools that provide a valuable diversity of educational opportunities for Maryland families,” he added.

The speakers at a news conference at St. Anne’s Church and in testimony before the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee insisted that citizens’ gun rights will not be touched but that illegal guns in the wrong hands are destroying families in the communities where they minister. The Senate and House bills (SB 695 and HB 820) are modeled after those in states like New Jersey that have cut gun violence.

“All too many of our children and our fellow citizens are victims of gun violence,” said Sutton. “Last year in Maryland one child or teen was killed every five days. Nationally, in 2006, over 16,000 people used guns to commit suicide; 12,000 more were victims of homicide and nearly 2,000 more were killed by the accidental discharge of a gun. Everyone would agree that just one death is too many.”

Representatives of two families who lost a member to gun violence told how their lives were affected and how more lives have been lost to handguns In one year than have been killed in the war in Iraq or in the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. “Just don/t do nothing,” said a father whose son was killed by someone who should not have been able to obtain a gun.

“This,” said Roman Catholic Bishop Denis J. Madden, “is an unnatural disaster that we should not have to live with.” “The state,” added United Methodist Bishop John R. Schol, “should not just grant rights to some, but protect the safety of all citizens.”

“If we are concerned about terrorism,” said Bishop Sutton, “then when almost 30,000 people are killed every year by firearms, that is terror. Too many people in our communities live in terror.”

Just as the state regulates automobiles and prescription drugs, he added. “We need to regulate the use of guns to get them out of the hands of those who are killing our brothers and sisters. To not do so is idolatry….to bow down to the altar of the gun.”

Val Hymes is a contributing editor to the Maryland Church News and member of St. James’ Parish, Lothian.