Bishop Scott Benhase of Georgia and bishop Robert C. Wright of Atlanta have written a letter in opposition to HB 875 in the Georgia legislature. HB 875, if passed, would increase the number of places where licensed and concealed weapons could be carried including churches and schools. Here is an excerpt from their letter:
Supporters of this bill claim our current quite expansive gun laws are not expansive enough. They claim that if only the “bad guys” have guns, then the “good guys” cannot stop them. As one State Representative who sponsored the bill said: “Gun free zones that are created by well-meaning laws are gun-free to the good guys only. The bad part of our society does not care.”
Our Christian Faith has a more complex understanding of “good guys” and “bad guys.” Our Biblical understanding of human sin informs us of this universal truth. People who had no criminal record and had a legal right to their weapons have perpetrated almost all of the recent tragic shootings in houses of worship and schools. They were “good guys” until they weren’t.
This bill solves nothing and it only creates the potential for more gun violence, not less, to say nothing of increasing political polarization in Georgia. Our State’s current gun laws are already quite fair to gun owners, adequately protecting their rights. All the citizens of Georgia have rights as well. We have a right to keep guns out of our houses of worship and our schools.
The rest of the article is found in today’s today’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution.