Gun Violence

by Jim Atwood

by James E. Atwood

Gun violence across our nation and in our individual states is in large measure the direct result of irresponsible, even absurd laws that our elected public officials make or support. Below you will find a set of questions concerned citizens can ask their public officials in order to hold them responsible for laws they write or support that literally are the difference between life and death.

A key part of our work in Virginia to stop gun violence is to identify the stance of public officials who are making our state and local laws on guns. We are now working on a set of questions to identify the stance of our leaders on their views on guns. May I suggest that these questions are applicable for use in your state to address our ongoing gun violence problem.

The following hymns were written by PPF member Carolyn Winfrey Gillette.

This website has all of Carolyn's 150+ hymns:
http://www.carolynshymns.com/

Churches, communities have key role in overcoming juvenile crime,
pastor and chaplain tell ACSWP

by Jerry L. Van Marter
Presbyterian News Service

BERKELEY, CA ― For George Cummings and Charles Tinsley, the escalating plague of violence in urban America is way too personal.

Watch the video of Jim Atwood delivering this sermon at the Stony Point Peacemaking Colloquium.

Also titled THE IDOLS OF POWER AND THE TOOLS OF VIOLENCE.

Preached at Stony Point Peacemaking Colloquium, "Gun Violence and Gospel Values"

by James E. Atwood

I’d like to expand on my contention that guns in America have become idols. I define America’s idolatry with guns as an aggressive belief system dedicated to the expansion of gun ownership which encourages people to take their guns to the workplace, college campuses, public schools, libraries, national parks, churches and bars. This belief system is enhanced by an attitude which overtly and subtly proclaims that safety and security come through guns. My friend, Rev. Rachel Smith calls this phenomenon “Gundamentalism” Although claiming the highest of social values, the belief system itself requires continuous deception and the distortion of the truth in order to minimize or ignore the 30,000 people who are killed by guns every year.