Letter: Religious Leaders Take Stance on Gun Regulation

Statement on Gun Regulation Based on Life and Love

As the West Essex Ministerial Association, we hosted an Interfaith Service of Remembrance for the Victims of Newtown, Conn. Our responsibility to the local community does not cease with prayer; our social conscience as religious leaders obliges us to endorse the following joint statement:

• Enhanced regulation of guns by state or federal law will promote the saving of lives and the promoting of loving relationship within a healthy community.
• Enhanced regulation of guns by law places the highest priority upon preventing the loss of life.
• Enhanced regulation of guns by law accepts the fact that media saturated gun violence diminishes the dignity of the human person.
• Enhanced regulation of guns by law acknowledges a dire need within a society prone to suicide by guns and accidental death by guns.
• Enhanced regulation of guns by law is mandated for a society in love with its children and their healthy, safe upbringing.

Our statement is in memory of those children and teachers who died in Newtown, Conn. May our activism to regulate gun by law be a tribute to their innocence and a sign of ongoing solidarity with their grieving families especially their bereaved parents.

Undersigned:

Fr. Anthony J. Randazzo

Rev. Laurin C. McArthur

Rev. Rick Sommers

Rev. Jeff Markay

Rev. Don Brown

Rabbi Alan Silverstein

Joy McDonald

Sr. Barbara Moore, OP

Rev. Hee Duk Lee

Sr. Carol Jaruszewski, RSM

Sr. Pat Crowley

Edward J. Karpinski

Sr. Justine Pinto, OP

Sr. Alice Uhl, OP

Agnes Egan Fr.

Ken Herbster

Fr. Own Hendry

Bill Schutte