Georgia bill pushes guns in churches

March 5, 2008

WASHINGTON – The Georgia Christian Coalition is getting behind a state bill to expand gun-carry laws into company parking lots and churches.

State Rep. Tim Bearden is sponsoring the bill with the support of the National Rifle Association. It is being opposed by the Georgia Chamber of Commerce as a violation of private property rights.

The bill is currently in a House-Senate conference committee.

Christians began recognizing the threat for mayhem in the pews after an armed rampage in Colorado recently. After killing two people at a Christian training center in Arvada, Colo., 24-year-old Matthew Murray went to Colorado Springs intending more murder and mayhem.

Murray shot and killed two girls in the New Life Church’s parking lot, then headed inside the building where thousands of worshippers were concluding a service.

A volunteer security guard, Jeanne Assam, confronted him almost immediately and fired at him. He fell, and an autopsy later said he had shot himself.

In fact, church shootings have been on the rise in the U.S.

A tabulation of church shootings, or those closely related to a church setting, was done by Gary Cass, chairman of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission, and included 10 such attacks over the last four years, including Murray’s two attacks.

He said a brief search found the following shootings:

Aug. 12, 2007: A lone gunman, Eiken Elam Saimon, opened fire in a Missouri Micronesian church, killing a pastor and two other churchgoers.
May 20, 2007: A standoff between police and a suspect in the shootings of three people in a Moscow, Idaho, Presbyterian church ended with three dead, including one police officer.
Although not at a church building, the Oct. 2, 2006, attack in Lancaster County, Pa., by a gunman who killed five girls and then himself at an Amish school targeted a religious site.
May 21, 2006: Louisiana. Four were killed by a man at Jesus Christ Church.
Feb. 26, 2006: Michigan. Two people were killed at Zion Hope Missionary Baptist Church by a man who reportedly went to the church looking for his girlfriend. He later killed himself.
April 9, 2005: A 27-year-old airman died after being shot at a church in College Park, Ga., where he had once worked as a security guard.
March 12, 2005: A man walked into the services of the Living Church of God in Milwaukee and open fired immediately, killing seven people.
Oct. 5, 2003: A woman opened fire in Turner Monumental AME church in Kirkwood, east of Atlanta, killing the pastor and two others.
Sept. 16, 1999: Seven young people were killed when a man opened fire during a prayer service for teens at the Wedgewood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.

“Self-defense is not just a right but a Christian duty. Jesus told his followers, ‘if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one,'” said Cass. “Christians are not to be a soft target for the hateful and deranged. Church leaders have a duty not to allow a crazed gunman to come and shoot up their congregation. Thank God for security officer Jeanne Assam and for New Life Church’s security preparations.”

That is the same argument made by Charl van Wyk, a South African missionary who fought off a terrorist attack on his church with one handgun. His book, “Shooting Back,” describes that bloody attack and its aftermath and makes a biblical case for armed self-defense.

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