ATF officials announced two federal indictments of 14 individuals charged with trafficking about 500 firearms from the Southern states of Georgia and South Carolina to sell in Philadelphia, at a press conference on April 11, 2022.
Kimberly Paynter / WHYY
Kimberly Paynter / WHYY
ATF officials announced two federal indictments of 14 individuals charged with trafficking about 500 firearms from the Southern states of Georgia and South Carolina to sell in Philadelphia, at a press conference on April 11, 2022.
Airdate: Wednesday, September 14, 2022
Gun violence has been on the rise across the United States of America the past several years.
A Lancaster County church is hoping to start a new initiative to end gun violence in its community.
St. Edwards Episcopal Church’s Rev. Dr. Richard C. Bauer was heartbroken after he learned of the Robb Elementary School shooting in Ulvade, Texas earlier this year left
“I found myself heartbroken and moved to tears yet again over gun violence,” Bauer said. “Also I was really stirred, in a disturbed manner, at the mantra of thoughts and prayers that my colleagues in churches offered up and a call was placed in my spirit to try and figure out how to use the platform of being a local religious leader to the end of initiating conversation around an incredibly partisan and fraught topic.”
That led Bauer to try and find a way new to address gun violence.
Bauer has partnered with Retired Bishop of the Diocese of Connecticut and co-founder of Swords to Plowshares Jim Curry, for an event this Saturday at 9 a.m. called “Sowing Seeds of Love. A morning of learning, action and prayer on ending gun violence.”
“Nothing resonated with me more than this Biblical invitation to beat swords into plowshares,” Bauer said.
Curry explained that swords to plowshares is a idea that was first written in the Bible by the prophet Isaiah in a time of great uncertainty, violence, a potential war.
“And it was a promise that this person of faith, having heard from God, shared with the people that they shall beat their swords into plowshares, their spears into pruning hooks,” Curry said. “Nation shall not raise up sword against nation. Neither shall they learn war anymore.”
But the meaning of “swords to plowshares” has had to change over the years, Curry said.
“We shall pound our guns into garden tools,” Curry said. “Neighbor shall not raise up gun against neighbor. Neither shall we learn violence anymore.”
“(We) invite people to bring in guns that are not safely stored, that might be in an attic or a garage or a basement. And they are just at that point, too dangerous for our families and for our neighborhoods. And we invite people to think about the guns they have that aren’t safely stored and to turn them,” Curry added.
The goal for Saturday’s event at St. Edwards is to bring together people from all backgrounds to talk about gun violence and ways to reduce it.
The event will feature law enforcement that will discuss gun safety and gun storage. Curry will also bring a forge and turn guns into gardening tools.
“We are not anti-gun,” Curry said. “We are asking people to be thinking about the situation in which they live. And if they are gun owners, to be careful, responsible and securely keep their guns. And if they’re guns that need to be taken out of a family, out of a home, we want to receive them and then change them into gardening tools.”
Bauer also partnered with Heeding God’s Call to End Gun Violence to have an installation called “Memorial to the Lost” where the names, ages and dates of people Lancaster County who lost their lives to gun violence will be displayed.
Bauer said he and his allies would like to respond to gun violence as a mental health crisis “with public resources made available to people to connect the dots about just how many acts of gun violence are in fact suicides or situations where people just are on edge and don’t have access to the resources they need.”
