More on the Church Policy on Firearms

I noted recently that the LDS ban on firearms had received a lot of attention among gun owners, including an article at The Truth About Guns. Now even The Firearm Blog has an article on the new policy against firearms in LDS churches.* But it has also been widely reported on among the main stream media, including articles from the Washington Post, Washington Examiner, The Hill, Fox News, NPR, France24, and many others. It is not some obscure change in policy but has attracted the attention of the media, mostly because it is at odds with the perception of Church members being overwhelmingly conservative.

      First, some more information on the ban. The Salt Lake Tribune reports:

      The handbook update took effect the first week of August, Woodruff said.

      The rules will be formally communicated to local leaders, who in turn will be responsible for sharing them with their members, he said, noting that “lethal weapons include a number of possible items including guns.”

      While this policy applies to the 16.3 million-member worldwide church, Woodruff said, a letter referencing this section of the handbook was specifically sent to Latter-day Saint leaders in Texas. The church asked bishops there to read a statement in sacrament services Sunday as a response to Lone Star State legislation that takes effect Sept. 1.

      Under the new Texas law, it is legal to carry concealed weapons in places of worship. However, churches can bar weapons on religious premises by giving “effective notice" verbally or thorough building signs.

      “The decision has been made not to place written signs on our buildings,” an Aug. 22 letter to leaders in the church’s Southwest area states. Rather, “we are asking all bishops in Texas to read the following statement in the sacrament meetings of all units to give effective oral notice to members of the church and visitors that weapons are not permitted.”

       The announcement "constitutes effective notice that it is not permissible to enter the premises of Latter-day Saint buildings with open or concealed weapons except as permitted by the church’s policy.”

       If those not in attendance Sunday to hear the policy ever show up at church carrying a gun — open or concealed — “the priesthood leader should read the approved statement,” the letter says, “and kindly ask them to comply by removing the firearm from the building.”

The article also has a copy of the letter issued to local Church authorities in Texas, in case you wanted to read the whole thing.

      Second, let's review some of the reaction to it. It seems from the comments that I've seen that the ban is probably universally disliked among members that have carry concealed. CJ Grisham, who is a Second Amendment advocate in Texas and author of the "A Soldier's Perspective" blog has more thoughts concerning the new policy. One of the key points he raises, however, is that "Yes, our churches are dedicated to worship and are places where we SHOULDN’T have to worry about the cares of the world, but when the cares of the world invade that space, then what? There is no magical shield around LDS meeting houses that protects us from outside’s evil." He has a lot more, so read the whole thing.

      Joshua Gillem, writing at ConcealedCarry.com, observes:

Whether this church policy is legally enforceable will vary from state to state but at very least this leaves church members who want to follow the policy unable to protect themselves from bad guys intent on killing, who will undoubtedly not follow these policies leaving church members as soft targets unless they're a police officer. And, in fact, the argument can be made that soft targets are more preferred by bad guys who want to do harm, which is why places of worship are being targeted more and more by these sickos.

A comment to Gillem's article sums it up pretty succinctly: "Why would they publicly announce this? The policy itself is stupid but it is more stupid to announce this to the general public. They might as well say come into our church and shoot us."

      On the other hand, there seems near universal support of the ban among the enemies to the Church because it is a slap in the face of U.S. members of the Church. The Washington Examiner, among other news sites, specifically noted that "Latter-day Saints are among the most politically conservative religious groups in the United States, and close to 70% identify as, or lean, Republican. Over 60% consider themselves conservative." The Huffington Post related:

Members of the Latter-day Saints church ― whose history is steeped in the culture of the American West with its guns and its hunting ― tend to be politically conservative and share similar views with evangelicals when it comes to gun control. 

The Hill reported:

       Matthew Bowman, the Howard W. Hunter Chair in Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University in California, told the AP the move reflects how the church has changed from its Western roots.

       “It is illustrative of the church’s slow evolution away from being a largely Western rural church which it has been for a long, long time toward a more cosmopolitan, international organization,” he said.

       A majority of the church’s members currently live outside the U.S., many in nations that do not have a culture of gun ownership like the U.S.

The LA Times added: "The move is likely driven by rising awareness of gun violence in the U.S. Bowman said it also seemed to fit with the church’s attempt to adapt to being a more global religion, representative of cultures other than the American West that is steeped in hunting and guns." Fox News similarly reported that "[s]ome in the church see the move as a push to globalize the religion, which has more than half of its 16 million members outside the United States." Scott Gordon, president of the FairMormon organization, explained the policy change this way:

"In any organization, you have people who might desire to protect or take the law into their own hands, and I think the church in this policy is saying, 'Please don't. Church is a place of peace,'" Gordon said.

"Please don't protect yourself." That is a nice sentiment (sarc.).

      I think that this has caught a lot of members by surprise, but maybe it shouldn't have. After all, the Church has banned firearms in its buildings in Utah for years. And in February 2018, President Russell M. Nelson, speaking about the then-recent shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, stated:

“I know your hearts are heavy, as are [wife] Wendy’s and mine, as we contemplate those ruthless killings in Florida last week,” Nelson said. “I think of Alaina Petty, a 14-year-old Latter-day Saint whose life was snuffed out by that sniper’s bullet. It’s natural for you and others to say: How could God allow things like that to happen? Well, God allows us to have our agency, and men have passed laws that allow guns to go to people who shouldn’t have them.”

Which is an odd thing to say since scripture states that the Lord "established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose, and redeemed the land by the shedding of blood," and last I checked, the Second Amendment was part of that Constitution. (D&C 101:80). In fact, the Bill of Rights was a key part of the Constitution, inasmuch as "[r]atification probably could not have been secured without a commitment to add a written bill of rights." Joseph Smith's complaints about the Constitution is that it didn't go far enough to protect citizens, writing: “Its sentiments are good, but it provides no means of enforcing them. … Under its provision, a man or a people who are able to protect themselves can get along well enough; but those who have the misfortune to be weak or unpopular are left to the merciless rage of popular fury.” (History of the Church, 6:57).

      I recognize that we must guard against idol worship, including "gods of stone and steel—ships, planes, missiles, fortifications—[upon which we] depend ... for protection and deliverance." But neither does the Lord expect us to lay down our lives needlessly or foolishly.

      

      Cheryll Lynn May noted in a June 1976 Ensign article that members must be active in politics, warning that "[g]uarantees of political freedom maintain their force only if citizens are willing to exercise that freedom in their own behalf." In the same special issue devoted to the Bicentennial, Edwin Brown Firmage wrote:

The United States Constitution restrains the power that it grants by the application of three tenets: the separation of powers, federalism, and the protection of individual rights. Power at the national level is separated and balanced between three coordinate branches. Power is further checked by dividing its prerogatives among the nation, the state, and the people. Finally, the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment protect basic individual rights against violation by any level of government.

      Perhaps this should be a clarion call to action for members that support gun rights to petition the Church about its stance. We have seen others--feminists, ethnic groups, and LGBT activists--at least gain recognition of their concerns, if not some outright concessions. Surely there are a sufficient number of members that support concealed carry that we can make the Church take some notice of us.

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 * I saw in the comments to the TFB article that someone had gone to the Church's website and found that the policy was unchanged. However, I think he must have looked at the PDF of the Handbook 2, which is dated 2010. This new policy is in the May 2019 Handbook 2. Here is the link to the new version of the policy (scroll down to para. 21.2.4).