Dear friends and colleagues committed to unity, justice, and peace:
Once again, this nation finds itself grappling with another school shooting. This time a Christian school in Madison, WI is the place, and a 15-year-old young lady is the shooter.
Even though this shooting doesn’t fit the public perception, it doesn’t make it less devastating to the families and community. The death toll may be lower than others, but even one death caused by gun violence is one too many.
The Ohio Council of Churches, its Governing Board, and its Gun Violence Prevention committee extend our care and concern for all affected in Madison, WI. We continue to call for legislators on every level to address the issue of access to guns and create meaningful legislation to keep these shootings from happening.
We also call on these legislators to give priority to accessing affordable mental health resources for our communities. As those who profess our faith as Christians, we believe this is the right call.
The Madison police chief, Shon Barnes sums up what we envision as a future where gun violence becomes a thing of the past, “We really have to do a better job, not only in our communities, but in our country, with making sure that our young folks do not have access to weapons and firearms, and certainly making sure that we’re paying attention to the mental health of our children, there’s a lot of work that we need to do so that we cannot be having these conversations again and again and again on CNN and other news outlets.”
We will continue to keep the community and others affected in our prayers, but we will put our feet to those prayers through our continued advocacy of gun violence prevention.
Rev. Dr. Amariah McIntosh
Associate Director
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