A local church in Troy, NY is promoting a gun giveaway and its not the first church to do so. Churches in Texas and Kentucky have offered gun giveaways.
The practice of a church gun giveaway sends the wrong message. Is it wrong because it is illegal to own a gun? No. Is it wrong because it is immoral to own a gun? No.
The apostle Paul once wrote to the church in Corinth,
All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful, but not all things edify.
It may be lawful for a church to have a AR-15 gun giveaway, but it is not profitable to Christianity. To some, having more guns means more safety. However, studies show no strong empirical evidence to support this. For instance, in the only peer review published study on gun related deaths, the Annals of Emergency Medicine reported:
“…on a case-controlled study in which household were matched on a number of demographic factors, and then incidences of gun violence were compared. They found that people who keep a gun in their home are almost twice as likely to die in a gun-related homicide.”
In 2004, American Journal of Epidemiology published a study that found:
