Georgia Court Considers Lifting Ban on Guns in Places of Worship

[TheF00L]

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/geor...es-of-worship/

ATLANTA (The Blaze/AP) — A federal appeals court in Atlanta is hearing from a gun rights group that wants to overturn a Georgia state ban on guns in places of worship.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta will hear arguments Thursday on whether the 2010 law violates the First Amendment’s religious freedom protections.
The challenge was brought by GeorgiaCarry.org. The gun rights group maintains that religious institutions should be allowed to decide whether to allow firearms inside.
“It’s about whether or not the government should be making laws dealing with churches,” Kelley Kinnett, a regular church goer and president of GeorgiaCarry.org, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC). “This is more of a First Amendment case than a Second Amendment case.”
“Why would you not want to take a gun?” asked Jerry Henry, who is also with GeorgiaCarry.org, told the AJC. “Putting up this gun-free zone [in places of worship] makes that place accessible to attack. All we’re asking for is to have the same option the criminal has.”
And churches have been targeted, as the AJC notes:

Last month, a former deacon at a Florida church shot and wounded the pastor and an associate pastor before parishioners tackled him.

Last year two teenage boys were wounded when three gunmen stormed a California church.

And in 2008 a gunman killed two and wounded six in a Tennessee church because he believed liberals, like the church’s members, were destroying the country.

Others, however, counter that the ban allows worshippers to pray in safety.
“If you chose to have a loaded gun in your home to protect yourself, that’s your right. It’s a whole different issue when you bring that gun where me and my children and other families are just going about … business,” Jonathan Lowy, director of the Legal Action Project at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, told the AJC.
“And it would be even more dangerous, he said, if well-meaning, armed civilians, faced with a dangerous situation, begin shooting in an effort “to save the day. Injecting more guns into more public places and being held by more people causes death and injury much more than it’s saved lives,” he added.
The AJC explains the current ban: “The 2010 Georgia law prohibits guns – except those carried by a law enforcement officer or a licensed security guard – in eight categories. Weapons can be left in locked cars in parking lots, however.”
The prohibited categories include: Government buildings, including schools and colleges, courthouses jails and prisons, places of worship, state mental health facilities where people are involuntarily admitted, bars without permission of the owner, a nuclear power facility, or within 150 feet of a polling place.
A three-judge panel is not expected to rule Thursday, but rather issue an opinion at a later date.

The way the sheeple counter allowing guns in church really rankles me. They ignore the proof that churches ARE targeted as gun-free-zones by BG's.

They also ignore that the fact that just having a gun will not make it go off by itself.

They also assume that:

“And it would be even more dangerous, he said, if well-meaning, armed civilians, faced with a dangerous situation, begin shooting in an effort “to save the day. Injecting more guns into more public places and being held by more people causes death and injury much more than it’s saved lives,” he added.

HERE THE HELL ARE THE STATS TO BACK UP THIS CLAIM???

arrggggghhhhhhh.....

[wa3ra]

Pass the law, Praise the Lord, and pass the ammunition!

[bluedog46]

God, Guns, and Guns made America free. Lets keep all three!

[NuclearSociety]

Just thought I should share if anyone else was interested:

Shooting Back: The Right and Duty of Self-Defence [Paperback]
By Charl van Wyk

What would you do if armed terrorists broke into your church and starting attacking your friends with automatic weapons in the middle of a worship service?

Would you be prepared to defend yourself and other innocents?

Would you be justified in doing so?

Is it time for Americans to consider such once-unthinkable possibilities?

There is one man in the world who can address these questions with first-hand experience.

His name is Charl van Wyck – a South African who was faced with just such a shocking scenario.

In "Shooting Back: The Right and Duty of Self-Defense," van Wyk makes a biblical, Christian case for individuals arming themselves with guns, and does so more persuasively than perhaps any other author because he found himself in a church attacked by terrorists.

"Grenades were exploding in flashes of light. Pews shattered under the blasts, sending splinters flying through the air," he recalls of the July 25, 1993, St. James Church Massacre. "An automatic assault rifle was being fired and was fast ripping the pews -- and whoever, whatever was in its trajectory -- to pieces. We were being attacked!"

But van Wyk was not defenseless that day. Had he been unarmed like the other congregants, the slaughter would have been much worse.

"Instinctively, I knelt down behind the bench in front of me and pulled out my .38 special snub-nosed revolver, which I always carried with me," he writes in "Shooting Back," a book published for the first time in America by WND Books. "I would have felt undressed without it. Many people could not understand why I would carry a firearm into a church service, but I argued that this was a particularly dangerous time in South Africa."

During that Sunday evening service, the terrorists, wielding AK-47s and grenades, killed 11 and wounded 58. But the fact that one man – van Wyk – fired back, wounding one of the attackers and driving the others away.

Those killed that day were:

• Guy Cooper Javens

• Richard Oliver O'Kill

• Gerhard Dennis Harker

• Wesley Alfonso Harker

• Denise Gordon

• Mirtle Joan Smith

• Marita Ackerman

• Andrey Kayl

• Karamjin Oleg

• Varaksa Velentin

• Pavel Valuet

The last four were Russian seamen attending the service as part of a church outreach program. Another Russian seaman, Dmitri Makogon, lost both legs and an arm in the attack.

Using his personal and high-profile story as a launch-pad, van Wyk wrote "Shooting Back" – which instantly became a South African bestseller, as well as a bestseller for WND, which imported thousands of copies of the original book for sale online to audiences in the U.S. and around the world. This is the first time this book, previously published in South Africa, has been widely available in the U.S. and elsewhere.

"I am honored to be a part of this historic undertaking – the republishing of this classic work in the United States," said Joseph Farah, founder of WND Books and editor and chief executive officer of WND. "We have been working on this for more than three years. Now everyone can read this amazing and important story, which has applications in terror-stricken America and for Christians and Jews throughout the world."

Far from being just a reliving of the tragedy of the St. James Church Massacre, "Shooting Back" is a thorough examination of the whole issue of armed self-defense from a Christian perspective.

It deals with burning questions that plague all conscience-driven people:

• Should we carry arms?

• When is it appropriate to defend ourselves and our families?

• What can we do when our freedom to carry arms is legislated away from us?

Using the Bible as his guidepost, van Wyk makes the case that Christians not only have the right but the duty to defend themselves and other innocents from such aggression.

What's the lesson?

“As Van Wyk’s experience illustrates, no place is totally safe — not even a church," explains Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, who wrote the foreword to the book. "The notion that declaring an area to be gun-free, will keep criminals from maliciously using guns is ludicrous. Any law that makes self-defense illegal or impractical is an illegitimate law, because such a law ultimately subjects people to the criminal element. I hope that Charl van Wyk’s book will help turn the tide. South Africans – and people everywhere – need to refuse to support any laws that leave them defenseless against murderers, robbers, rapists and arsonists."

But this amazing true story doesn't end there. It's also about redemption and reconciliation. Several of the church members who were injured or who lost family members in the attacks, as well as van Wyk, later met with and forgave some of their repentant attackers.

Product Details
•Paperback: 128 pages
•Publisher: WND Books; 1ST edition (January 30, 2007)
•Language: English
•ISBN-10: 0979045118
•ISBN-13: 978-0979045110
•Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches

http://superstore.wnd.com/books/WND-...f-Defense-book

[ViperGTS19801]

I am not a religious man. However, I had this series of thoughts the other day, because I like hypotheticals.

Why do I have a gun at church?

Because I am a warrior of the Lord.

I have been placed on God's green Earth for a reason - to watch over my family and bretheren, and ensure their safety to the best of my human ability, until the day I depart from this physical body. My Lord has granted me the fortitude and strength of character to walk His pastures with arms by my side, peacefully awaiting His call to action so that I might glorify His name while defending those that I love and bringing them salvation from evil.

Does that answer your question?

As I said, I'm not religious, so you might as well put lipstick on my anus since I'm talking out of my ass.

[Philadelphia]

“The 2010 Georgia law prohibits guns – except those carried by a law enforcement officer or a licensed security guard – in eight categories.

I understand and obviously agree that guns should not be banned in public places, including Georgia's eight categories . . .

But in the meantime, would it not make sense to just get the "security guard license" so the sheeple can then be confident that all is magically OK? OMG -- that guy has a gun . . . oh, wait, it's OK 'cause he's got a security guard license . . . wah wah.

(and WTF is a "security guard license" anyway -- like Act 235 here -- politicians catering to the sheeple's unshakable belief that somehow everyone is a homicidal maniac longing for wild west shoot outs but get that "security guard license," ooh, and all is then A OK)