Are you a faith leader – ordained or lay – who wants to learn more and get involved? Contact Carla Reyes, CeaseFirePA Education Fund’s Partnership Coordinator: carla@ceasefirepa.org.

As faith leaders, we understand the devastating losses caused by gun violence. We experience loss in our faith communities and houses of worship as we organize services for departed community members. We accompany families and communities who are navigating the trauma of losing a loved one to gun violence. We recite the names of people whose lives ended prematurely due to gun violence. As people of faith, we are committed to ending firearm related deaths and injuries by currently advocating for policies including: 

• Securing ample funding for Community Violence Intervention (CVI) programs, which are proven to reduce violence by providing support to those most vulnerable to gun violence.

• Safe Storage practices that require firearm owners to secure their firearms when not in use – preventing school shootings, unintentional shootings, and suicides. 

• Banning Ghost Guns and Machine Gun Converters to prevent people who can’t legally buy a gun from building or modifying their own.

• Enabling Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPOs) to provide family members and law enforcement tools to temporarily restrict access to firearms to prevent firearm suicides and mass shootings. 

• Closing the loophole in PA’s background check system and consistent enactment of universal background checks for all gun sales. 

As faith leaders, we are charged with keeping our communities safe. In order to do so, we need to raise our collective voices in support of common sense changes to Pennsylvania’s gun laws.