The pastor of a downtown church telling The Baltimore Sun he packs a .38 special and doesn’t care who knows about it should be enough to scare the hell out of the rest of us (“‘I carry, and I don’t care who knows it’: Pastors pack heat in wake of church shootings,” Oct. 12).
Black churches, through their religious teachings, schools, meal programs and broad community care, have been rocks of stability for urban neighborhoods. A church is a refuge from tumult. That a minister of one such church feels threatened enough to carry a pistol and the paster of the venerable New Shiloh Baptist Church backs him up on the need for security should just eat at all our hearts.
Something has to be done. And something far more resonant than masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and inadequately equipped and trained National Guard troops with a legally insufficient enforcement status who only seem to add to the problem.
— Stan Heuisler, Baltimore
Add your voice: Respond to this piece or other Sun content by submitting your own letter.
