Partnership equips Presbyterians with the tools to Be SMART about gun safety
Educational effort aligns with General Assembly’s Decade to End Gun Violence
LOUISVILLE — Keeping guns out of the hands of children and those at risk of harming themselves or others is the focus of a new partnership between the Presbyterian Office of Public Witness and Be SMART, a campaign that spreads awareness about gun safety.
Thanks to the collaboration, Presbyterians and other members of the public can access educational materials and volunteer training from Be SMART on a new section of OPW’s website.
“Through our official partnership with Be SMART, we’re licensed to use their materials, many of which have been crafted by leading experts in the field,” said Dr. Andrew Peterson, OPW’s Representative for Peacemaking and Gun Violence Prevention. “We will be hosting them under the gun violence tab of the OPW website and posting about them on social media.”
Be SMART is a program of the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. It helps parents and other adults normalize conversations about gun safety and take simple, responsible actions to prevent child gun deaths and injuries, youth suicide, gunfire on school grounds and more. The new partnership is one way that faith communities can be part of that.
“With guns now the leading cause of death for children and teens in the U.S., faith communities have a critical role to play — not just in responding to tragedy — but in preventing it," said Temple Hiatt, a lead volunteer for Be SMART and a participant in the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship Gun Violence Prevention Working Group. "Time and again, I’ve seen faith leaders hear the Be SMART message and leave feeling empowered with practical resources to talk about gun safety in a way that can truly resonate with their communities. Be SMART is grateful for the opportunity to share these resources with the PC(USA), so conversations about secure gun storage can continue and all children can live free from gun violence."
The partnership believes that the topic of secure gun storage is important for families to think about, even if they themselves don’t own weapons.
Be SMART provides guidance on how “to navigate conversations with friends, neighbors and family members who are gun owners,” Peterson said. “One of Be SMART’s primary goals is to make these conversations more normal and low stakes than they feel without any training.”
The latter part of the Be SMART name is a mnemonic for remembering five steps that can be taken to create safer environments. The steps are:
Secure all guns in homes and vehicles.
Model responsible behavior around guns.
Ask about the presence of unsecured firearms in other homes your child visits.
Recognize the role of guns in suicide.
Tell your peers to Be SMART.
The partnership is a demonstration of the General Assembly’s commitment to protecting children as part of the Decade to End Gun Violence (2022-32).
“At last summer’s 226th General Assembly, the church voted to approve “An Overture Calling for Action so that Children May Live Free from Gun Violence,” Peterson said. “The overture builds on and expands the church’s existing initiative on gun violence, the Decade to End Gun Violence, by directing us to give special attention to the safety and spiritual well-being of children. This is indeed crucial work. Firearms have overtaken car accidents and cancer to become the leading cause of childhood death in the United States. The overture commends us to address (that) unconscionable fact by partnering with programs like Be SMART, which already have a wealth of resources and trainings available to help Presbyterians learn how to securely store guns and talk with others about secure gun storage.”
Forging relationships with like-minded groups has been a key part of the Decade to End Gun Violence, and the Be SMART partnership is the latest example of that.
“Be SMART joins a long partner list that also includes RAWtools, Guns to Gardens, Heeding God’s Call, the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, and Faiths United Against Gun Violence,” Peterson said. “Alongside these partnerships, we also advocate at the state and federal level for common sense gun reform. We administer grants to facilitate gun violence prevention events at churches. And we work to develop congregational resources that help churches foster an ongoing commitment to this work.”
For more information about the Be SMART partnership with OPW, go here.
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