Ministers Get OK to Carry Guns in Church

Ministers and church officers in Kentucky are allowed to carry concealed weapons inside their churches thanks to a new provision in a state law.

A 1996 law allowed state residents to carry concealed weapons with the proper permit, but banned them from schools, government buildings and houses of worship. Exceptions were made originally for judges in their courtrooms and legislators at work.

Some Kentucky pastors petitioned, and won the right to be included in the exemptions.

Proponents of the measure, which is believed to be the first of its kind in the nation, said churches are often robbery targets because of the cash they collect during offerings. Not all Kentucky clergy agree with the new provision. “A friend of mine said it, and I’m going to repeat it,” said the Rev. Nancy Jo Kemper of the Kentucky Council of Churches. “Jesus would puke.”

The Rev. Robert Nieberding, vicar general of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Lexington, had an equally strong reaction to the new clergy exemption. “Certainly one of the messages we try to put forward is a message of peace,” he said. “It seems to me that when you’re inviting a minister to carry a weapon, that’s kind of counterbalancing peace. It just is so foreign to what we’re as Christians supposed to be about.”