Conceal-carry
by Pastor Jens Arne Dale

Coming from a country where not even the police are allowed to carry 
weapons except on special order, the abundance of hand guns in the U.S. 
is quite a surprise. Now the Minnesota Personal Protection Act will 
allow even more hand guns.

There's no way to deny the fact that the more firearms, the more people 
will be killed. They say only the good guys will be allowed to carry a 
hand gun. I have to admit that for more than a decade I was one of the 
good guys in Norway. As a Home Guard officer, I kept a handgun and 
ammunition at home. The weapon was divided into several parts and kept 
in a secret place, as the rules required. Whenever a home guard soldier 
in Norway has mental problems, he is disarmed. Even so, every year we 
have incidents with mentally disordered or drunk home guard soldiers who 
kill with their weapons. Then the public discusses banning all home 
guard guns.
The possibility of 90,000 new firearms in Minnesota is scary. In this 
nation, a population of the same size as a small Norwegian town is 
killed by handguns every year. More guns don't make it safer.

Many years ago, armed people coming to church in Norway had to leave 
their weapons in the narthex. It's still called the "weapon-house" in 
Norwegian churches (våpen huset). The new Minnesota law which allows 
concealed weapons even in the sanctuary pays little respect to the 
nature of a worship place. Guns simply have no place in a church.
I don't want to welcome worshippers with signs plastered on every door 
banning guns and having the ushers personally notify every worshipper 
that guns are banned.

I support the "Conceal-carry" lawsuit against the State of Minnesota, 
claiming that the new law is in conflict with the Constitution.

The Minneapolis Area Synod of the ELCA has joined this lawsuit. An 
editorial in the Star Tribune this spring said: "It is a really stupid 
law that rights no wrong, cures no ill...the right to carry would have 
about as much relevance to modern life as bloodletting has to modern 
medicine. The sooner the entire law is repealed, the better!"