ALTHOUGH owning a gun and being a Christian have been considered mutually exclusive, some of Jamaica’s top religious leaders say they have no problem with Christians carrying legal firearms as long as they are mature and responsible enough to do so.

The churchmen spoke with the Observer in response to calls from gun rights lobbyists and members of the public for Government to relax legislation to allow all law-abiding citizens easier access to owning firearms.

Bishop Herro Blair, pastor of the Faith Cathedral Deliverance Centre in Kingston and the country’s political ombudsman, said that having a firearm for self-protection was no different from having a knife, Labrador or a Pit bull to protect one’s home, as all were equally lethal.

He said there was nowhere in the Bible which said carrying a legal firearm was wrong. “The axiom says God helps those who help themselves and in the same token I believe God protects those who protect themselves,” said Blair, who has been the subject of debates regarding the carrying of a legal firearm.

However, Blair, an Evangelical preacher who does not carry a gun and has never owned one himself, said the only time he has ever carried a firearm was when he served in the army and was a member of the homeguard in the 1970s.

“Even today I was somewhere and five little boys saw me and one of them asked, ‘Who is that?’ The boy then said: ‘Is Bishop Blair, the man who carry the gun in his Bible’,” Blair told the Observer last week.

The bishop said the accusation was something that he has had to live with.

However, he believes people have the right to protect themselves since the State was not capable of protecting everyone.

Firebrand pastor Al Miller also supported Christians carrying guns, saying they, as well as other citizens, should be allowed to bear arms.

“Christians are equally citizens of society who have to deal with the normal issues of society, and so if anyone is carrying a weapon, I don’t think there is anything wrong with that in and of itself. In the time of Jesus, all of Jesus’ disciples had their swords with them,” said Miller.

He told the Observer that the argument that Christians’ faith in God should be enough to protect them was fallacious and “holds no water”.

“If you are using that argument, then why should you close your door at night?” asked Miller. “Why do you live in houses with burglar bars; isn’t the Lord anymore a protector?”

Archbishop of Kingston Donald James Reece does not believe it is a sin to bear arms. However, he questioned the reasoning behind the suggestion that more Jamaicans should carry guns.

“When one thinks of what has happened in instances in the past where firearms have injured people unwittingly, in other words without them planning it, one wonders if it is the best thing for Christians or anyone at all to bear firearms,” Reece said.

He said what the country needs is a good police force that people can rely on to protect them. “I don’t think [giving citizens] firearms is the way forward, but if somebody has it, then it is not a sin,” he said.

Archbishop Reece highlighted cases in which people have been killed by a gun owned by a family member, and argued that having a firearm could be counter-productive.

“.Those criminal elements in our society will know who have firearms. And so when they see that person they will go after their firearm. So they are at risk, doubly so,” said Reece.

President of the East Jamaica Conference of Seventh-day Adventist Churches, Adrian Cottrell, said Christians should be able to protect themselves the best way they could.

“We can’t just go to our beds and leave our houses unprotected or leave them open because God is going to protect us,” said Cottrell. “I think we ought to do what we can.”

According to Cottrell, a person can have faith but at the same time feel it necessary to do other things. I don’t think faith means just leaving yourself bare, you have to do what you can do to help yourself and after that God can do the rest,” he said.

Rev Peter Garth of the Jamaica Association of Evangelicals also supported more people, including Christians, carry legal weapons. He said that a number of Christians had jobs which made them vulnerable to criminals, hence the need to bear arms.

“The possession of the firearm does not negate the fact that you lack faith in God,” he said.

However, he advised that a decision to carry a weapon should be a personal one, and not based on one’s faith in God.

“I have heard that argument,” said Garth. “They always link it to your lack of faith in God, but I don’t buy that argument.”

Just last week, former Jamaica Defence Force captain and firearms instructor, Robert Hibbert, while advocating that law-abiding citizens be allowed easier access to guns, urged persons clamouring for firearms to protect their lives and property to first acquire proper gun and self-defence skills.

Hibbert, addressing last Thursday’s meeting of the National Gun Rights Association forum at the Altamont Court Hotel in Kingston, said persons carrying legal firearms must always be aware and alert. “If you are not aware, then you could have 10 guns and somebody will walk up behind you, stick you up and take them away from you,” Hibbert told the forum.

– Additional reporting by Karyl Walker