In her Christmas Letter to the Diocese of Washington DC Bishop Marianne Edgar Budde writes:
In the aftermath of the violence that unfolded at Sandy Hook Elementary School, we would be made of stone if our faith in a loving God didn’t falter. “Where was God?” we ask. “How could God let this happen?”
Yet the more compelling question isn’t where God was last Friday morning, but rather, where we were. As St. Teresa of Avila once wrote, “Christ has no body on earth but ours. Ours are the feet with which he walks, ours the hands with which he blesses, our the eyes with which looks on this world with compassion.”
And she calls us all to action”
In the days before Christmas, please write or call your congressional representatives, Senators, and President Obama. Express your grief, concerns and longing for an end to gun violence. You don’t need to be an expert; our strength is in moral and spiritual clarity. Speak from your faith and love of children. Invite your family and friends to do the same. Here is how you can contact them: http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml
If you’d like to speak of specific action, there is an emerging spiritual and moral consensus that the following steps need to be taken:
1. A clear ban on all semi-automatic weapons and large rounds of ammunition
2. Tighter controls on all gun sales
3. Mental health care reform, including improved care for our most vulnerable citizens
4. A critical look at our culture’s’ glorification of violence.
This is the kind of leadership that the church and the world are looking for as we make our way through the Wilderness, the devastation, of into which we have been thrust in this season of Advent.
Please add your voice to the growing call for an end to the violence. Demand sane gun laws that close the background check loopholes and allow people access to battlefield weapons and large capacity ammunition clips. Demand that We begin a conversation about the realities of mental illness education people and removing the stigma that surrounds the illness and those who seek treatment. Demand that access to mental health care be improved for all people.
The Gospel calls us to protect the poor, orphans, and widows, the cold, the hungry and the homeless. We are called to love the Lord our God with all of our hearts, souls, mind and strength, and our neighbors as ourselves. The Gospel calls us to action. It is time to walk the walk.
A Mad City Episcopalian 
YES, YES, and YES, again
Thank you, Andy+, I am so glad to see this addressed by clergy; the Church has neglected it far too long. While we need to improve mental health care and face up to the glorification of violence in our society, I fear those issues will be used to divert public and political attention from the real problem: guns. Very, very few of the nearly 30,000 guns deaths in the U.S. every year are caused by mentally ill people; in fact, many gun deaths are accidents. And it’s all but impossible to predict in advance which mentally ill person will go off the rails so dangerously. Let’s not get sidetracked from the real problem: the proliferation of guns and easy access to them.