SHoWLE Bans Weapons At Meetings

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 21, 2022

Toledo, Ohio — The Board of Directors of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie (SHoWLE) vot­ed to ban weapons from all meet­ings and events it hosts.

The res­o­lu­tion reads in part: “We wish to pro­vide a safe space where, for a short time, peo­ple don’t have to wor­ry about being shot or killed by a dead­ly weapon. Even if the venue where we hold our meet­ings and events allow weapons, SHoWLE will enforce a ban on weapons. We will also try not to use any venue for meet­ings or events that we know allow weapons. People who believe their right to car­ry a gun out­weighs the safe­ty of our com­mu­ni­ty are not wel­come at our meet­ings or events.”

The weapons ban fits in with the group’s human­ist val­ues.

“This ban aligns with our val­ues of peace and social jus­tice, empa­thy, and ser­vice and par­tic­i­pa­tion,” Douglas Berger, President of SHoWLE said. “We have been con­cerned, for some­time, about the inac­tion of the Ohio leg­is­la­ture to address gun vio­lence and how some polit­i­cal lead­ers wild west ideas of the rugged indi­vid­ual strut­ting down the street pack­ing heat is out­dat­ed and the inac­tion is ter­ri­ble, on a dai­ly basis, for many fam­i­lies in our com­mu­ni­ty. We felt we need­ed to do some­thing and the ban is what we decid­ed.”

SHoWLE also sup­ports evi­dence based actions and poli­cies that will address the trag­ic cost of unchecked gun vio­lence.

The ban takes effect imme­di­ate­ly and excep­tions will be made for sworn law enforce­ment offi­cers con­duct­ing offi­cial busi­ness.

About Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie

The mis­sion of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie is to pro­vide a sup­port­ive local com­mu­ni­ty for human­ists and oth­er non­the­ists, while pro­mot­ing an eth­i­cal, rea­son­able, and sec­u­lar approach to life through edu­ca­tion, com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice, out­reach, activism, and social events.

We envi­sion a Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan where sec­u­lar peo­ple are respect­ed and inte­grat­ed in broad­er soci­ety, live val­ues of rea­son and com­pas­sion, and enjoy a friend­ly human­ist com­mu­ni­ty.

Media Contact

Douglas Berger — President
567–302-0209

#

The full text of the Resolution can be found on our Policies and Resolution page