After Michigan attack, some Latter-day Saints ask: Why can’t we take guns to church?

Ever since the deadly attack on a congregation in Michigan, some social media users identifying as Latter-day Saints have been questioning or criticizing the faith’s 2019 policy banning guns from church property except for law enforcement.

According to the website of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, worshippers are advised, in the case of an active shooter, to run and/or hide. If neither is an option, it states, “use anything available as a weapon and fight to stop the assailant.” This reflects standard guidance often cited by security experts.

Posting a screenshot of the church’s webpage on social media, Utah libertarian Connor Boyack wrote, “I guess that means throwing a hymnal at the shooter?”

Some posters, meanwhile, stated that they planned to flout the church’s ban on firearms in chapels.

“Men need to comfort their families and protect them,” one user wrote on Instagram, “by whatever means necessary.”

Another simply shared a verse from the faith’s signature scripture, the Book of Mormon — “And again, the Lord has said that: Ye shall defend your families even unto bloodshed.”

Still other social media users have asserted that they have already been attending church armed in defiance of the policy — and intend to continue doing so.

In a news conference Friday, Grand Blanc Township Police Department noted that a member of the Michigan congregation was carrying a handgun at the time of the attack. According to police Chief William Renye, the individual brandished the weapon and ran toward the assailant but, as evidenced in newly released police body camera footage, did not fire his weapon at any point.

A church spokesperson did not supply answers to questions about whether faith leaders planned to revisit the policy or respond to criticism.

It is too soon to say how the Michigan shooting and arson assault, reportedly perpetrated by someone who had a particular hatred of Latter-day Saints, will shape members’ views in the long term on gun rights and gun control.

The Grand Blanc attack is not the first deadly shooting in a Latter-day Saint meetinghouse. A 2010 assault in California and another in 2018 in Nevada, for instance, each claimed one victim.

Another possible wild card: conservative podcaster Charlie Kirk’s fatal shooting at Orem’s Utah Valley University.

However, by stitching together year-over-year data from one of the nation’s leading surveys on Americans’ political views, clear trends emerge regarding how Latter-day Saints in the United States, a historically heavily Republican group, have tended to land on issues related to guns.

This work was done by Alex Bass, the data scientist behind the Mormon Metrics website.

Bass combed through 11 years’ worth of data harvested by the Cooperative Election Study for every response given by a self-identified Latter-day Saint on questions regarding guns.

The number of members the organization surveyed each year varied, ranging from as few as 250 or so during odd years, to as many as 870 during even years. For questions asked every or most years (all but an inquiry on a 2022 law), the overall sample size of church members fell between 5,300 and 6,200.

Here is what he found:

Latter-day Saints look a lot like Republicans writ large when it comes to gun ownership.

An estimated 48% of Republicans own guns or live with someone who does. Latter-day Saints are just a percentage point lower, putting them well ahead of the U.S. average of 37%. That’s based on 2020 and 2022 data, the two years the survey included this question.

The vast majority of Latter-day Saints and Republicans support universal background checks.

There are few hot-button issues with a larger consensus countrywide than background checks on all firearm sales. According to 2024 CES polling, 92% of Americans support such action.

By comparison, 85% of Latter-day Saints said the same that year, compared with 89% of Republicans.

Peak support came in 2017, the same year a Las Vegas mass shooting claimed nearly 60 lives and left hundreds more injured. The massacre took place in October, a month before the research firm began its polling for that year. The results found that an estimated 89% of Latter-day Saints backed universal background checks.

Latter-day Saints have repeatedly shown more enthusiasm than Republicans for bans on assault rifles and making it harder to obtain a concealed carry permit.

When it comes to bans on assault rifles, between 37% and 56% of Latter-day Saint respondents supported the proscription, depending on the year. Republicans, meanwhile, fluctuated between 33% and 53%. Once again, 2017 represented the high watermark as far as support, with Latter-day Saints topping out at 56% and Republicans 3 percentage points lower.

The 2017 bump is even more pronounced among Latter-day Saints on the issue of concealed carry permits. That year, asked if the government should make it easier to obtain one, 53% of Latter-day Saints said no, compared to 38% of Republicans.

Latter-day Saints were the least supportive of any group Bass analyzed of the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, albeit by a tiny fraction.

Between 2023 and 2024, 78% of Latter-day Saints backed the law, which among other things, increased mental health funding for schools (later pulled back by the Trump administration) and enhanced background checks for would-be gun buyers under 21. By comparison, 79% of Republicans, 83% of independents, 96% of Democrats and 86% of the U.S. overall expressed support for the measure.

Where the church itself stands on gun issues

According to an analysis by the nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety, an average 442 people die each year from guns in Utah. Nonetheless, the state’s predominant faith has remained largely mum on guns and the nearly 50,000 American lives they claim each year.

A noteworthy exception came shortly after the 2018 mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida. Barely a month after taking the faith’s helm, then-church President Russell M. Nelson lamented U.S. laws — or the lack thereof — governing guns.

“How could God allow things like that to happen?” he told a congregation of Latter-day Saint millennials in Las Vegas. “Well, God allows us to have our agency, and men have passed laws that allow guns to go to people who shouldn’t have them.”

Nelson, who died Sept. 27, never returned to the topic of gun restrictions, though the faith’s policy bars firearms from chapels and temples.

“Firearms and other lethal weapons are not allowed on church property,” the General Handbook states. “This includes concealed weapons. This does not apply to current law enforcement officers.”

That Latter-day Saints largely track with Republicans when it comes to guns, gun control and gun rights is predictable, said Utah State University peace researcher and Mormon history and culture scholar Patrick Mason.

“Especially on issues for which church leaders have not clearly charted a different course,” Mason said, “our default assumption should be that Latter-day Saints look like other right-of-center Americans on most issues.”

South Jordan Latter-day Saint gun rights advocate Janalee Tobias had a similar reaction to Bass’ findings.

“The short answer,” the 62-year-old grandmother remarked, “is ‘I’m not surprised.’”

Asked if she views her church as having a stance on guns, Tobias pointed to the U.S.-born faith’s long tradition of elevating the nation’s founding documents.

“The LDS Church has always been a big proponent of the Constitution of the United States, specifically the Bill of Rights,” said Tobias, who takes issue with the term “assault rifle” (“I call them ugly guns”). “And so I would say that the church is pro-Constitution. And if you’re pro-Constitution, then you’re pro-Second Amendment.”

Mason, meanwhile, views the church, born not “in genteel salons” but the American frontier, as a neutral party.

“It would be wrong to say that the church is pro-gun,” said the co-author of “Proclaim Peace: The Restoration’s Answer to an Age of Conflict.” “I’ve never once heard a church leader encourage gun ownership. But it would be equally wrong to say the church is anti-gun.”

One point, the church, especially Nelson, hasn’t been silent on is calling on its members to be peacemakers. Mason said he hopes to see that focus remain, paired with a greater emphasis on the steep costs — from Orem to Michigan, Ukraine to Gaza — incurred when peace breaks down.

“We should collectively mourn the tragic loss of life that comes from violence in all its forms,” he added, “all around the world.”

The church’s governing First Presidency, at the time led by Nelson, essentially did that after the Kirk shooting, saying the global faith of 17.5 million members “condemns horrific acts of violence worldwide,” repeating its push for “peace and unity despite our differences,” and calling on “people everywhere to build communities of greater kindness and love.”

After the Michigan attack, senior apostle Dallin H. Oaks, next in line to lead the faith, similarly bemoaned the terrible toll of violence.

“We mourn with our members who have lost loved ones,” he wrote, “and we join in prayer for comfort with others around the world who are suffering from similar tragedies.”

Absent in both statements, again, were guns.

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