Carrying guns may seem contrary to those who are attending their churches and synagogues, anticipating a spiritual and peaceful encounter. But the facts are in: attending a house of worship comes with inherent danger, and we all should consider the importance and value of being armed.
Under President Trump, the federal government (FEMA specifically) created a new grant program, directing taxpayer dollars to the Nonprofit Security Grant Program so that faith-based institutions could fund security operations:
Today [August 19, 2025], the Department of Homeland Security announced it is awarding $110 million to more than 600 faith-based organizations and other nonprofits across the United States. In the face of violent criminals and radical organizations intent on hurting American communities, the Trump-Vance Administration is helping houses of worship, schools and community centers to harden their defenses against attacks and protect themselves.
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In June 2025, DHS announced the first round of funding: $100 million allocated to more than 500 Jewish faith-based organizations across the United States. This initial announcement came after the terror attack in Boulder, Colorado, and the murder of two Israeli Embassy staffers. All faith-based institutions were eligible to apply for grant funding to help defend themselves from threats.
Do the number of attacks justify the spending of government dollars? Absolutely. Here are the results of one study from the Family Research Council:
It [the report] declares that ‘hostility against American churches is not only on the rise but also accelerating.’ Identifying some 436 incidents against churches in 2023 — more than double the number in 2022, according to their records, and more than eight times the number in 2018 — it warned that these are ‘destructive and have the potential to intimidate a religious community.’
As a result of these increasing attacks, organizations providing firearms training to houses of worship have cropped up, and are helping to form security teams within the churches. Here is one example:
Churchgoers in Boise, Idaho, are taking extra precautions by arming themselves and engaging in ‘warrior training’ before attending weekly services due to a rise in violent attacks nationwide.
Amid this surge in violent incidents at places of worship, Sheepdog Church Security, founded by Kris Moloney in 2014, has seen a significant increase in parishioners seeking training for safety and security teams.
Initially starting as a small company, Moloney’s background in the military and law enforcement led him to establish a safety team at his own Minnesota church before expanding his services nationwide and training over 6,000 individuals.
One person who saw the urgent need for Jews in particular to carry guns was Sheila Nazarian. She points out that in some synagogues, there is protection within the sanctuary. Once a person steps outside, however, all bets are off. A person who is not armed is vulnerable to attack outside the venue or in the parking lot:
Every time I express this position, especially alongside my broader conviction that it is extraordinarily important for Jews to obtain CCWs and carry guns, I hear a wave of pushback from within the Jewish community, which is still largely opposed to gun ownership. But their arguments are always flimsy at best and dangerously deluded at worst. These critics point to the use of deadly firearms in attacks like the embassy shooting, moralistically proclaiming that we should be pushing to regulate weapons instead of arming ourselves in return, and that antisemitism would be less deadly if it wasn’t backed up by the force of a lethal weapon.
But this argument neglects to consider basic realities—first and most obviously, the fact that antisemitism continues to rise in America.
Not only are Jewish and Christian groups vulnerable to attacks, but any identity the pagan left considers an enemy. In a reimagined take on the old the sayin: the best offense is a good defense. In an environment like today, the right to peaceful worship goes hand in hand with the right to keep and bear arms.
Image: Acroterion, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons, unaltered.
