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Guns, grief and god: Part 2

Edward Stourton visits a church community following a school shooting.

On 4 September 2024, the town of Winder in the US state of Georgia became the latest scene of a school mass shooting. Two students and two teachers were killed. The suspect was 14 years old. The deadly attack at Apalachee High School left a community torn apart by guns and brought together in grief. In each of the previous four years there have been more than 600 mass shootings in the United States - almost two a day on average.

Edward Stourton has been to Georgia to visit the church community attached to the high school, as they try to make sense of the senseless violence in their hometown. He meets Pastor Frank Burnat and his pastoral team, who are ministering to a community in which both God and guns are a part of everyday life. Where is God in such a tragedy and its aftermath?

Producer: Dan Tierney
Presenter: Edward Stourton
Executive producer: Rajeev Gupta
Editor: Chloe Walker
Production co-ordinator: Mica Nepomuceno

(Photo: From left to right, Edward Stourton, Megan Gomez, Matthew Brown, Frank Burnat. Credit: Dan Tierney)

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