Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition
wilkyjr printable version print page     Bookmark and Share
Tue Feb 26, 2013 at 08:58:48 AM EST
The wedding of Bible and bullets might seem a strange couple, but its image has gained momentum in the Religious Right.  Texas Conservative politicians have a long history with the NRA which appears to be the most favorable alliance politicians are linked to.  Some are taking the relationship to guns to a new level.  There are some who state the Second Amendment allows them to hunt.  Others line up behind the Amendment saying it provides protection from criminals.  A third group even declares it will be necessary to be protected from the Federal Government.
     Apocalyptic preachers have hosted a deeply rooted connection to guns.  It makes sense to arm yourself since the pending doom of the world is at hand.  How else can you protect yourself from Satan's forces?  Jack Van Impe warned that the United Nations was posting secret codes on the back of federal highway signs to take down the nation.  Apocalyptic preacher Jon Hagee is shown holding his rifle beside NRA allies.  Hagee is not holding that weapon to signify quail hunting on one of his vast ranches.
      David Barton was recently  on Glenn Beck's show.  Barton explained how to better protect the nation's schools.  He told the story of a small old West school where an evil person with a vendetta was about to attack a teacher.  Students stood up to the bully pulling out their guns as a warning.   Thus armed students are a grand deterrent to violence.   One of Barton's legislative friends offered a bill to  cease the no weapons ban at public schools.  Texas legislators were pushing bills to arm teachers and pay for their weapon's training.  Bills in Arkansas dealt with lifting the ban on taking weapons to church.  It was discovered that in Texas, churches are not a gun free zone unless there are visible posted signs stating such.  
   Gun magnet Ted Nugent is featured as a supporter of area politicians.  He is listed on resumes' and encouraged to speak at press conferences.  While in New York Ted held up an assault weapon and said, "Hey Hillary you might want to ride one of these into the sunset you worthless bitch..."  He also told Barbara Boxer to suck on my machine gun and called Dianne Feinstein a worthless shore.   His rhetoric was so vile about President Obama the secret Service paid him a visit.    A Religious Right politician was taped comparing Obama's use of children in a gun-control commercial to how Saddam Hussein used children.
     Regional politicians have lost tenure over backing bills like the Brady Bill.  Government gun regulation in any form is seen as reason to vote for one's opponent by what appears to be a majority of voters.  Hysteria often flows with the mention of gun regulation.  Some Religious Right leaders believe the "mental health" portion of gun checks will be used against Christians.  Fear mongers believe Christians will be declared mentally ill by the government and this will be an excuse to take away their defense.   The Christian Militia was formed to protect citizens from the threat of government persecution of true Americans.  A Baptist Congressman once sent a fax to Janet Reno who was Attorney General at the time.  He wrote her he was concerned that she would be using the Military to attack Christian militias.   Associated Baptist Press recently carried a story about a north Texas church hosting training for gun carrying permits.  
     Jon Hagee's son believes Bill Clinton is the Anti-Christ.  One legislator wrote that Clinton used the attack on the Branch Davidians as an excuse to take away assault weapons.   A legislative assistant recently told me about his connection to Herb Titus, who is his mentor.  Herb believes that Obama Care will be a "totalitarian threat."   He stated people needed to be armed "because ultimately it may come to the point where it's a life and death situation."  Titus is connected to Christian Reconstruction and worked with Pat Robertson to start up a law school.  Christian Reconstruction believes most agencies of the federal government are illegitimate.  
     Larry Pratt of Gun owners of America is another leader Texas politicians often cite as a friend.  Pratt is the man who worked up the legal reasoning behind the Christian Militia.  Pratt states there are to be no more Wacos.  He warns that if this is tried again we will not stand around and watch.   Larry has a video warning Obama that like King George III, Second Amendment rights allow citizens to shoot the ones who seek to take our rights away.
     The Christian News Wire site carries a report about a gun activist by the name of John Synder.  Synder says that Obama policies undermine the "right to life itself."  He was referring to the President's gun owner opinions.  Synder concludes his argument against the President with, "We unite and fight him and his obtuse seig heil media all the way."  His web site, gunsrightspolicies.org, sells a book named  Gun Saint.  It is the story about a Catholic who is promoted as the "patron saint of gun owners."
      Since so many in the nation still think the President is secretly a Muslim or has a radical agenda, the fact that he is promoting any kind of gun control sets him up for scorn.  One has to wonder at how much his close advisors are in touch with the public?  His first election sent a horde of shoppers to Wal Mart seeking to get all the ammunition they could before the government banned it.  I was recently at an area gun store and a clerk told me that anything that goes pop or makes a boom gets picked up as fast as it hits the shelves.  Another local gun range told me he was offered a price for every single box of shells he had on the premise  
     Check out what  home school crowds are using for film and literature.  Sergeant York is a favorite.  Visionforum, a home school favorite, promotes many children's books with military themes.  Toy weapons are the toys of choice for the lads, which teaches them to "defend their sisters."  Hardcore homes school types are gun advocates and most of the children, (girls and boys) have been introduced to guns.  Logic concludes that if you are so afraid of the government you will not allow your children to attend its schools, how much affection will your family have toward the government?  Ruby Ridge and Randy Weaver are not swimming alone out there in the vast sea.  There are some others swimming with them in the school.



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A retired government law enforcement official recently reminded me of how silly it is to think an assault weapon will keep one safe from their government.  He has spoken to me of weapons that shot through brick buildings etc and the idea that our gun keeps the government out is absurd.

by wilkyjr on Tue Feb 26, 2013 at 09:04:52 AM EST
Guerilla warfare has a long history of success where relatively weak and outgunned rag-tag forces are able to topple governments through persistence, maneuvering and ultimately getting the public (or a good part of it) to back them up in overthrowing the government.

by Villabolo on Tue Feb 26, 2013 at 07:43:32 PM EST
Parent

by the assertion that we will be protected from tyranny if everyone has access to assault weapons. When the Syrian uprising was in its earliest stages about 18 months ago, the news reports were saying it would never succeed as long as small arms (which is what assault weapons really are) were all the rebels had because the government had all the big guns.

This would suggest that the next step for the gun worshipers will be to demand recoilless rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, tanks, 105-mm and 155-mm howitzers, and eventually fully loaded fighter jets launched from aircraft carriers sailing in fleets with destroyers, cruisers and other naval vessels. All, of course, as part of their rights guaranteed under the Second Amendment.

by eeyore on Thu Feb 28, 2013 at 09:18:59 AM EST
Parent



I presume you have seen Chris Rodda's article sourcing Barton's story about the gun-toting students? Here's the latest: L'Amour said it really happened

And several years ago I wrote this to counter Ted Nugent's claim that there is a God-given right to own a gun: God-given Rights

by MLouise on Tue Feb 26, 2013 at 10:22:13 AM EST

The tape was up on Right Wing Watch with Barton being on Beck's show. Our late Congressman lost his seat for backing the Grady Bill.  

by wilkyjr on Tue Feb 26, 2013 at 02:41:00 PM EST

Nugent called her a "whore" not a "shore".

by wilkyjr on Tue Feb 26, 2013 at 02:45:13 PM EST

Short attention span these gun idol worshippers have....

Also, pet peeve: Why do no-gun-regulation folks claim that automatic weapons are needed to hunt deer? I see archers driving home with 10-pointers every season. There is no such thing as an automatic repeating bow. Are these hunters claiming they need automatic guns simply Bad Hunters who don't stand a chance otherwise?

by NancyP on Tue Feb 26, 2013 at 04:55:04 PM EST


When one round is fired, the deer all flee, there are no second shots in Texas.  Reasons I have heard are that its fun to shoot assault weapons. A late teen appeared to like having one as a status symbol.  Would cost him more than a week's wage.  

by wilkyjr on Wed Feb 27, 2013 at 09:11:25 AM EST

I found the story about the students with the guns who protected their teacher to be interesting.  It may well have happened way-back-when.

A story I remember about violence against a teacher and public reaction appeared in Laura Ingalls Wilder's book, Farmer Boy.  This was one of the books in the "Little House" series, although it was about her husband's childhood.

In this story, some rowdy thug-like brothers had beaten up the last school teacher so badly that he had died of his injuries (incidentally, there was absolutely NO mention that they were prosecuted, and based on the rest of the story, it appears that they weren't).  Anyway, the boy in the story (Laura's future husband) was very upset, because he liked the new teacher, a rather frail man, and was afraid that he would be killed as well, since the end of the school term was near.  (Well -- I guess that's one way to avoid tenure.  Sorry, irreverent comment).

The boy told his father of his concerns, and in old-timey stoic style, his father communicated that it was up to a man to protect himself (or perhaps he just sorta grunted, but that was the concept that was implied.  In other words, apparently the thought back then was that if a man can't fight off hooligans on his own, that was HIS problem).  Although I was just a child when I read this story, the idea that that was considered an acceptable way of dealing with impending criminal violence was distressing to me.

Ultimately, however, the frond-like teacher carried the day.  He had borrowed the boy's father's bull whip, and bull-whipped the heck out of the thugs and managed not to be murdered in front of the class.

I always thought this story showed the unattractive downside of the whole American individualism.  To know of an impending threat against someone and not act -- because "men are supposed to be man enough to protect themselves?"  Barbaric.  And of course this all happened within a Christian society.  Rather like the folks who now go around blaming the poor for their problems because if they were better people, they would be "rich."

I also always found the story interesting because so many people claim that there wasn't any violence in schools (or teen pregnancies or really anything bad because everyone went to church) way back when.

by coralsea on Wed Feb 27, 2013 at 11:03:41 AM EST

Rose Wilder Lane rewrote her mother's books to improve the style and to impart her libertarian principles. Rose Lane was a founder of the Libertarian Party in the United States and consciously rewrote her mother's books to align her mother's story with Rose's libertarian principles. For example, one thing she omitted from the Little House books was that Mary Ingalls' education was funded by a government grant. Rose rewrote the story to make it look as though Pa Ingalls paid for Mary's education.

by khughes1963 on Wed Feb 27, 2013 at 06:02:27 PM EST
Parent
I did not know that Rose had a hand in the editing.  I know that she had dealings with Ayn Rand and that she criticised Rand for accepting social security or medicare or some other "socialist" thing like that when Rand's husband had cancer and needed medical care.  

The "Little House" books would be a Libertarian's dream, since pioneers had to be self-reliant, although they certainly did place a lot of emphasis on education -- and going to the local schools.  I suppose, however, that the idea was that the schools were locally funded, so it was okay (although they pretty much are now, too, which is part of the problem -- wealthy areas are able to afford fancier schools).  I do remember that there was some grand pooh-ba superintendent running around, though, and that he gave Laura her first teachers' certificate.

And HEY -- after the awful winter full of blizzards, a train came to the Ingalls' town with lots of charitable relief items for the starving villagers.  Oh, darn!  That was charitable, non-government giving, though.  Oh well....

Are you familiar with the story from Farmer Boy, by the way?  I found it very disturbing as a child.

by coralsea on Thu Feb 28, 2013 at 11:08:10 AM EST
Parent




John Clahypol, a famous pastor, used to use this story in sermons.  The book was turned into a movie he saw as a child.  He too was caught up in the saga of revenge. He said the crowd in the theatre cheered when vengence was taken on the thug.

by wilkyjr on Wed Feb 27, 2013 at 03:31:18 PM EST

The idea expressed in this phrase suggests that some within the Religious Right have adopted a more aggressive and confrontational approach to advancing their beliefs,  best place to buy diamond rings which can be seen as unusual or contradictory to the peaceful and moral teachings often associated with religious faith, particularly Christianity.

by isabelladom on Sat Oct 21, 2023 at 12:34:19 AM EST


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