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And now we have to cope with theocrat arms manufacturers. What Would Jesus Do, indeed — lock and load, apparently.
Coded references to New Testament Bible passages about Jesus Christ are inscribed on high-powered rifle sights provided to the U.S. military by a Michigan company, an ABC News investigation has found.
The sights are used by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the training of Iraqi and Afghan soldiers. The maker of the sights, Trijicon, has a $660 million multi-year contract to provide up to 800,000 sights to the Marine Corps, and additional contracts to provide sights to the U.S. Army.
…Trijicon confirmed to ABCNews.com that it adds the biblical codes to the sights sold to the U.S. military. Tom Munson, director of sales and marketing for Trijicon, which is based in Wixom, Michigan, said the inscriptions “have always been there” and said there was nothing wrong or illegal with adding them. Munson said the issue was being raised by a group that is “not Christian.” The company has said the practice began under its founder, Glyn Bindon, a devout Christian from South Africa who was killed in a 2003 plane crash.
Are some in the military angry at this prosyletizing? Sure. But then there are some who are thrilled about guns for God, and they are in charge:
[Michael "Mikey" Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation], an attorney and former Air Force officer, said many members of his group who currently serve in the military have complained about the markings on the sights. He also claims they’ve told him that commanders have referred to weapons with the sights as “spiritually transformed firearm[s] of Jesus Christ.”
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If that isn’t bad enough, in an ABC followup piece, “Marine Corps Concerned About ‘Jesus Guns,’ Will Meet With Trijicon,” we see just how compromised the thinking is in high levels of the military. Mind-blowing:
“We are aware of the issue and are concerned with how this may be perceived,” Capt. Geraldine Carey, a spokesperson for the Marine Corps, said in a statement to ABC News. “We will meet with the vendor to discuss future sight procurements.” Carey said that when the initial deal was made in 2005 it was the only product that met the Corps needs.
However, a spokesperson for CentCom, the U.S. military’s overall command in Iraq and Aghanistan, said he did not understand why the issue was any different from U.S. money with religious inscriptions on it.
“The perfect parallel that I see,” said Maj. John Redfield, spokesperson for CentCom, told ABC News, “is between the statement that’s on the back of our dollar bills, which is ‘In God We Trust,’ and we haven’t moved away from that.”
I don’t even know where to begin with that delusional thinking.
22 Comments
How about we start with a Christian who goes into the business of making deadly weapons deadlier…… and then decides that this business is a great vehicle for proselytizing the Christian faith.
Yet again it is proven: the US government is lying its collective ass off when it says “We are not at war with Islam.”
Sigh–yes, it’s real…I just had a friend hand me an ACOG sight…
ACOG4X32JN8:12 MADE IN USA
The opposite side has only NSN1240-01-
412-6608
and a printed warning about the radioisotope…
Clever way to tuck in the Bible reference…
I couldn’t find the St Paul cite…
“Jesus Kills”Won’t that look good on Middle Eastern billboards with a photo of the gunsight?
Agree.In a way yes, they are the same. Both are propaganda, and both are embarrassing conflations of religion and politics.
But at least “In God We Trust” doesn’t as blatantly amount to government endorsing one monotheist religion over all the others. It’s not as if it says “In Jesus We Trust”, after all.
How, exactly, does this square withthe contention that we are not fighting a Christian war against Islam? And how can our government possibly hope to convince the Muslim world of that? This is the kind of thing that will tip a great many moderate Muslims in Asia into the ranks of militant anti-Americans. So much for the ol’ “winning hearts and minds” thing.
Other than Christian fanaticism (which is increasingly on the rise in our wonderful military), what point could there possibly be to having the damned inscriptions there in the first place? Are we supposed to take it that our troops shoot more accurately and kill more Muslims because of Bible verses on their M16s? Maybe the marines should just change their slogan from Semper Fidelis to Kill a Raghead for Jesus!
With Christian fanatics running the military, Seven Days in May looks less and less like speculative fiction.
They don’t call them ‘ragheads’They call them ‘Hajis”
At least it makes clear who God actually is.
Why not?“Are we supposed to take it that our troops shoot more accurately and kill more Muslims because of Bible verses on their M16s?”
Yes actually. I think some people might seriously think that. Just like athletes think praying before a game is going to help them play better.
I have a feeling they don’t even realize what effect this has on our image. Maybe they’re just too dumb to even consider it. They just think sacred words will enchant their weapons, that’s all.
I see no reason to give them credit for being any more thoughtful than that.
First In-N-Out, now this?!?Geez, bad enough I have to have my soul saved when I’m downing a four-by-four Animal Style, but now I have to consider how Jesus weeps for the murdered while I’m lining up a Hajii in my sights?
Sgt. Rock
Not codeYes, despicable, foolhardy, impolitic and crazy this may be, but the word “code” is inaccurate.
They’ve simply tacked on easily recognizable references to New Testament verses.
Non_Christian soldiers ought to have their own sightsPerhaps we can get whatever the Israeli military uses for Jewish Soldiers…it’s probably better anyways….
The Nazi’s carried God into war with them“Gott Mit Uns” on their belt buckles. Do we really need to be like the Third Reich?
But the real isue is the propaganda value, a dead child, killed by a gunshot, with a picture of the gunsight superimposed.
Who could ask for a better terrorist recruiting ad?
Indeed. We are writing al-Qaida’s recruitment pamphlets ourselves.And doing (pardon the expression) a bang-up job, too.
Revoltingbut morbidly fitting, as the Bible is extremely violent, and the God of the Bible is violent as well. Stonings in the name of God, now they have guns. Believers won’t be happy until they destroy humanity.
John 8:12
It is downright perverse to put that on a weapon that you are going to use to kill people. You might think that they are doing it to purposefully mock Christianity.
The targeting hairs glow in the darkbecause they are made of a radioisotope
So the “light” reference works
“I am the light of the battlefield”“Whoever sights with me will not shoot in darkness, but will have the light of radioactive decay”
I think their mind set isIf you do not accept the J-man you are better off/should be dead.
Dena
He was also “God”So in that sense, violent.
“Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. By myself I have sworn, from my mouth has gone forth in righteousness a word that shall not return: ‘To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.’” Isaiah 45:22-23
http://www.digisys.net/users/d…
No, you got it wrong!SN124 is Story Narrative (Surah 24 of the Koran)
And JN8:12 is Surah 10, Jonah, from lines 8 to 12.
AND ALSO the Jinn, whose line 12 reads
“And that we know that we cannot escape Allah in the earth, nor can we escape Him by flight:”
What more obvious verse to put on a sight?
One thing I haven’t decodedThose Mysterious letters:
MADE IN USA
Obviously some arcana, possibly from the Necronomicon.
I’m no fan of organized religion…but what ever happened to “He who lives by the sword dies by the sword?”
This is scary-ass shit…