15 July, 2008

Helping Teens Find Faith: First, Provide Them Loaded Weapons

You really need to be sitting down for this. All drinks need to be fully swallowed and moved out of spilling range. Ready?

Right.

Canadian Cynic's post titled "Kill 'em all, and let God sort it out" takes us, without comment or adequate warning, to this article, wherein we discover:
An Oklahoma church canceled a controversial gun giveaway for teenagers at a weekend youth conference.

What. The. Fuck. They never gave away guns when I was a teenager in church! But it gets better:
Windsor Hills Baptist had planned to give away a semiautomatic assault rifle until one of the event's organizers was unable to attend.

Semiautomatic assault rifle? Are they out of their fucking minds? Wait a sec - Oklahoma, Baptist church, lots of insane fuckheads who worship the Second Amendment more than God attending same. Forget I asked. But let's see what the "reasoning" behind this blessed event was:
The church’s youth pastor, Bob Ross, said it’s a way of trying to encourage young people to attend the event.

You've got to be fucking kidding me.
A video on the church Web site shows the shooting competition from last year’s conference. A gun giveaway was part of the event last year. This year, organizers included it in their marketing.

What the fuck are you people "preaching and teaching," exactly? Someone show me the part in the Bible where Christ asks people to worship by honing their killing-people skills.
“I don’t want people thinking ‘My goodness, we’re putting a weapon in the hand of somebody that doesn’t respect it who are then going to go out and kill,'” said Ross. “That’s not at all what we’re trying to do.”

Really, Mr. Ross? That statement would be a lot more credible if it wasn't a fucking semiautomatic assault rifle you're giving away to the kiddies. Or are the deer really that formidable down there in Oklahoma? Are they, perhaps, equipped with rocket launchers? Or have you assclowns been playing too much "Left Behind" lately? Delusions of being Tribulation Force, I see.
Ross said the conference isn’t all about guns, but rather about teens finding faith.

At gunpoint, if necessary.

Fucking. Unbelievable. And you know the best part? They didn't cancel their "Give a Teen a Semi-Automatic!" extravaganza because they had a change of heart and realized that, in a country where school shootings are regular fare, gun violence is out of control, and the news is full of kids killing kids, placing semi-automatic weapons in the hands of a teen may not be the best way to teach kids about finding faith. They didn't cancel it because they had an epiphany and realized that, if swords should be turned into plowshares, maybe assault weapons should be too. They didn't even cancel because the community outcry shamed some sense into them.

No. They cancelled because the pastor who runs the event broke his foot and can't make it this year.

Let that one sink in before the coup d'etat's delivered:
Ross said the church would give the gun away next year instead.

And these are the people who are soooo morally superior to non-believers. What the fuck kind of demented moral system believes that being gay is a crime against humanity, but giving children assault weapons is perfectly fine?

When is civilized society going to stop pretending that faith like this deserves respect?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am so glad I am not the only one who saw that. I found the article on cnn last night and I almost died in disbelief. The crazy burns.

Anonymous said...

Praise the Lord and pass the Ammo

John Pieret said...

This is obviously a case of an arms race going on in Oklahoma! First there was Bill Crozier, the candidate for state superintendent of education, who proposed (as an actual, honest to goodness, news story put it) that "old textbooks could be used to stop bullets shot from weapons wielded by school intruders." His "plan" was to "put thick used textbooks under every desk for students to use in self-defense." There is even video of Crozier using his own personal arsenal to test the viability of his plan. He discovered that the books wouldn't stop rounds from his AK47.

It's clear that there are forces in Oklahoma who fear being losing their ability to fight their way through stacks of old tomes and are determined to increase their firepower to meet this academic Maginot Line!

Nicole said...

Thank God I'm not Baptist anymore!

I thought it was bad that the family camp my brother went to with his father was bad because they had a supervised father-son shooting range. This kind of makes the shooting range look like scrapbooking, doesn't it?

Nicole said...

P.S. I'm sure they justify it by saying the youth in their church would handle it properly and not abuse the right to carry a weapon. Gives an interesting perspective on God's Army, eh?

Chaos Lee said...

I think to myself, great, and now some angsty teen who grew up in this hyper-christian envrionment will lose it, pull a Columbine at local junior high, and maybe then there will be a glimmer of light suggesting that maybe volatile hormone-surging, emotionally confused teenagers and high-caliber weaponry shouldn't mix.

But no. They'd blame heavy metal or drugs or voting democratic or some other bullshit.

The bastard in me would love the front row seat for a minister taking a hollow-point to the face from an AD, all the people freaking out saying "But guns don't kill people!" and Charlton Heston's ghost laughing maniacally in the breeze.

John Pieret said...

They'd blame heavy metal or drugs or voting democratic or some other bullshit.

Nope ... as Tom Delay did with Columbine, they'll blame Darwin and eviloooshon!

Anonymous said...

All I can say is I'm glad I'm not American.