Couples lug AR-15 assault rifles to Pennsylvania church blessing

By Eduardo Munoz

 

People attend a blessing ceremony with their AR-15-style rifles in their cases at the Sanctuary Church in Newfoundland, Pennsylvania. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

 

NEWFOUNDLAND, Pa. (Reuters) - Hundreds of couples toting AR-15 rifles packed a Unification church in Pennsylvania on Wednesday to have their marriages blessed and their weapons celebrated as "rods of iron" that could have saved lives in a recent Florida school shooting.

 

Women dressed in white and men in dark suits gripped the guns, which they had been urged to bring unloaded to the church in the rural Pocono Mountains, about 100 miles (160 km) north of Philadelphia. Many celebrants wore crowns - some made of bullets - while church officials dressed in flowing bright pink and white garments to go with their armaments.

 

A church official hold their AR-15-style rifle while people attend a blessing ceremony with their AR-15-style rifles at the Sanctuary Church in Newfoundland, Pennsylvania. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

 

Reverend Hyung Jin "Sean" Moon, leader of the church after the death of his father and church founder, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, blessed the roughly 250 couples at the service, a church spokesman said.

 

The Feb. 28 marriage blessing ceremony had been planned long before a man with an AR-15 assault-style rifle massacred 17 students and school staff in Parkland, Florida, on Feb. 14, the spokesman said.

 

Students from an elementary school near the church were relocated for the day to distance them from the gun-toting couples at the ceremony, according to the Wallenpaupack School District website.

 

Moon said in a statement that the staff of the Florida school should have been armed, an option President Donald Trump has said should be explored nationwide and which teacher unions have criticized.

 

"Each of us is called to use the power of the 'rod of iron' not to arm or oppress as has been done in satanic kingdoms of this world, but to protect God's children," he said, citing the Book of Revelation in the Bible.

 

"If the football coach who rushed into the building to defend students from the shooter with his own body had been allowed to carry a firearm, many lives, including his own, could have been saved," Moon's statement said.

 

The Pennsylvania school district three years ago called off classes during the massive manhunt for survivalist Eric Frein, who police said used an AK-47-style weapon to ambush a Pennsylvania state trooper barracks and then fled into the mountains.

 

Frein was found guilty in April of killing a Pennsylvania state trooper and wounding another in the September 2014 attack.

 

(Reporting by Eduardo Munoz; Editing by Barbara Goldberg, Bill Trott and Lisa Shumaker)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-03-01

1 minute ago, webfact said:

Reverend Hyung Jin "Sean" Moon, leader of the church after the death of his father and church founder, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, blessed the roughly 250 couples at the service, a church spokesman said.

Ahhh... the Moonies. I wondered what had happened to them.

 

Using a 'church' to 'bless' assault weapons. Wow. Truth is stranger than fiction, and the loonies seem to get loonier everyday.

 

I am truly thankful that the US is (literally) on the other side of the planet...

 

Surreal. Only in America. God bless 'em.

Yeehaa! Git er dun! Rednecks!

Edited February 28, 20188 yr by PatOngo

Troll post removed.

 

yeah, only ever in USA

What a sick bunch of bar stewards.

oh isn't that lovely   !   loonies doing their blessings ....    why not have every pastor in the US armed with an AK47 ...  

God, Guns & Guts, huh?  

Hillarious! Real men with guns in pink dresses. 

After that we have a very intelligent expression of a female holding a gun. WOW!

I wonder if the american people in general endorse this PR that theese morons do for the country.

Edited March 1, 20188 yr by Get Real

Yes, this does seem a bit silly and OTT but perhaps we should also look to the mass shooting in a Texas church about 4 months ago. The shooter was stopped by a neighbour ( not attending church) who heard the shooting and used his own AR15 to stop the shooter.

1 hour ago, Somtamnication said:

Surreal. Only in America. God bless 'em.

I was right with you up until 'God bless 'em' sick,sick ,sick

Thomas Jefferson: "Peace is that brief glorious moment in history when everybody stands around reloading."

51 minutes ago, DoctorG said:

Yes, this does seem a bit silly and OTT but perhaps we should also look to the mass shooting in a Texas church about 4 months ago. The shooter was stopped by a neighbour ( not attending church) who heard the shooting and used his own AR15 to stop the shooter.

"A bit silly" 

 

If Jesus had had an AR-15 he would have lived... 

18 minutes ago, sfokevin said:

If Jesus had had an AR-15 he would have lived... 

Ahhh but he wanted to die

1 hour ago, DoctorG said:

Yes, this does seem a bit silly and OTT but perhaps we should also look to the mass shooting in a Texas church about 4 months ago. The shooter was stopped by a neighbour ( not attending church) who heard the shooting and used his own AR15 to stop the shooter.

I hope you know, that nothing of what you just wrote makes anything of this ok.

3 hours ago, webfact said:

Hundreds of couples toting AR-15 rifles packed a Unification church in Pennsylvania on Wednesday to have their marriages blessed and their weapons celebrated as "rods of iron" that could have saved lives in a recent Florida school shooting.

Welcome to the asylum. 

Most likely card carrying members of the NRA.

Ah churches, rearing their weird, ugly heads again.

Here's a Monty Python, enjoy:

 

The Holy Hand Grenade of Antiochunknown

A Reading from the Book of Armaments, Chapter 4, Verses 16 to 20:

Then did he raise on high the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, saying, "Bless this, O Lord, that with it thou mayst blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy." And the people did rejoice and did feast upon the lambs and toads and tree-sloths and fruit-bats and orangutans and breakfast cereals ... Now did the Lord say, "First thou pullest the Holy Pin. Then thou must count to three. Three shall be the number of the counting and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither shalt thou count two, excepting that thou then proceedeth to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the number of the counting, be reached, then lobbest thou the Holy Hand Grenade in the direction of thine foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it."

Loony Moonies.

2 hours ago, sfokevin said:

If Jesus had had an AR-15 he would have lived... 

And if the Romans had had an AR-15 millions of people would now be walking around with little guns hanging from their necks.

Well, Mexico. It's your move. Are you not ready to build the wall yet?

2 hours ago, sfokevin said:

If Jesus had had an AR-15 he would have lived... 

No because his "father" told him: thou shall not kill.

1 hour ago, Bluespunk said:

Welcome to the asylum. 

The tax exempt asylum.

4 hours ago, Get Real said:

I hope you know, that nothing of what you just wrote makes anything of this ok.

I am guessing that they probably think that nothing you do is OK either. Me? I don't care for any of you.

Their behaviour is weird, which I already said in my first post, but they are not doing any harm, so I try not to judge.

I wonder what the Amish in Pennsylvania make of all this.

1 hour ago, DoctorG said:

I am guessing that they probably think that nothing you do is OK either. Me? I don't care for any of you.

Their behaviour is weird, which I already said in my first post, but they are not doing any harm, so I try not to judge.

If you open up your eyes and see all this in a wider perspective, you will soon find out that they actually are doing harm.

First we can just take the visual effect of this BS. How is the younger population going to see guns, when theese morons openly can show themselfs armed looking like clowns?
What message does that give about guns, to people that easily can be persuaded?

That was just scratching the surface of the big problem, though. It can almost be seen as amusing to some less intelligent humans.

The big problem is why we need to campaign so must about the right to own guns in USA, in particular? Is that because the people of the USA can´t feel safe without owning a gun?
When everybody owns a gun, that means that there are more people that actually can kill eachother in a simple and not so messy way. If they implement gun control and making it harder to own guns, that means that everybody can´t shoot eachother anymore. To me that is creating less harm. What is so special with the people of USA? Are they more scared than people in other western countries?

I know that everything of this has to do with the outdated bill. Here it also depends on how you will understand what it means when you read. For myself, I an totally convinced that it was not meant to be used like it is today. That is what creates a big problem, and that is why all theese people can continue their crazy PR for guns for all.

Edited March 1, 20188 yr by Get Real

Imagine for a moment how similar scenes from inside a US Mosque would be received?

8 hours ago, sfokevin said:

If Jesus had had an AR-15 he would have lived... 

I hear you.......the only thing that stops a bad jew with a gun is a good jew with a gun. lol