<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/23/opinion/uvalde-evangelicals-guns.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/23/opinion/uvalde-evangelicals-guns.html</a><br clear="all"></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">...<span style="font-family:nyt-imperial,georgia,"times new roman",times,serif;font-size:1.25rem">The AR-15-style rifle used in the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, last month was made by an arms manufacturer that regards selling weapons as part of its Christian mission. In a state where Gov. Greg Abbott</span><span style="font-family:nyt-imperial,georgia,"times new roman",times,serif;font-size:1.25rem"> </span><a class="gmail-css-yywogo" href="https://www.texasobserver.org/texas-governor-greg-abbott-nra-convention-problem-not-guns-hearts-without-god/" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="font:inherit;margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;vertical-align:baseline;text-decoration-style:solid">declared</a><span style="font-family:nyt-imperial,georgia,"times new roman",times,serif;font-size:1.25rem">, six months after an earlier massacre, “The problem is not guns; it’s hearts without God,” the gun’s provenance challenged pious suggestions that declining religiosity might bear some of the blame.</span></div><p class="gmail-css-at9mc1 evys1bk0" style="margin:0px 0px 0.9375rem;padding:0px;border:0px;font-variant-numeric:inherit;font-variant-east-asian:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.875rem;font-family:nyt-imperial,georgia,"times new roman",times,serif;vertical-align:baseline;width:600px;max-width:100%">Daniel Defense, the Georgia company whose gun enabled the slaughter at Robb Elementary School, presents its corporate identity in explicitly religious terms. At the time of the shooting, the company’s social media presence included an image of a toddler with a rifle in his lap above the text of Proverbs 22:6 (“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it”). For Easter, it posted a photograph of a gun and a cross resting on scriptural passages recounting the Resurrection.<span class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">..</span></p><p class="gmail-css-at9mc1 evys1bk0" style="margin:0px 0px 0.9375rem;padding:0px;border:0px;font-variant-numeric:inherit;font-variant-east-asian:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.875rem;font-family:nyt-imperial,georgia,"times new roman",times,serif;vertical-align:baseline;width:600px;max-width:100%"><span class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">...</span>It is easy to miss, but this melding of evangelism and the right to bear arms is a step beyond the “natural rights” argument for gun ownership, which holds that self-defense is a law of nature required to protect life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These rights are often said to be God-given in the sense of being taken for granted, and they are enshrined as such in the Declaration of Independence. As interpreted by many evangelicals, the distant deistic “creator” Thomas Jefferson credited with endowing such rights has become a specific, biblical deity who apparently takes an active interest in the availability of assault rifles.</p><p class="gmail-css-at9mc1 evys1bk0" style="margin:0px 0px 0.9375rem;padding:0px;border:0px;font-variant-numeric:inherit;font-variant-east-asian:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.875rem;font-family:nyt-imperial,georgia,"times new roman",times,serif;vertical-align:baseline;width:600px;max-width:100%"><span class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><span style="font-size:1.25rem">Why does this subtle shift in the meaning of “God given” matter? It’s important to understand that for the manufacturer of the Uvalde killer’s rifle, and many others in the business, selling weapons is at once a patriotic and a religious act. For those who hold them to be sacred in this way, the meaning of firearms proceeds from their place at the intersection of American and Christian identities. Proposing limits on what kinds of guns they should be able to buy — or how, when, where and why they can carry them — is akin to proposing limits on who they are and what they should revere...</span></span></p><p class="gmail-css-at9mc1 evys1bk0" style="margin:0px 0px 0.9375rem;padding:0px;border:0px;font-variant-numeric:inherit;font-variant-east-asian:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.875rem;font-family:nyt-imperial,georgia,"times new roman",times,serif;vertical-align:baseline;width:600px;max-width:100%"><span class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><span style="color:rgb(54,54,54);font-size:20px">...As the thunderous applause that greeted this testimony made clear, gun culture is largely Christian culture. To imagine yourself as a Good Guy With a Gun, as Mr. Willeford invited N.R.A. members to do, may inspire action-movie day dreams, but it is ultimately a religious vision of a world in which good and evil are at war, where God and firepower make all the difference...</span></span></p><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><font size="2">Ron Force<br>Moscow Idaho USA</font></div></div></div><br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Jun 24, 2022 at 9:17 AM Roger Hayes <<a href="mailto:rhayesmoscowid@gmail.com">rhayesmoscowid@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">Saw a bumper sticker that said, "God, Guns, and Babies." I was kind of taken aback by the combination of those words, and I thought what kind of person, what kind of Christian would proudly tool around town with that message on their car? Then I look at photos of the 6 Supremes who in the past week ruled on exactly those words and I thought, that's what kind of people would do that. </div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Jun 24, 2022 at 7:58 AM Tom Hansen <<a href="mailto:thansen@moscow.com" target="_blank">thansen@moscow.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="auto"><h1 style="padding:0px;margin:0px 0px 22px;box-sizing:border-box;font-weight:400;line-height:56px;max-width:800px;color:rgb(74,74,74);font-family:"Sky Text",sans-serif;font-size:48px"><span style="padding:0px;margin:0px;box-sizing:border-box">Right to abortion overturned by US Supreme Court after nearly 50 years in Roe v Wade ruling</span></h1><p style="padding:0px;margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px;box-sizing:border-box;line-height:30px;max-width:800px;color:rgb(74,74,74);font-family:"Sky Text",sans-serif;font-size:22px">The power to decide on abortion rights for tens of millions of women will now be handed to the 50 states to determine individually.</p><p style="padding:0px;margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px;box-sizing:border-box;line-height:30px;max-width:800px;color:rgb(74,74,74);font-family:"Sky Text",sans-serif;font-size:22px"><br></p><p style="padding:0px;margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px;box-sizing:border-box;line-height:30px;max-width:800px;color:rgb(74,74,74);font-family:"Sky Text",sans-serif;font-size:22px"><a href="https://news.sky.com/story/right-to-abortion-overturned-by-us-supreme-court-after-nearly-50-years-in-roe-v-wade-ruling-12628801" target="_blank">https://news.sky.com/story/right-to-abortion-overturned-by-us-supreme-court-after-nearly-50-years-in-roe-v-wade-ruling-12628801</a></p><br><div dir="ltr"><div><span style="background-color:rgba(255,255,255,0)">Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .</span></div><div><span style="background-color:rgba(255,255,255,0)"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color:rgba(255,255,255,0)">"Moscow Cares" (the most fun you can have with your pants on)</span></div><div><span style="background-color:rgba(255,255,255,0)"><a href="http://www.MoscowCares.net" target="_blank">http://www.MoscowCares.net</a></span></div><div><br></div><div><div><span style="background-color:rgba(255,255,255,0)">Tom Hansen</span></div><div><span style="background-color:rgba(255,255,255,0)">Moscow, Idaho</span></div></div><div><br></div><div>“A stranger is just a friend you haven’t met.”</div><div>- Roy E. Stolworthy</div><div></div></div></div>=======================================================<br>
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