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mygif

I think you made a mistake with your link.

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mygif

You’d expect to see that in Texas, not Kentucky…

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strikedynamo said on June 18th, 2009 at 10:30 am

I really thought I was going crazy because this links to my hometown’s political shenanigans. “Am I in Kentucky now?”

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Lister Sage said on June 18th, 2009 at 10:35 am

Foxhack / Kit Sniper: It’s still considered part of the South, so it still fits.

And, yeah, that link is way off.

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Robert N. said on June 18th, 2009 at 11:55 am

Didn’t Chris Morris do a fictional sketch on his The Day Today? You know, every episode had some news item about America – one of them was about a series of cases about guns in churches (priests asking all those who have a gun at the moment to leave, leaving only 2 people behind, a child and a deaf guy. Or priests exchanging shots etc).

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mygif

I’m actually curious to know if the link to the story about the Kentucky pastor got pasted into some document about expenditure controls in Nova Scotia now.

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Mad Scientist said on June 18th, 2009 at 1:59 pm

Especially if it was an assigned paper. 😀

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Anton P. Nym said on June 18th, 2009 at 2:26 pm

I seem to remember some sort of uproar over “clinging to guns and religion” being an inappropriate comment last year… but I must be mistaken. The little grey cells, they sometimes play tricks.

— Steve

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mygif

You’d expect to see that in Texas, not Kentucky…

I’m guessing you’ve never been to Kentucky.

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Consumer Unit 5012 said on June 18th, 2009 at 3:00 pm

MY first thought was “Last scene of The Killer“.

I am a bad person.

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mygif

Ah, that’s nothing. In the Great State Of Tennessee, they’ve just passed legislation allowing firearms in state parks, and, even more fun, in bars. Because, you know, nobody ever loses their temper and does anything stupid when they’re drunk.

Further, the sheriff of the county in which I live has been on TV pretty much ever day this week bragging about deputizing at least one person in every church in town. He’s doing this ostensibly because of that nut who shot up that church in Knoxville last year because of its liberal views on homosexuality and abortion.

Considering, however, that every church in my town is of the Christian fundamentalist type — well, except for the lone Catholic one — I’m wondering just what exactly they’re worried about. It’s almost enough to make me paranoid. I’m pretty sure I’m the only liberal in 60 miles in any direction, and that’s a lot of firepower for just wittle ol’ me.

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mygif

‘ “We’re just going to celebrate the upcoming theme of the birth of our nation,” said pastor Ken Pagano. “And we’re not ashamed to say that there was a strong belief in God and firearms — without that this country wouldn’t be here.” ‘

God, to give you an excuse to enslave others. Firearms, to give you the power to do so.

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mygif

I want to film that and make a video of all his flock coming in the door in slo-mo while “Killing in the Name Of” plays in the background.

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mygif

And we’re not ashamed to say that there was a strong belief in God and firearms…

I see the 2nd Amendment trumps the 2nd Commandment. Good to know.

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mygif

Praise the Lord and pass the ammo!

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mygif

Yes, Kentucky is big on firearms. Well, the rural parts of Kentucky, anyways. Lots of NRA folks here. Valley Station is a part of Louisville, which makes it a little odd, but let’s just say that is not the most…liberal part of town.

Some years back, my pastor had a “blessing of the toys” just after Christmas. I always thought it was a little odd. After this story, though, I imagined a “blessing of the guns”…farcical, at best.

For local coverage and comments, check out

and

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mygif

Whoops..also meant to include
this one
.
Early posters promoting the even used a font that looked like splattered blood, and here’s a lovely quote from Pagano to cap this off:
“Not every branch of Christianity is pacifistic,” he said.

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mygif

I don’t really understand MGK’s surprise here. So what? I don’t see the particular connection between God and guns, but if this is the way this man is connecting his congregation together and drawing closer the bonds of the community, then more power to him.

Considering the shootings which draw the public attention seem to always be someone bringing guns to a location where no one else has guns, I guess I’m just not concerned about this event.

And not for nothing, DC has one of the most restrictive set of gun laws in the US. Vermont has next to no state laws. The mortality rate per 100,000 is 31.2 and 9.6, respectively. That’s a bit of cherry picking, but Vermont’s mortality rate is less than California, which is a state that encompasses a variety of communities and socio-economic groups. New York rivals D.C. for strictest laws, and its mortality rate is 5.1, comparable to Connecticut which is considerably more liberal in its gun laws and is a ‘shall issue’ state.

All of this is merely to say that gun laws, restrictive or permissive, have less effect on the mortality rates than culture and community. So when you say that Tennessee allows guns everywhere, it occurs to me that that isn’t saying anything about whether the state is more or less dangerous than any other. As mentioned above, DC doesn’t allow guns anywhere, yet I’m much more likely to be killed in the district than wandering around a Tennessee state park.

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mygif

*Sigh* I used to be a youth pastor for a church, and it’s stuff like this that made me not want to tell people what I did for a living simply because of the negative connotations crap like this brings up for people.

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DistantFred said on June 19th, 2009 at 1:54 am

Robin: Blessings of the guns have tangible effects, though.

They improve their damage rating against the undead, for one thing, because they count as Holy Weapons.
I also think they improve the To Hit rating.

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mygif

DistantFred: Well struck, sir. Well struck. You are my hero.

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mygif

Sean: It’s embracing violence and xenophobia–the right to shoot people who are “threatening.” The NRA has for years drawn false connections between gun ownership and crime reduction as a part of a larger wingnut fantasy about self-defense and resisting the goddamn gummint or somesuch. Combining religion with violence has never historically worked out very well.

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mygif

Lindsey: I try not to assume other people’s motivations. I also try not to assume relationships between crime reduction and gun ownership are false or true, because for every study on one side there is a study on the other that says the opposite. It’s dangerous, or at the very least misguided, to assume that a position you are particularly fond of is right based on sketchy evidence because at the end of the day, it’s not the evidence that is guiding your decision, it’s the decision you’ve already made guiding you to the evidence you want to use.

I have no personal problem with shooting people who threaten me (whether we use quotation marks or not) with lethal force. I also have no problem with some other citizen shooting someone who is threatening me with lethal force. If your problem is with white, Christian gun owners shooting brown or black people (as seems to be the undertone of your post by citing xenophobia), I’d only point you to gun crime statistics that are pretty clear on who is shooting whom.

I don’t know if there’s any strength in the argument that the 2nd Amendment exists to protect the people from the government (though from your spelling of the word government I assume you have some beef against the type of people who might make this argument). I’d like to think there is even if just the shell of the idea- America was founded on many principles, but surely one of them was a distrust of a far reaching and powerful central government, unchecked by the will of the electorate. If the second amendment does nothing else but remind us to be distrustful of power, then it is doing at least part of its job.

That said, if you have a problem with the 2nd Amendment, then get it repealed. Good luck with that. What I can’t stand are the people who would like the Supreme Court to repeal things for them through judicial interpretation.

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Robert N. said on June 19th, 2009 at 11:35 am

“but surely one of them was a distrust of a far reaching and powerful central government, unchecked by the will of the electorate.”

Yes, in a age where it was the only major centralized institution of power (see Chomsky on Adam Smith, or his essay or seminar in youtube “Government in the Future”). They weren’t against it only because someone stamped the word “government” on it, but for a series of reasons that are just as valid for “private” (meaning, unaccountable states that have greater set of factors that affect the public – like the case of emperors and pirates, the most powerful one allows only the smaller one to be called “pirate”, or “state”) tyrannies (the average joe receives more coercion from his micro-iteration of soft stalinism on matters of his job, rent etc in a week than he does from the gummint in a year – which is only there to make sure the bigger states are protected, like John Dewey said, “government is the shadow of big business projected across society”).

But it’s of no surprise that it is the only factor (or cage) of that complex equation to be allowed to be demonized by current clergy, since it’s the cage that proved itself to be most accountable and of most response (even if patheticaly miniscule) to vulnerable and labor sectors of the society.

“If your problem is with white, Christian gun owners shooting brown or black people (as seems to be the undertone of your post by citing xenophobia), I’d only point you to gun crime statistics that are pretty clear on who is shooting whom.”

Oy…

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mygif

Considering this is Kentucky, how will it be different from any other Sunday?

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mygif

” I’d only point you to gun crime statistics that are pretty clear on who is shooting whom.”

Oy…”

Is there something wrong with recognizing that urban minorities are far more impacted by gun crime than white rural communities? It seems like looking at a problem realistically is the first way to address is. Ignoring real social issues because they touch on race (though more accurately socio-economics, but the two are tied together pretty closely in this country) seems like intentionally putting one’s eyes out because one doesn’t like the view.

…or maybe I misused ‘whom’ again. I do that sometimes. Sorry.

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Beachfox said on June 19th, 2009 at 8:53 pm

No mention of the most amusing part of the story?

The guns have to be unloaded. There will be guards at the doors to make sure no one sneaks in any bullets.

Second Amendment doesn’t say anything about ammunition, apparently.

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Robert N. said on June 19th, 2009 at 11:00 pm

Terribly sorry, Sean. Missinterpreted that bit entirely (thank God).

>>>”Second Amendment doesn’t say anything about ammunition, apparently.”

You just created the nightmare loophole that those folks were dreading someone would do. Either that or the Chris Rock $1000-a-bullet strategy.

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mygif

No worries.

I think the Court’s probably smart enough see through the bullet thing.

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Edmundog said on June 20th, 2009 at 6:53 pm

The 2nd Amendment guarantees the right to bear arms. In the 18th century, that meant to perform military service, and since it’s part of a sentence about state militias, I think that stands.

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