Mrs. Cap’n Phealy and I went to see Iron Man tonight. One of the driving forces of the plot is that an arms manufacturer, after being confronted with the effects of his products, decides to stop manufacturing arms and take responsibility for the consequences of his work.

While the amusing-but-not-in-the-way-he-thinks Jim Cramer has a cameo to show the financial community’s reaction, I felt the movie missed out on a rather obvious point – in real life, any major supplier to the U.S. armed forces who suddenly quit cold turkey (yeah, I know, this movie is TOTALLY UNREALISTIC!!!) could expect a massive flurry of wingnuttiness hurled at him. (Hell, even the very serious McLaughlin Group did a cameo in Independence Day…)

“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.”

My god.

I actually lived in the Windsor Hills area of Oklahoma City for almost 8 years, but had no idea that the local Baptist church was so, shall we say, tone-deaf–but I’m not suprised. The Oklahoma City area seems to produce some particularly virulent conservative southern Baptists–IIRC a minister in Del City (just to the east of OKC) once said, on record, that God does not hear the prayers of Jews.

I’m very happy to be in Illinois now…….

At least they’re not handing out weapons to these guys. That would be really insane.

God may well have created the Remington bolt action, but he’s packing a Winchester lever action in the graphic.
We need every home to have guns so that alcohol-fueled domestic disputes are always lethal. That’s to make FOX news happy. Also it is handy for those experiencing mental health crises to have easy access to weapons to either check out or take the old gang with them. Praise Jeebus.

Better assault rifles than condoms, eh? There’s no telling what trouble they might avoid using condoms.

I think the real error on the part of youth pastor Bob “Bang-Bang” Ross is that the Great God Gun Giveaway didn’t include a mandatory 2 to ? year hitch in Iraq. I’m sure the young born-again crowd would have flocked to the event then.

BTW, Tbogg, I find the painting very inspiring and strangely arousing. Are prints available? I would like to put one on the ceiling above my bed for inspiration for those moments when Mrs. Hatmandu accuse me of firing blanks.

As an Okie ex-pat, I see you are trashing our fine old tradishuns of God, Guns, and Grease. Good job, y’all. Just goes to show how far off the mark Obama was in his remarks about clinging to their guns and religion, huh?

Ross said the church would give the gun away next year instead. He said the church spent $800 buying the gun for the promotion.

In my Oklahoma community, maybe 40 miles as the crow flies from Windsor Hills Baptist Church, eight hundred bucks would buy two months of free meals at the volunteer-staffed, church sponsored free lunch program.

As Jesus might have said, “‘I was hungry, and instead of feeding me, you bought a fucking rifle to give to a teenager?’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:43-46, slightly paraphrased)

“We have 21 hours of preaching and teaching throughout the week,”

After a week like that, I’d need a gun to put myself out of my misery.

Always loved guns. From a kid, I loved them. Blued steel. Walnut. The crack of the shot. The smell of gunpowder. Loved cleaning them. Gun oil sells beautiful.

But I never could figure out why I was supposed to object to filling out a form at the sporting goods store so some crazy or criminal person wouldn’t go shoot somebody. Never seemed like an infringement of my rights. Doesn’t now. Never will.

Ross said the conference isn’t all about guns, but rather about teens finding faith.

…And nothing bolsters your faith like a weapon that can mow down two-dozen infidels in the space of about 1.8 seconds.