Re: So who is going to pay the money to fix these Jesus guns?

On Mon, 25 Jan 2010 03:33:28 -0800 (PST), "HH&C"
<hot-ham-and-cheese@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Jan 24, 10:03 pm, Observer <noone@nowhere> wrote:
On Sun, 24 Jan 2010 16:02:27 -0800 (PST), "HH&C"





<hot-ham-and-che...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jan 24, 6:37 pm, Observer <noone@nowhere> wrote:
On Sun, 24 Jan 2010 13:06:40 -0800 (PST), Too_Many_Tools

<too_many_to...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The Republicans?

TMT

Trijicon sights: How the ‘Jesus gun’ misfired
Biblical references on rifle sights have been an open secret among
soldiers. But it’s become an embarrassment for the Pentagon, causing
Michigan gunmaker Trijicon to send ‘removal kits

By Patrik Jonsson Staff writer / January 22, 2010

Atlanta
A Michigan manufacturer criticized for putting biblical citations on
gunsights sold to the US military vows to end the practice. It has
sent 100 “removal kits” that soldiers can use to scrape off words that
critics say promote the idea of a Christian crusade in the Middle
East.

The revelations, first reported by ABC News, caused embarrassment and
consternation within the Pentagon after religious groups – including
the Interfaith Alliance – complained that it violated an Army rule
against proselytizing.

The Pentagon at first said the inscriptions did not violate Army
rules, and one official compared the sight references with “In God We
Trust” on US currency. On Thursday, however, Gen. David Petraeus, head
of the US Central Command, called the references “disturbing” and a
“serious concern.”

But to some observers, it’s not clear how a simple reference to the
Bible on a gun part is different from a Muslim soldier carrying a
Koran into battle.

Biblical phrases on sights “are innocuous and don’t mean a thing, but
it’s how people react to them that matters,” says Victor Le Vine, a
Middle East expert at Washington University, in St. Louis.

Crusader image
The US is already struggling against the image of a crusade in the
Middle East, and the idea of US soldiers using what some call a “Jesus
gun” to shoot at Islamic jihadists ultimately jeopardizes US
servicemen, critics say.

“One of the main recruiting tools for anti-American forces is the
claim that America is engaged in a war on Islam, and this kind of
incident feeds directly into that talking point,” says Ibrahim Hooper,
a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, in
Washington.

In a letter to President Obama this week, the Rev. Dr. C. Welton
Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance in New York, wrote:
“Images of American soldiers as Christian crusaders come to mind when
they are carrying weaponry bearing such verses. This incident simply
adds to the perception that religion rather than national security is
at the heart of our military’s presence abroad.”

Indeed, Al-Jazeera quotes its correspondent in Kabul, David Chater,
saying that the references are a “rallying cry for the Taliban. It
gives them a propaganda tool. They’ve always tried to paint the US
efforts in Afghanistan as a Christian campaign.”

Some Middle East analysts call that hyperbole.

“When people go to war they are confronted with very fundamental
issues about who they are, and that seems to be the context in which
American troops tend to be more conservative and many of them are
Christian-oriented,” says Robert Canfield, an expert on the Taliban,
also at Washington University. “I think the references are
inappropriate, but I’m not sure that the Taliban really care. They
talk about religion all the time, and they assume that’s what we do,
too.”

The references – which are etched in the same font as the part number,
rendering them nearly invisible to the casual observer – are on all of
the 300,000 Advanced Combat Optical Gunsights (ACOGs) delivered to the
Army and Marine Corps.

Biblical citation quotes Jesus
The inscription on the standard issue ACOG is a reference to a Bible
citation that reads, “Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am
the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in
darkness, but shall have the light of life.”

A video review of the Trijicon “ACOG” sights shows the reviewer saying
the Bible inscription “is one of the really cool things about this
sight.”

Michael Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom
Foundation and a former military lawyer who graduated from the US Air
Force Academy, told ABC News that soldiers have told him that Army
commanders refer to the Jesus rifles as “spiritually transformed
firearm[s] of Jesus Christ.”

Trijicon began putting Bible references on sights nearly 30 years ago
under Trijicon’s founder, South African Glyn Bindon, who died in an
aircraft crash in Alabama in 2003.

"Our effort is simple and straightforward: to help our servicemen and
women win the war on terror and come home safe to their families,” the
company said in a statement released earlier this week. “As long as we
have men and women in danger, we will continue to do everything we can
to provide them with both state-of- the-art technology and the never-
ending support and prayers of a grateful nation."

In a release on Thursday, Mr. Bindon’s son, Stephen Bindon, wrote,
“Trijicon has proudly served the US military for more than two
decades, and our decision to offer to voluntarily remove these
references is both prudent and appropriate.”

1)  This is old news.

2)  They make scopes, NOT rifles.

3)  Why do you think they call them "Cross" hairs?

Why didn't Trijicon just call them "Crucifixes?"  It seems that every
other manufacturer has their own name for a cross hair.

4)  Do you really wish to take Cheese-Bob's title as "Dumbest Winger
on Misc.Surv"?  (That's rhetorical)

(That's incorrect)

OK, I stand corrected.  It was, indeed, NOT Rhetorical.  But, still...
you should kindly remove your nose from my ass.  

How many nyms are you using? I noticed two others come back on the
group about the same time you did.

1) Again, I use a single name on USENET, as opposed to your
multitude.

2) Kindly pull your nose out of my ass. Fair warning: This is
burrito night and I'm gonna follow them with some delectable Belgian
Beers.
__

The last official act of any government is the looting of the nation.
.

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