Pastor buys AR-15 at raffle so he could destroy it

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Padres1969 said:
Hey if you want I can link you too this week’s sermon at my church.
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I’ve heard the same rhetoric from my brother-in-law’s pastor, and I’ve heard from visiting priests. I’ve even heard it from nuns during a panel. I’m sure it’s the same drivel.
Padres1969 said:
The guest preacher who was our Methodist preacher in residence actually used the phrase.
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His statement was so overblown that it probably needed some hand gestures, eye rolls, heavy sighing, and convulsions to help drive home the ridiculous nature of the statement. A link to a sterile transcript or video with really bad audio won’t help.
Padres1969 said:
I just borrowed it form him as it really does seem apt when describing American culture of late.
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It exhibits “American culture of late” better than you realize. Instead of gun ownership being the problem, the problem is an abundance of overreaction. When I was in high school, there was no freak-outs when we parked in the student lot with our rifles and shotguns in the truck so we could leave immediately after school to go hunting. When my father was in high school there was a gun club that did target shooting on school grounds.

Yes, overreaction and panic by the know it alls “really does seem apt when describing American culture of late.”
 
One thing to note. Not a single objection to those of us defending the use and ownership of AR-15’s or the softball team’s raffle of an AR-15 has a single fact cited to back it up. Not even a refutation of the facts related to the apparent “danger” of raffling an AR-15 were disputed.

The opposition here is 100% emotional. And as one of my favorite commentators likes to say: “Facts don’t care about your feelings.”
 
Lucas learned there was no way to stop the raffle, so he spent $3,000 in discretionary funds from Christ Church Episcopal parish to buy 150 raffle tickets in an attempt to win the rifle.
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I can think of much better use of the money. Like advancing the mission of his church for instance.
 
Padres1969 said:
Hey if you want I can link you too this week’s sermon at my church. The guest preacher who was our Methodist preacher in residence actually used the phrase. I just borrowed it form him as it really does seem apt when describing American culture of late.
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The people who value gun ownership do so because we recognize that it is important to be able to defend yourself and your family. This is doubly true in rural areas where police response times may be hindered by large distances. An AR-15 is an excellent firearm that is both reliable and relatively cheap to maintain. It’s also fairly cheap as far as those types of guns go.

The reason you see such vocal support in favor of guns is that anytime any does anything bad with a gun, a significant portion of the populous starts crying for them to be banned, frequently to the exclusion of the actual issue that lead to the violence.

Until those same people start crying for cars to be banned every time there’s a major (or even minor) accident, they are hypocrites who only want them banned because they don’t like them. As others have said, cars are far more dangerous than guns (statistically speaking,) but you don’t generally hear people saying that we should ban them because some drunk idiot got behind the wheel and killed some people. Why, then, should we automatically penalize gun owners who’ve done nothing wrong?
 
Expatreprocedit said:
But I’ll bite: how is owning AR-15s (opposed to a regular hunting rifle or a shotgun) essential to living in eastern WA/eastern OR?
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Can’t speak to OR, but here is why they are popular in MI.

It is a varmit rifle. A ‘hunting rifle’ as in one used for deer or elk, shoots a MUCH higher powered round. In most states, the round used by the AR is considered to be too underpowered for hunting deer.

For smaller game, The .223\5.56mm round is ideally suited for getting rid of vermin such as raccoon, skunk, fox, or coyote. It is a medium caliber, flat trajectory, so it is accurate enough to hit the vermin, but not over penetrate. In addition, the semi-auto functionality is useful, as vermin commonly come in larger groups.

The AR platform itself is highly adaptable, so you can easily swap out optics for nighttime hunt ( raccoon, skunk and fox) with different optics for an evening hunt (coyote), or even daytime groundhog use.

You can interchange barrels, a shorter barrel for moving through brush one day, or a longer barrel for the longer distance shots like for the coyote or for the skunk, - don’t want to be too close to those…)
 
ProdglArchitect said:
Until those same people start crying for cars to be banned every time there’s a major (or even minor) accident, they are hypocrites who only want them banned because they don’t like them. As others have said, cars are far more dangerous than guns (statistically speaking,) but you don’t generally hear people saying that we should ban them because some drunk idiot got behind the wheel and killed some people. Why, then, should we automatically penalize gun owners who’ve done nothing wrong?
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The primary purpose of cars is driving. The primary purpose of knives is cutting food or other inanimate objects.

The primary purpose of guns is to kill.

As a side note, the rest of the Western world is, by and large, utterly baffled by the USA’s attitude towards guns.
 
peter26 said:
Lucas learned there was no way to stop the raffle, so he spent $3,000 in discretionary funds from Christ Church Episcopal parish to buy 150 raffle tickets in an attempt to win the rifle.
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Wow, for $3,000 he could have gone and bought 4 entry level AR15s or 30 lower receivers. Not only were there better uses of the money, but he could have been more efficient in his zeal to keep guns off the street.

I am glad to see that he didn’t waste the money on say feeding the poor or paying for an elderly person’s meds.
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ShrodingersCat said:
The primary purpose of cars is driving. The primary purpose of knives is cutting food or other inanimate objects.

The primary purpose of guns is to kill.

As a side note, the rest of the Western world is, by and large, utterly baffled by the USA’s attitude towards guns.
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The primary purpose of a knife is to kill.

Cutting the food only comes after the food is dead.

You can claim that that’s not how knives are used in America and other developed nations, but that is their purpose.

You’re right, guns kill, that is their purpose. That doesn’t make them inherently evil though. Bows and arrows kill, knives kill, spear kills, swords kill, rocks kill, rope kills, water kills, animals kill, sicknesses kill, nature kills. None of these these is inherently evil or immoral, nor are guns inherently immoral. A gun used properly is just as capable of defending as it is as killing.

You cannot assign blame or the claim of immorality to something just because some people chose to use it for an evil end.

As for the rest of the western world being baffled, that’s nice. They can be baffle, or offended, or surprised, or whatever else they want to be. That doesn’t make them right any more than our belief that guns right are important makes us right. It’s not strictly a moral issue, and therefore has no absolute state of morality or immorality (rightness or wrongness). Guns used properly are moral, guns used improperly are immoral.
 
Brendan said:
It is a varmit rifle. A ‘hunting rifle’ as in one used for deer or elk, shoots a MUCH higher powered round. In most states, the round used by the AR is considered to be too underpowered for hunting deer.
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Using a .223 to hunt for mule deer or elk is almost animal cruelty unless it’s fairly close range with a guaranteed clean kill. Even then I would say it was the wrong tool for the job.

I have often thought of pulling the bullets for a .22, 9mm, .223, .45, a pellet from 12 ga 00 buck and 7mm Rem and post a picture of them side by side to have gun control advocates identify the scary “assault file” round. Heck, even if I just posted common rifle rounds with bullet and casing I suspect many would misidentify a .223/5.56 round.
 
The pastor is a fool for spending that much money on one rifle, and for destroying a well made tool. I suspect this was more about his little bit of fame than it was about stopping gun violence.
 
Deus_tecum said:
The pastor is a fool for spending that much money on one rifle, and for destroying a well made tool. I suspect this was more about his little bit of fame than it was about stopping gun violence.
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Likely. His fame went up, probably several thousand percent. And it was totally worth the 0.000000002% reduction in likely harmful use of an AR-15. It was money well spent. :rolleyes:
 
Suudy said:
this means there is a 1 in 18,000 chance that one would be killed, terrorized, or otherwise harmed by an AR-15. This Episcopal pastor’s efforts reduced that chance by 0.00000002%. Clearly a meaningful gesture.
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It is meaningful. That chance is now 0 out of 18,000. Every step towards peace should be taken.
This focus on firearms is political fodder, not based at all in the numbers.
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Similarly the focus on terrorism, but that’s probably a discussion for another time.
 
lmachine said:
It is meaningful. That chance is now 0 out of 18,000. Every step towards peace should be taken.
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Your math is wrong.

The original numbers were 286 instances out of an ownership of over 5,000,000. Assuming the number of instances and ownership were both reduced by 1, the numbers went from 286/5,000,000 to 285/4,999,999, or went from 1 in 17,543.85965 to 1 in 17,543.85614. A whopping 0.000000002%.

In no world is a decrease of 0.000000002% meaningful.
lmachine said:
Similarly the focus on terrorism, but that’s probably a discussion for another time.
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Shrug.
 
Suudy said:
Your math is wrong.

In no world is a decrease of 0.000000002% meaningful.
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I misread whatever number you stated, I apologize.

Part of a religious leader’s job is leading by example. Destroying one rifle may not affect the gun murder rate in this country but it is meaningful because it’s the example we should all follow.
 
lmachine said:
I misread whatever number you stated, I apologize.

Part of a religious leader’s job is leading by example. Destroying one rifle may not affect the gun murder rate in this country but it is meaningful because it’s the example we should all follow.
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Why should we follow that example? The gun didn’t kill anyone. The gun didn’t terrorize anyone. Buying a gun and destroying it is not only meaningless, it is wasteful.
 
Suudy said:
From the article:

“This one gun will never be used to kill anyone in a school, in a nightclub, anywhere else,” Lucas said. “It will never be used to terrorize anyone, it will never be used for anything destructive. That’s the one thing I can do.”

Considering millions are out there (low estimates say about 5 million), and in 2016, there have been less than 300 “incidences” related to “assault weapons” (including cases that are not involved with killing or terrorizing–see here), this means there is a 1 in 18,000 chance that one would be killed, terrorized, or otherwise harmed by an AR-15. This Episcopal pastor’s efforts reduced that chance by 0.00000002%. Clearly a meaningful gesture. :rolleyes:

In 2013 there were just 33,636 firearms related deaths (see here). But 22,175 of them were suicides (nearly 70%–see here. By comparison, there were more vehicle related deaths (33,804) and poisoning (48,545) deaths. People are much more likely to be killed in car than than to be harmed by an AR-15. People are much more likely to be poisoned, than to be harmed by an AR-15.

This focus on firearms is political fodder, not based at all in the numbers.
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A nice sentiment by Mr. Lucas, but the same gun could have very well been used to protect a family somewhere. Semi-automatic gun technology is over 100 years old and the AR-15 platform gets a sinister rap by some folks because it is all black and the fully automatic or 3 shot automatic variant is used by the military.
 
Suudy said:
From the article:

“This one gun will never be used to kill anyone in a school, in a nightclub, anywhere else,” Lucas said. “It will never be used to terrorize anyone, it will never be used for anything destructive. That’s the one thing I can do.”

Considering millions are out there (low estimates say about 5 million), and in 2016, there have been less than 300 “incidences” related to “assault weapons” (including cases that are not involved with killing or terrorizing–see here), this means there is a 1 in 18,000 chance that one would be killed, terrorized, or otherwise harmed by an AR-15. This Episcopal pastor’s efforts reduced that chance by 0.00000002%. Clearly a meaningful gesture. :rolleyes:

In 2013 there were just 33,636 firearms related deaths (see here). But 22,175 of them were suicides (nearly 70%–see here. By comparison, there were more vehicle related deaths (33,804) and poisoning (48,545) deaths. People are much more likely to be killed in car than than to be harmed by an AR-15. People are much more likely to be poisoned, than to be harmed by an AR-15.

This focus on firearms is political fodder, not based at all in the numbers.
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How true.
 
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