Here’s something you’d expect from al-Qaeda rather than the U.S. Marines: religious scripture inscribed on weapons. ABC reports that Trijicon, a Michigan company that sells sights for high-powered rifles to the U.S. military, has been inscribing New Testament passages on the sights — not the entire passage, but the citation, such as John 8:12, or Luke 3:20. We’re not talking about a few sights here and there: apparently, all the sights from Trijicon — which has contracts for around a million of them — are encoded with New Testament verse references. The sights are being used by U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as in the training of those countries’ troops.
The problem — other than the obvious disconnect between the Prince of Peace and killing people — is that American military rules ban troops from promoting any religion in Iraq or Afghanistan. The company says the verses “have always been there,” and that those who oppose the verses are “not Christian.”
One of those critics, Michael Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, says, “It allows the Mujahedeen, the Taliban, al Qaeda and the insurrectionists and jihadists to claim they’re being shot by Jesus rifles.”
Spokespersons for the Army and the Marine Corps said the two services hadn’t known about the biblical markings, and that “discussions” were taking place regarding what should be done about them. What can you say except, Jesus, what are these people thinking?
This article appears in Jan 19-25, 2010.
It’s an off the shelf product made by a privet company. They have a right to put on it what they want.
The products from that company have always had that on them. The military is the one that is buying their product. And they can take it or leave it.
If I own a company that makes something with a religious symbol on it, and people tell me, “Take that off your products or else.” I will say, “Eat cake!”
There is no where else the military can go. No other company makes that type of scope. So they have no choice if they want to equip are troops with the best.
Thats like putting bible verses on a stripper…utter blasphemy…
It may be blasphemy.
But they have a right to do it.
It is their product.
If you don’t like it.
Start your own rifle sight company, and you can put what ever you want to on it for labeling or decoration.
You won’t see me pounding on your door complaining about how the decoration is offensive to me.
If the company has always done it and the military knew up front then the producer has no legal problems. The Military will now have a problem of course. We will probably pay the company 100 million dollars to change some machines to remove the logo so we can buy 100k dollars worth of these scopes a year hehe.
BTW in the bluest of blue states, the Senate seat of Ted Kennedy was lost to a Republican that ran against ObamaCare.
I just thought you LIBS might want to know, since CL seemed to ignore this inevitable turn of events that is a continuation of bringing down the arrogant left.
First NJ fell.
Then Virgina fell.
Now MA has just fallen.
2010 here we come!!!!!!!!
Now lets hope the Republicans behave like they did in 1994. We can hope for a balanced budget and common sense reform for a few years. Don’t get me wrong, we need the Democrats to show Americans how screwed up things can really get.
Not that it matters but I read that all its bible verse names like Luke 3:20 all have to do with Darkness to light. The scopes are for seeing in darkness BTW.
It sounds kinda clever.
I think it’s great that a company stands up for what they believe. And since the issue of separation of church and state is brought up constantly – as long as it suits their purpose – the government cannot order the company to take off the verses. They can buy or not buy. The fact that the verses have references to light are very appropriate. Is there the same backlash when a terrorist shouts an Islamic phrase before blowing something up?
Although the citations were placed by the manufacturer with good and honorable intentions, they provide potential propaganda weapons for the enemy and place your troops at greater risk.
The citations also have a distinct tone of US imperialism. I am a New Zealander and the supply of religiously-labeled weaponry to our troops in Afghanistan undermines NZ’s attempts to distance itself from American global imperialism, and as an atheist I consider it an insult to my secular nation.
We shouldnt be in such a rush to tear down our military forces just because of the equipment they use to protect our COUNTRY,OUR CHILDREN AND OUR FELLOW AMERICANS.We have the best that anyone could ask for, so make sure that you stand and remove your hats and say the pledge allegience, and make sure to say ONE NATION UNDE GOD. Only Extremist want to take our freedoms away from us, so dont join them and stand firm and believe in out service men and women doing the best they can.And DO NOT FORGET THOSE WHO ARE LOST, AND THOSE THAT ARE BEING HELD CAPTIVE OVERSEAS BY THESE TYRANTS. I WAS BORN AND RAISED “AMERICAN” AND Damn Proud of it.
Funny all of you that say the gov’t can either buy or not buy the sights from them. They can actually take their patents and give them to another firm that will produce the sights they want. Don’t forget who issues the patents in the first place. It is obvious the firm will have to remove the biblical references. I do have to admit they are clever, but inappropriate.
Frank Griffin, I have to admit that you’re absolutely right; As a freedom-loving person I owe the US far more respect. Arrogant patriotism (from both sides) makes this easy to forget; especially in NZ since the 1980s. (Nuclear warship ban and so on.)
Well now that may or may not be a problem, If the atheists and Jihadast rag heads do not like it so what? This nation was founded on a belief in the G-D of Abraham, Issac and Jacob and if others do not like it tough!
N9, you are quite obviously not a business man. If you were you would realise that if you told your customers to “eat cake” you would not be able to afford to eat any yourself because you would go bust! In business you need to give your customers what they want not what you want them to have. The larger the customer is the more they are able to demand from you.
I doubt any atheists really care about the inscriptions; they’re easy to ignore, they don’t violate an atheist’s freedom of religion. Likewise, the jihadists aren’t offended by them; they talk about religion all the time and assume the enemy does too. The problem is; the jihadists have always tried to claim that this war is a holy war between christians and muslims, a position the US goverment has always tried to deny; and these inscriptions can reenforce the enemy’s claims that this is a holy war. The inscriptions are fantastic propaganda and a recruiting tool for the jihadist enemy.
If anybody is going to be offended by the inscriptions, it’s christians who belive killing people goes against christian teachings. I doubt jesus would have weilded an assult rifle against his enemies.
The separation of church and state exists to protect the church from the state, as well as the other way round. Here, the inscriptions could harm the church by associating them with the actions of the state.