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Military: It Could Take A Year To Fix 'Jesus Rifles'

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RamboLiberal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-30-10 10:01 AM
Original message
Military: It Could Take A Year To Fix 'Jesus Rifles'
Source: ABC News

More than two months after an ABC News report that rifle scopes used by U.S. soldiers are inscribed with secret Biblical references, troops in Afghanistan and Iraq are still carrying the so-called Jesus rifles – and the U.S. military says it could take a year to remove the Bible codes from all its weapons.

"Shame on them forever for their impossibly slow, plodding and utterly backwards plan for correction of this national and international disgrace," said Mikey Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF). Weinstein, whose advocacy group promotes the separation of church and state in the military, said the MRFF has received numerous messages from troops deployed in Afghanistan complaining that the Gospel inscriptions on Trijicon rifle scopes place them at added risk.

A military spokesperson also told ABC News that Biblical references had been removed from just over a third of the military's Trijicon scopes, but that most of the scopes that had been altered were being used by troops in training situations and on bases, not by troops in war zones.

Trijicon has sold an estimated 250,000 rifle scopes to the U.S. armed services, and the sights are used by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the training of Iraqi and Afghan soldiers.

-----

One of the citations on the ACOG is "JN8:12", a reference to John 8:12, which reads, "Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. "2COR4:6" is a reference to Second Corinthians 4:6, which reads: "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of the darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."



Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/military-year-fix-jesus-rifles/story?id=10106096
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Robb Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-30-10 10:03 AM
Response to Original message
1. "Secret" is such a dumb word to describe this.
Like you need a room full of Crays to crack the code. :eyes:
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Sub Atomic Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-30-10 11:14 AM
Response to Reply #1
7. It should actually be "hidden". The biblical references were hidden in the serial numbers.
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msongs Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-30-10 10:03 AM
Response to Original message
2. lol the military only has nine commandments anyway, or even fewer nt
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ensho Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-30-10 10:09 AM
Response to Original message
3. the military isn't run very well. half the time their one hand doesn't


know what the other hand is doing. of course the military barons like it this way.
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obxhead Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-30-10 10:41 AM
Response to Original message
4. Wouldn't a Dremel tool handle this problem in moments, not years?
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old guy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-30-10 10:50 AM
Response to Reply #4
5. Exactly my thought.
If they cannot find any I have one I don't use very often they can borrow. That is as long as they give it back in good condition.
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JustABozoOnThisBus Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-30-10 11:03 AM
Response to Original message
6. I doubt that it's a military priority
If the military wanted the sights scrubbed in a week, it would be done in a week. A company-level armorer could do it with a file and a bit of paint. Rocket science it ain't.

Mikey Weinstein seems to be going ballistic over a nit. The hyperbole would be better spent advocating an end to the wars. There are more disgraceful things than this particular "national and international disgrace".


:hi:
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JoeyT Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-30-10 02:02 PM
Response to Reply #6
9. Shooting at Muslims with
Edited on Tue Mar-30-10 02:03 PM by JoeyT
rifles with Christian scripture on them is a little bigger than a nit. It lends rather a lot of credibility to the people that claim you're engaging in a holy war. Of course to the person that started the wars they WERE crusades, but that isn't the point.

Edited to add: And it certainly lends credibility to the people claiming it's a holy war when the presence of the scripture becomes well known and they can't be bothered to remove it.
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Heywood J Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-30-10 08:29 PM
Response to Reply #6
10. Indeed. Assuming they used a Dremel tool,
it would take about five minutes to grind and paint each scope, plus about another five to set up each scope and perform grinding-wheel changes. At eight hours a day, that's about fifty scopes that could be done each day. For a 200-soldier company, that's four days. Say it's only done for four hours a day by one person, that's still just over a week. A Dremel tool would cost them $75, plus another $25-30 in grinding wheels and paint.

Someone doesn't want this done quickly.
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salguine Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-30-10 11:44 AM
Response to Original message
8. What the report should actually say is, "It will take
the company that inscribed them on there in the first place a year to remove them at their expense."
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truthisfreedom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-30-10 10:23 PM
Response to Reply #8
11. Who's paying for this ? Us or the lawbreaking manufacturer?
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Supersedeas Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-31-10 01:50 PM
Response to Reply #11
13. would it be lawbreaking if a Bible Thumping supply officers specifically ordered the scopes?
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Mike K Donating Member (539 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-31-10 01:54 PM
Response to Reply #11
14. I will be quite surprised if it's the manufacturer.
Mainly because I don't see what the big deal is. There is no "Bible quote" on the sample shown in the photo. All I see are characters and numbers that have no meaning to anyone who is not a Scripture devotee. And it can be said that the coded references are simply that, coded references for purposes of inventory control and nothing more.
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Ysabel Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-31-10 02:36 PM
Response to Reply #14
15. i see in the second picture...
Edited on Wed Mar-31-10 02:39 PM by Ysabel
2 cor 4:6 (which refers to 2 corinthians 4:6) i'm not a "scriptural devotee" i'm an atheist and yet (surprise surprise) i know exactly what it means...

- edited to add a missing colon...
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jmowreader Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-30-10 11:20 PM
Response to Original message
12. Yes it's horrible. Yes the Scripture needs to come off.
But seriously, guys: does driving around Afghanistan with a gun that's got a Bible quote on the side of it shooting at people, really put you in more danger than driving around Afghanistan with a Scripture-free gun shooting at people? I would bet the Afghanis are more pissed off about being shot at than they are about what's written on the sides of the rifles.
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