Who carries to Church

Info, pictures, advice...
daysleeper
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Who carries to Church

Post by daysleeper »

By all means, bring your gun to church. It sure beats praying.
warthog
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Who carries to Church

Post by warthog »

Personally, in IL I can't carry a gun anywhere.
If I could, I think I would leave it in the car.
Not because it is immoral or a sin.
Just because for an hour or so, I will be fine.
God is always there, period. At church or at home.
fjblackesq
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Who carries to Church

Post by fjblackesq »

Amen Warthog: I am glad to see that there is someone else in church that is not waiting for someone to sneeze so they can pump some lead into the pews. Matcho is matcho as matcho thinks....
slimster22
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Who carries to Church

Post by slimster22 »

If someone factors matcho into any part of their reasoning for cc, they are not being responsible. Pumping lead into anything other than badguys is a mistake. Neutralizing the threat/ability of a badguy to harm innocents is never a mistake at any location.
butch50
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Who carries to Church

Post by butch50 »

BROOKFIELD, Wis., March 14, 2005
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Terry Ratzmann (AP)
S/AP) As police investigate a violent Saturday morning church service in suburban Milwaukee, it appears none of the congregation was worried, or had any reason to be, when they saw Terry Ratzmann, 44, walk into the service.

It had been a couple of weeks since he had last joined the Living Church of God congregation at the Sheraton Hotel conference room in Brookfield where they regularly held worship services, which he usually attended. Friends and neighbors describe Ratzmann as a buttoned-down churchgoer known for sharing homegrown vegetables with his neighbors.

But seconds after he walked into the room, he opened fire on the group, unloading 22 bullets from a 9 mm handgun within a minute. Before the shooting stopped, the pastor, the pastor's son, and five other church members were dead, four others were wounded, and Ratzmann had killed himself.

"He reloaded the gun once during the exchange of gunfire and then, as witnesses reported to us, shot himself once in the head," said Brookfield police chief Daniel Tushaus.

None of those who knew him expected Ratzmann to be violent, though some said he had grappled with depression. Neighbors said he was quiet and devout, that he liked to tinker about his house and garden. He would even release the chipmunks caught in traps he set in his yard.
]
October 25, 1999

Laura MacDonald was afraid to go to church.

Just four days earlier on September 15, MacDonald was attending a youth rally with her teenage daughter at Wedgewood Baptist Church in Fort Worth when Larry Gene Ash brook entered the sanctuary with a 9-mm handgun and a suicidal mission.

In a scene eerily reminiscent of the Jonesboro, Paducah, and Littleton tragedies, Ashbrook, 47, stormed the church, cursing God and spewing anti-Baptist rhetoric. He proceeded to gun down seven teenagers and adults and injure seven others before shooting himself in the head. MacDonald's daughter escaped unharmed. Despite the horror of that Wednesday night, MacDonald decided to return to the church on Sunday. "I felt God's presence," she says. "This is God's house. It's not an evil house. It's his house. He's reclaimed it."[

ATLANTA (AP) — A woman opened fire at an Atlanta church before services yesterday morning, killing her mother and the minister before committing suicide.
Congregants of Turner Monumental African Methodist Episcopal Church said Shelia W. Chaney Wilson, 43, was agitated when she came to the church.
She shot the Rev. Johnny Clyde Reynolds after he greeted her and was walking away with his back to her, said Atlanta police spokesman Sgt. John Quigley. Police believe Mrs. Wilson then shot Jennie Mae Robinson once in the head before turning the gun on herself.
One woman in the sanctuary at the time fled after the first shot was fired, and the other took cover behind a pulpit, Sgt. Quigley said. He said an assistant pastor came in after hearing
shots and found the three bodies on the floor.
BAHAWALPUR, Pakistan (CNN) -- Condemning Sunday's massacre of 16 Christian worshippers, Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf blamed "trained terrorists" for the slaying and vowed justice would be served.

At least five others were critically injured in the attack when a group of bearded men on motorcycles opened fire on a morning church service in Bahawalpur in eastern Pakistan, officials said.

A police officer was among those killed.

"The method used and the inhumane tactics employed clearly indicate involvement of trained terrorists of organizations bent upon creating discord and disharmony in Pakistan, where Christians and Muslims have always lived in peace with mutual respect for each other," Musharraf said.
1974-JUN-30 Ebenezer Baptist Church Atlanta, GA 2 killed,
1980-JUN-22 First Baptist Church Daingerfield, TX 5 killed;
1999-MAR-11 New St. John Fellowship Baptist Gonzales, LA 3 killed;
4 injured
1999-JUL-4 Korean United Methodist 4 Bloomington, IN 1 killed 1999-SEP-15 Wedgwood Baptist 1,2 Ft. Worth TX 7 killed;
7 injured
2003-MAR-30 St.Paul's Albanian Catholic Church Rochester Hills, MI 1 killed;
7 injured
Should I go on? We are no safer in church than we are anywhere else. If you don't want to see that, it is a choice you are making.

Going unarmed in this world is a choice, and if you choose to go unarmed that is OK with me - it is a free country.

Going unarmed in church is also a choice, and I am OK with you doing that also.

But, don't think it is paranoia to be armed, anywhere anytime in this world today - at any time in the history of the world as we know it, it has never been paranoid to be armed, and that definitely includes these modern times.
Last edited by butch50 on February 24th, 2006, 7:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
fjblackesq
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Who carries to Church

Post by fjblackesq »

BUTCH: You appear to suffer from too much media hype and too much TV violence programs. Anyone who has to carry a gun to church is definately PARINOID?????? Who do you think you are today - Sherriff Matt Dillon (James Arnes) or the TERMINATOR. Come on now, I am almost seventy five years old and have never seen anyone shot ... All the indians are busy in their casinos so they are no longer a problem.
himmel
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Who carries to Church

Post by himmel »

Ambivalence aside, I have not found it any more difficult to pray armed than unarmed...for those who can't seem to grasp that concept. And prayer can be done in a dark alley on Saturday night on the wrong side of the tracks as well as in church on Sunday morning--if you would rather do that than carry a gun....I really don't have any difficulty doing both...
mikethewreck
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Who carries to Church

Post by mikethewreck »

There is a thread on this site where how people here had used their sidearms to stop or prevent a crime. I believe I am one of them.

Bad things can happen in church. Good people trying to get away from bad people go to church and the bad people know they can find them there (happened to my former boss, stopped an attack on a woman in the church parking lot).

There are nuts out there. They go to church looking for the answers. When answers are not forthcoming (maybe because there aren't any) they snap (see above) and start blasting. Rare? Yes (thank God!). But it does happen.

I carry to church. I pray, worship, and love on people in church. I am not looking to go "Dirty Harry". I rarely think of my weapon and I carry it concealed (even though open carry with a permit is legal in TN). My pastors know I carry and are okay with that. I carry everywhere I can legally. And church is no exception.

All the church services I have ever attended have gone well. I pray all services I will ever attend will end the same way. But if some nut job walks in and goes after my friends and family in that building, he will have to go through me.
butch50
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Who carries to Church

Post by butch50 »

BUTCH: You appear to suffer from too much media hype and too much TV violence programs. Anyone who has to carry a gun to church is definately PARINOID?????? Who do you think you are today - Sherriff Matt Dillon (James Arnes) or the TERMINATOR. Come on now, I am almost seventy five years old and have never seen anyone shot ... All the indians are busy in their casinos so they are no longer a problem.
We simply have different opinions. I play golf a lot and have never been struck by lightning, but I won't play during stormy weather, does that make me paranoid?

I have often heard that many cops go their entire careers without every firing a shot, but they all carry guns - does that make them paranoid?

It is a simple matter of statistics - you can not actually predict that you will never be in the wrong place at the wrong time. You can say with satistical certainty that it is extremely unlikely that you will be in the wrong place at the wrong time - and that being prepared for the worst is nonsense. But that is a choice that you make for yourself, and the odds are very good that you have made a correct choice.

On the other hand I choose not to be unprepared for the worst - which I fully realize is a very rare ocurrence - and that is a choice that I make for myself. And somewhere in there lies the difference between us. Does that make either one of us a better or worse person than the other?

Not in my opinion. It just makes us a little bit different from each other in the way we approach the statistically improbable. Sheriff Dillon out. ;D
Last edited by butch50 on February 25th, 2006, 12:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
mongo
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Who carries to Church

Post by mongo »

BUTCH: You appear to suffer from too much media hype and too much TV violence programs. Anyone who has to carry a gun to church is definately PARINOID?????? Who do you think you are today - Sherriff Matt Dillon (James Arnes) or the TERMINATOR. Come on now, I am almost seventy five years old and have never seen anyone shot ... All the indians are busy in their casinos so they are no longer a problem.
Just because you're paranoid doesnt' mean they aren't out to get you... :o
Last edited by mongo on February 25th, 2006, 12:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
mikethewreck
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Who carries to Church

Post by mikethewreck »

And I would add that I understand those who do not choose to carry to church. One of my best friends at church is a pacifist. I respect his choice too, and how he does not put me down for my carrying choice.
himmel
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Who carries to Church

Post by himmel »

something occurred to me vis a vis this subject that should have occurred to me earlier, I think--that is, we really ought not to be acting that much differently the rest of the week than we do in church --ideally we should pretty much be the same. Most folks wouldn't use foul language at church, but really we shouldn't use it anywhere, that sort of thing.. Using that standard, I don't think carrying my firearm is anything to be ashamed of, either in church or out...
daysleeper
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Who carries to Church

Post by daysleeper »

I think you're right about acting a certain way in church or out, but the gun thing may be more akin to cursing throughout the week. In other words, for all we know it may be a sin to carry at any time. God could be against firearms, period. I'm not a churchgoer, but I don't think God envisioned his flock attending mass carrying swords and spears, the weapons of the day.
fjblackesq
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Who carries to Church

Post by fjblackesq »

Butch50: Do you carry when you golf????????????
mikethewreck
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Who carries to Church

Post by mikethewreck »

When the Lord comes back, "the lion and the lamb will lay down together."

Until then, I'm carrying.

Lk 22:36 (MSG): "He said, "This is different. Get ready for trouble. Look to what you'll need; there are difficult times ahead. Pawn your coat and get a sword."
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