OR: Reverend Spends $3,000 of Church Money to Destroy a $700 Rifle

An Oregon Episcopal church man has won a rifle at a raffle to benefit a girls softball team.  He wanted very much to destroy that rifle.  The Girls' softball team and the rifle's manufacturer, were smiling all the way to the bank.  It was a win-win-win.

From oregonlive.com:

When Jeremy Lucas, a reverend at the Christ Church Episcopal Parish in Lake Oswego, won an AR-15 rifle in a local raffle he was overjoyed.

Not because he had any plans for hunting or target practice, but because, even though he had spent roughly $3,000 on raffle tickets, he planned to destroy the gun.

The raffle was done by a girls softball team to raise money for expenses.
From wweek.com:

An area softball team is raffling off an AR-15 rifle to raise money to compete in a California tournament later this month.

For $20 a ticket, 15 girls from Centennial, Gresham, and Milwaukie high schools are hoping that the rifle raffle earns them the $6,000 they need to represent Oregon at the West Regional Tournament in Lancaster, Calif., July 23-27.

With Lucas' church money, the team raised just short of $10,000.  Rifle raffles are very popular, and tend to be successful. There would be no reason to turn down Lucas church money.  Cash is cash.  A rifle is a rifle.  If you buy it, they will make more!


Reverend Lucas is quoted.  The quote manages to place many conceptual falsehoods in one sentence.

"Even if it's one gun out of a million, it's one less for someone to hurt someone else or themselves with."

 But that is conceptually false.  Rifles are not irreplacable.  Manufacturers have been operating at full speed for the entire span of the Obama presidency.  Detroying one rifle simply means that another will be made by a manufacturer, and  that manufacturer will make more profit.

Lucas is doing something else.  He is engaged in a morality play, where he is the good guy and the rifle is the evil thing. It is the deodand concept from medieval Europe. It makes him feel morally superior, but to most people he simply looks foolish.  At least in medieval Europe, the Church kept to money or sold the item to benefit the poor.

So, win-win-win-win. The softball team wins.  The rifle manufacturer wins. Lucas is able to feel morally superior.  He wins. Second Amendment supporters win as well.  This sort of silly moral posturing does not play well with most Americans.

Rifles, as a matter of fact and FBI statistics, are the type of firearm least used to murder people. And this type of rifle is exactly the type that should be most protected by the Constitution, it is a perfect example of a militia rifle.  As a long gun, it makes a great home defense gun.  The AR15 type of rifle has become the most popular rifle in the United States.

Gun manufacturers are having a hard time keeping them on store shelves. When Lucas buys a rifle to destroy it, he insults the intelligence of a hundred million Americans.  Perhaps a couple million will applaud him.

Lucas may believe that rifles are not used for anything constructive, but that is  false.  He is free to practice his religion and make his moral statements, because men with rifles protect him.

©2016 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
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