And yet, they routinely write crap like this:

The story of a Pennsylvania church blessing AR-15s made the rounds on traditional and social media last week. The ceremony at the World Peace and Unification Sanctuary ministry in rural Newfoundland, PA, was widely ridiculed as bizarre and out of touch, but once you take away some of the theatrics, how different are these worshippers really from millions of Americans and the NRA?

The answer, it turns out, is not that much.

WhoWhatWhy went to Newfoundland twice last week, attended the gun-blessing ceremony and saw some things that the rest of the media seems to have missed.

Now, the church in question is the Unification Church, whose members are often called “Moonies” after the founder, Rev. Hyung Jin (Sean) Moon.

It goes on to describe the church’s ceremony:

Near the end of the ceremony, Rev. Moon directed those who attended to turn toward the camera — which was live-streaming and recording the ceremony to be posted in full later online — to wave and bow.

“New couples become royalty, kings and queens with crowns and rods of iron.” Rev. Moon declared. “Rod of iron” is the Biblical term (Revelation 2:26-27) the church uses for guns like the AR-15.

“Each of these couples have the right of sovereignty, to keep and bear arms and to protect the earth from communists and political satanists.” Rev. Moon said. Then, in front of a crowd sporting their own “rods of iron,” he wed the seven couples on stage.

From the outside looking in, the group seemed like a gun-crazed cult — a bunch of unhinged, well-armed loonies. And that’s how they were portrayed in the media: As a group of bizarre outliers.

But how different are their beliefs from, for example, those of the NRA?

Well, for one thing, that’s a church and the NRA isn’t.

What’s more, that’s a church many consider a cult–though I’m still amazed that the ATF hasn’t busted in the door and burned the place to the ground yet–while the NRA is a civil rights organization with a long history of training Americans to defend themselves and their home.

Now, what’s interesting is that this was written originally back in 2018. It’s been brought back out now because of the one-year anniversary of the Uvalde shooting. In other words, this is what this particular publication thought of as somehow relevant.

Why?

Because it paints gun owners in a negative light, that’s why. It’s likening them to members of a cult, which is something they’ve long tried to do anyway, it’s just now they’re using a group most consider a cult as a point of comparison rather than just declaring it.

Their evidence?

Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s executive vice president, took the stage at CPAC in the same week and told the appreciative crowd that the right to bear arms is not “bestowed by man, but granted by God to all Americans as our American birthright.”

Saying your rights come from God is hardly radical. Our Founding Fathers argued as much repeatedly.

Take, for example, one of this nation’s most important documents, the Declaration of Independence, where Thomas Jefferson wrote:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Emphasis added, of course, but you get the point.

Believing your rights are divine in origin is a common point for anyone who is someone of faith and believes in natural law.

Gun ownership as a right derives from just that, and saying it doesn’t change anything. Trying to connect the NRA to the Moonies is a cheap shot.

The fact that it was brought up five years after it originally ran is even worse.

The truth is that they don’t get you. They don’t want to get you because to them, you’re nothing but a cult member who is brainwashed. Why else would you refuse to give up your guns for the betterment of mankind? It couldn’t be that you don’t trust the government to respect your rights despite ample evidence that they won’t. It can’t be that criminals will still get guns and you’ll be vulnerable to them.

No, none of that.

They want to demonize you because understanding you might well shatter their precious worldview that yes, you’re a cultist simply because you believe in the right to keep and bear arms.

Well, we’re not the ones who drank the Kool-Aid.