She's Back! With a question about guns & JWs

by asleif_dufansdottir 63 Replies latest jw friends

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  frozen one

  1. A man without a gun is robbed in his home. The person lets the crook take everything and does as they say, praying that he and his daughter will live through the ordeal. Then they call the police after the crook leaves, and their insurance company. They lived.

  I assume the above in a hypothetical. So what exactly saved the lives of the man and daughter? The crook being a non-violent robber or the praying?

  Here is a true story. A gentleman who lived in a quiet, working class neighborhood in my town walked a block to a liquor store to pick up a 12 pack of beer. He had done this countless times during the 20+ years he had lived in his home. On his way back to his house he was confronted by two males ages 17 and 18. The teenagers demanded his wallet and his beer. He complied. The robbers, ages 17 and 18, then beat him to the ground. The witness who called 911 said that the beating continued even though sirens could be heard approaching. The witness also said that the robbers used the 12 pack of beer as a club during the beating. The victim was a married 49 year old father of two and a grandfather. He was an LPN who worked at a nursing home and was known as being a very gentle, peaceful, resonable man and those who were friends of his doubted that he fought back. The beating occured 40 feet from his house. He DIED!

  I guess using your model of what to do in the situation he should have prayed, and maybe he did. Maybe he should have taken some defense classes to learn what to do in this situation including the use of a firearm when forced by the aggressors to do so. Do what you want, but I don't think being meek, praying to god and hoping for the best is really all that effective.

  2 teens arrested in fatal beating

  Two teenage suspects in the robbery and beating death of a Duluth man are expected to be charged this morning, St. Louis County officials said Monday.

  The pair — a 17-year-old from Duluth and an 18-year-old from rural Cloquet — are accused of fatally assaulting Donald Duane O'Brien, 49, on Friday evening as he walked home from a liquor store a block away from where he lived in the Gary-New Duluth neighborhood. O'Brien died Saturday night.

  Police have said the two suspects repeatedly kicked and stomped O'Brien's head in order to steal his wallet. His family told the Duluth News Tribune that O'Brien also had been beaten with the 12-pack of beer he was carrying.

  He was beaten so severely that his face was unrecognizable, his family said.

  The 17-year-old was arrested later Friday night. The 18-year-old was arrested Sunday.

  On Monday, prosecutors declined to comment on the case, including whether the 17-year-old would face charges in adult court.

  O'Brien's death is the first homicide in Duluth this year.

  — Duluth News Tribune
• 

  james_woods

  I think maybe PapaJohn is a little "off target" with all the anti-gun diatribe.

  What poster asked was "how do Jehovah's Witnesses view guns?".

  Not - notice this - how do EX-JWs or JWD posters feel about guns.

  I will submit that the original issue in the thread is quite an interesting one. In fact, given the JW stand on government, war, law enforcement, and general individual rights - one could reasonably expect that they would have strictly forbidden gun ownership, target shooting, hunting & fishing, etc. in alignment with their "not part of this evil world" mentality. And yet they have not!

  They discourage guns (a little), but with nothing at all like the vehement tone of PapaJohn!

  Can anyone speculate on why that is the case? Certainly it is not because they are too shy to tell their members what to do! - These are the people who boldly tell parents to let children die rather than take a whole blood transfusion, after all. These are the people who made most of the young men of my generation here in the US subject to committing the felony of draft evasion during the VietNam era.

  And yet they do not disfellowship for having a gun and refusing to get rid of it!

  James, of the "Do you hate guns? Fine - you don't have to have one if you don't want to, my friend." class.

  and also of the "Do you want to take away my guns? Do you feel lucky?" class...
• 

  Justice-One

  Papa... I have said nothing that was mean or out of line. The truth just hurts. If the admin of this board cannot see that, then I do not belong here.
  
  BTW, I said nothing about wives being beaten. This is slander Mr Papa. I stand by my comments.
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  Justice-One

  I can only guess that JW's allow firearms because it is a "line in the sand" for just to many people. If the "society" had ever told me I had to get rid of my guns or else, it would have been or else. Oral sex is easy to hid, guns are not. I, and no doubt many others would have taken a stand on this. And who knows, maybe the GB and Elders did not want a bunch of armed pissed off ex-JW's running around.
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  TD

  
  

  Can anyone speculate on why that is the case?

  This is just my own opinion and observation, but I believe that there are two factors working together that keep the door of firearm ownership open for JW's.

  First, since the JW organization always claims that their organizational policy rests directly upon the Bible, they can't make major rules that apply to one group and not others.

  Second, hunting is still a way of life for many people, especially indigenous groups that tend to preserve their heritage. There is no way, for example that the Witnesses could travel among the Inuit villages and tell them that they couldn't go out with their beat-up .30-30's and take their yearly seal.

  Many other examples exist, but a one size fits all policy that excludes firearm ownership won't work on a global scale. The world is a big place and cities are only a tiny part of it.
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  asleif_dufansdottir

  I will submit that the original issue in the thread is quite an interesting one. In fact, given the JW stand on government, war, law enforcement, and general individual rights - one could reasonably expect that they would have strictly forbidden gun ownership, target shooting, hunting & fishing, etc. in alignment with their "not part of this evil world" mentality. And yet they have not!

  Well, see, as the original poster, I thought they had banned gun ownership, at least handguns (that woulda been very helpful to tell gun owners forums in an effort to get them to write off JWs forever). This was the word we got. Of course, we studied with people who had been raised as JWs, with a JW mom who'd had a couple of abusive (non-JW) husbands during their childhood. Thinking back on it, these were people who would naturally take the most extreme interpretation of what the WT said about guns (can't be 'used' if you have a job where you carry = guns forbidden).

  As I said, in or congregation they were banned, and hubby was told he had to take the shotgun back to his dad's place before he could get baptised.

  My guess is that (in an utterly outstanding and surprising case of common sense, considering who we're talking about) the GB and other powers that be knew that it would be...counterproductive...for them to issue an ultimatum of this kind. Men, especially, in some areas would have just wholesale refused and either left or ignored the rule (good for them). Even ignoring the rule would have had bad effects, because once you start picking and choosing which of the WT rules you will follow, we know what happens afterward.
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  james_woods

  Well, keep in mind that I have been out for over 25 years, and I did not know about the "generation" thing or the "consciencous objecter" issue either until coming here 6 months ago...so maybe they have been banned. I was speaking about the way this was viewed in the 60s and 70s.

  Back then, you could pretty much have a pistol if you wanted, so long as you did not make a big deal about it. And I guess we can say that a shotgun must still be OK, if the "hunting for food only" logic is still in place.

  I think, though, that the previous posters ideas were right...maybe somebody at Brooklyn realized that this issue was not worth "rocking the boat" for - particularly not in the western part of the united states.

  Maybe somebody with current knowledge of the latest writings can say what the official line is as of 2006 -

  James
• 

  asleif_dufansdottir

  Well, to put up a timeline...we were "in" in the mid-to-late 80's and out by the early 90's
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  TD

  Maybe somebody with current knowledge of the latest writings can say what the official line is as of 2006 -

  --Already been said early on in this thread.

  My wife of 26 years is a gun owner and a JW. Her three brothers, (Elders all) are also gun owners.

  It would be very interesting (From my perspecitive) if the JW organization forbade gun ownership of any kind, (Long guns or pistols) but as of yet, they have not.
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  John Doe

  I haven't attended in 6 years, but here (northern Arkansas), hunting rifles and handguns were not prohibited, or even talked about much for that matter. The only "restriction" regarding firearms was that you could not work in law enforcement if you had to carry a weapon, for the reasons previously mentioned.