Church That Worships AR-15 Gives Away Trump Rifle

There have been two assassination attempts on former President Donald Trump this election cycle, but that isn’t stopping the Rod of Iron Ministries from holding a raffle for a Trump-themed AR-15 this weekend during their annual Freedom Festival.

People are encouraged to register early for the Freedom Festival to receive free tickets and a chance to win a “Trump AR-15.”

The festival is organized by the Rod of Iron Ministries, a group headquartered outside Scranton, Pennsylvania, that allows its congregants to bring their weapons to church. The group offers courses in marksmanship with pistols and rifles, shotguns for home defense and the “art of the draw.”

Newsweek reached out to a Freedom Festival representative for comment.

The Sunday services, which the group calls “Sanctuary Church,” focus on Scripture while supporting “the right to bear arms and focusing on where God’s word, politics, morality and culture intersect,” according to the website.

Pastor Sean Moon, founder of the Rod of Iron Ministries, believes the AR-15 is an instrument of God’s righteousness, the “rod of iron” of Revelation 2:27. Moon is the son of the late global religious leader Sun Myung Moon, founder and leader of the Unification Church.

“The citizens of the Kingdom of God, who will share in the sovereignty of Christ, bear the responsibility to defend their families, neighbors and nation with their own rod of iron,” Moon wrote in his book: Rod of Iron Kingdomaccording to Rolling stone.

The ministries’ meetings are intended for ‘Christian patriots’. The website says they stand for issues of law and order, traditional families, medical freedoms, life and the U.S. Constitution.

“We are constitutional Christians who take electoral integrity seriously and also believe in Making America Godly Again,” the website says.

Moon’s prayers to his community for “a kingdom of peace police and peace militia where citizens, through the right that Almighty God has given them to keep and bear arms, will be able to protect each other and safeguard human flourishing,” Business Insider reported in 2018. The ceremony was a blessing for the group’s marriages and for their weapons.

Moon has delivered other sermons, including one from 2023 in which he said that “all people should have the right to self-defense” and that “God sent good men with weapons.”

This year’s Rod of Iron Freedom Festival, which begins Friday, will feature the premiere of Retired Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn’s film Deliver the truth. Whatever the costs. at the Tommy Gun Warehouse Grounds in Greeley, Pennsylvania.

Flynn served as the White House national security adviser under Trump for less than a month before he resigned and was accused of lying to the FBI about conservation deals he made with the Russians on Trump’s behalf. He pleaded guilty twice, but was ultimately pardoned by Trump. Flynn, along with Oklahoma entrepreneur Clay Clark, launched the ReAwaken America Tour, a far-right and Christian nationalist movement, and was a leader in spreading claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.

The remainder of the Freedom Festival weekend includes an art show, a session with Tom Homan, acting director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a lecture by the author of STEALTH: Kamala Harris’s Communist Rootsas well as a gun auction with proceeds benefiting the Friends of the NRA.

A shooting range will also be an “ongoing activity” throughout Saturday and Sunday by the Kahr Firearms Group.

Gun control is not a top issue in elections focused primarily on the economy, despite several high-profile examples of gun violence during this year’s presidential election.

The most shocking was on July 13, when Trump was struck by a would-be assassin’s bullet during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. An AR-15 was used by Thomas Matthew Crooks to shoot the former president, hitting his ear and killing a crowd member.

On September 4, two students and two teachers were fatally shot by a student at Apalachee High School near Winder, Georgia.

Two weeks ago, another would-be assassin hid in the bushes at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, while the former president played. A Secret Service agent spotted the suspect before he could take a shot, potentially saving Trump’s life again.

According to research from March 2023, one in twenty Americans owned an AR-15, which equates to approximately 16 million people nationwide. The Washington Post and Ipsos.

The Pew Research Center’s June election poll found that voters have “strongly different views” on gun ownership, with 80 percent of President Joe Biden’s supporters saying it is important to control gun ownership. In a near-identical reversal, 85 percent of Trump supporters had said it is more important to protect Americans’ right to own guns.

On Wednesday, Rasmussen Reports’ latest national telephone and online surveys, conducted on September 26 and between September 29 and 30, found that 51 percent of likely voters believe the country needs stricter gun control laws.

Earlier this week, Trump called on gun owners to vote for him at a rally in Wisconsin. He said that despite his support from the National Rifle Association in May, gun owners “don’t vote much.”

A website lists a gun, titled “The MAGA Patriot AR 15,” as an “extremely limited, custom-designed, commemorative AR-15 designed to ‘out-perform’ every other rifle available.”

The website says that behind the initiative is Caleb Lee, the founder of a shooting training center and a “boutique gun manufacturer” in Alabama. The first 20 MAGA Patriot guns are priced at $2,997 each, and according to the website, they come with six bonus gifts, including 30-round Magpul magazines, a “secret” rifle carrying case, rifle training at Lee’s shooting school and more. .