Hyung Jin ”Sean” Moon throughout the 2023 Rod of Iron PageantZach Roberts/NurPhoto by way of AP
In July, former President Donald Trump was almost assassinated by a 20-year-old man wielding an AR-15-style rifle. That close to miss hasn’t stopped the Rod of Iron Ministries from holding a raffle this coming weekend for a particular Trump-branded AR-15 at its fifth annual “Freedom Pageant.”
Billed because the “largest open carry rally in America,” the competition attracts attendees to rejoice the Second Modification and listen to from headliners that can embody former Trump nationwide safety adviser Michael Flynn, radio host Sebastian Gorka, former US Rep. Allen West, former Trump ICE Director Tom Homan, and Pizzagate conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec. Anybody who registers early for the free tickets can enter the raffle to win the Trump gun.
The Rod of Iron Ministries was based by Hyung Jin ”Sean” Moon as a militant breakaway from the Unification Church based by his father, the late Solar Myung Moon. A graduate of Harvard Divinity College, Pastor Sean Moon’s sermons and social media movies espouse a selected Finish Occasions theology that predicts a future overthrow of the American authorities. He believes the AR-15 is an instrument of God’s divine justice—the “rod of iron” invoked in Revelation 2:27.
Moon typically wears a crown of bullets, carries a gold-plated assault weapon, and rides a Harley in a helmet with a creepy skeleton facemask. (Moon additionally appears to have musical aspirations: He raps underneath the title King Bullethead and also will carry out at this weekend’s Freedom Fest.)
With the assistance of a $5 million mortgage from their father, Moon’s brother Justin based the Kahr Firearms Group in 1995. It began off manufacturing largely small arms designed to faucet into the rising marketplace for American-made hid weapons as states started to loosen up their gun legal guidelines. It has since expanded, and now Kahr is a sponsor of “Freedom Fest,” which will probably be held at its TommyGun warehouse in Greeley, Pennsylvania.
Each Moons have cultivated important MAGA ties, together with with the Trump brothers, Eric and Don Jr. Kahr Firearms now provides a number of Trump-themed weapons, and the corporate’s merchandise are steadily promoted in Don Jr.’s weapons-themed outside journal, Subject Ethos. When the firearms firm opened its TommyGun warehouse in 2016, Eric Trump gave a speech.
Given Sean Moon’s obsession with the downfall of the present American authorities, it’s no shock that he was concerned within the “Cease the Steal” motion to overturn the outcomes of the 2020 presidential election. He was on the US Capitol on January 6, and whereas he didn’t go in, he was shut sufficient to get tear-gassed.
The Rod of Iron pastor has by no means appeared particularly involved with appearances or solutions that his ministry is a cult. “We’re used to that kind of persecution,” Moon informed Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson in 2022, noting that followers of his father’s church are recognized colloquially as “Moonies.”
Below Solar Myung Moon, the Unification Church gained some renown for conducting mass weddings for its believers. (One at Madison Sq. Backyard in 1982 joined 2,075 {couples}.) In 2018, the Rod of Iron up to date this custom by holding a mass marriage ceremony and vow-renewal ceremony through which {couples} carried (unloaded) assault weapons just like the one used simply days earlier than to mow down dozens of workers and highschool college students within the Parkland, Florida, mass capturing.
This yr received’t be the primary time the Freedom Pageant has given away a Trump gun. However contemplating the Rod of Iron’s reverence for Trump, I questioned whether or not the Freedom Pageant organizers may need had second ideas about raffling off a weapon favored by the previous president’s would-be murderer. “That wouldn’t have an effect on the choice to do that, under no circumstances. I don’t suppose we’d see the connection,” Tim Elder, the church’s director of world missions, informed me. “It’s not the AR’s fault. It’s the man that was pulling the set off. It’s his fault. We’re not going accountable the AR for that incident.”
But when the AR-15 is an instrument of God’s justice, what does it imply if it’s used to attempt to assassinate Trump? “We see that God’s hand is on this man,” Elder mentioned merely.
The competition begins Friday, with an look by Flynn and a screening of his eponymous new film.