FoxNews reports on the continuation of a “scandal” from 2010:  Trijicon, the maker of the much-vaunted ACOG gun sight, was known for putting an abbreviated Bible verse reference on the end of its serial numbers.  Michael Weinstein found out, claimed that Islamic terrorists were offended when they were shot by rifles with these scopes, and demanded the Army remove them.  Trijicon ultimately offered to provide kits to remove the references.  (After threatening legal action against Trijicon, Weinstein also apparently implied his MRFF was a Christian organization…)

The Army now claims these inscriptions violated the terms of the contract: 

“The vendor etched those inscriptions on scopes without the Army’s approval,” Army spokesman Matthew Bourke told Fox in a written statement. “Consequently, the modified scopes did not meet the requirement under which the contract was executed.”

That’s probably a stretch, since indications were these were a COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) purchase.  Since the verses were on the commercial version, they were naturally on the version the Army received.  There was no “modification” to the product.  For its part, Trijicon indicated it had a Chick-FIL-A style response to its scopes, albeit on a smaller scale, with an uptick in interest in their products and no public backlash.

The Army made the modifications slowly, as men and equipment were cycled in and out of theater:

Soldiers at Fort Wainwright in Alaska told Fox News they received a directive to turn in their scopes so the Bible references could be removed.

Weinstein was upset at that pace (though the Army was apparently unfazed by his whining), since everyone was aware that US troops were dying just because of these ACOG scopes.  Actually, they weren’t, but that’s what Weinstein would have people believe.

Weinstein had tried to claim large groups of people, including the enemy, were offended by these references.  Ironically, the official documentation the Army provided instructing soldiers on how to grind the scripture reference off had to go out of its way to explain what the Bible references are — because it isn’t obvious, and a lot of US Soldiers probably aren’t Biblically literate.  And that’s the Americans holding the weapons, not the (mostly illiterate) Afghans on the receiving end of 5.56mm rounds.  In other words, it is a manufactured offense of grand proportions.

“It blows my mind,” the soldier said. “It doesn’t help the Army do its mission to take off a biblical reference.”

No, but some people seem to think if they just give Weinstein an inch, he’ll be satisfied and leave them alone.

Eventually, they figure out they’re wrong.  It just takes a little while.

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