Hundreds of couples toting AR-15 rifles packed a church in Pennsylvania on Wednesday for a disturbing ceremony blessing their marriages and weapons.
The bizarre service saw women dressed in white and men in dark suits as they hailed the "rods of iron" that they claim could have SAVED lives in the recent Florida school shooting.
The gun fanatics gripped their unloaded assault weapons at the Unification in the rural Pocono Mountains, about 100 miles north of Philadelphia.
Many celebrants wore crowns - some made of bullets - while church officials dressed in flowing bright pink and white garments to go with their armaments.
The couples had their marriages, and their guns, blessed (Image: AFP)
They wore crowns of bullets (Image: Getty)
The unsettling ceremony took place just two weeks after gunman Nickolas Cruz, 19, stormed a high school in Parkland and opened fire on staff and students, killing 17.
It also came on the day students made an emotional return to Majory Stoneman Douglas School.
They wore crowns of bullets (Image: Getty)The unsettling ceremony took place just two weeks after gunman Nickolas Cruz, 19, stormed a high school in Parkland and opened fire on staff and students, killing 17.
It also came on the day students made an emotional return to Majory Stoneman Douglas School.
The ceremony celebrated AR-15 rifles (Image: AFP)
Worshippers hailed the 'rod of iron' (Image: REUTERS)
A spokesman for the church, now headed by Reverend Hyung Jin Moon after the death of his father and church founder, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, said the marriage blessing ceremony had been planned long before the shooting.
Students from an elementary school near the church were relocated for the day to distance them from the gun-toting couples at the ceremony, according to the Wallenpaupack School District website.
Gun fanatics gather in Pennsylvania (Image: Getty)
(Image: REUTERS)
Moon said in a statement that the staff of the Florida school should have been armed, an option President Donald Trump has said should be explored nationwide and which teacher unions have criticised.
Women wore white and men dressed in black (Image: JIM LO SCALZO/EPA)
"Each of us is called to use the power of the 'rod of iron' not to arm or oppress as has been done in satanic kingdoms of this world, but to protect God's children," he said, citing the Book of Revelation in the Bible.
"If the football coach who rushed into the building to defend students from the shooter with his own body had been allowed to carry a firearm, many lives, including his own, could have been saved," Moon's statement said.
(Image: AFP)
The Pennsylvania school district three years ago called off classes during the massive manhunt for survivalist Eric Frein, who police said used an AK-47 style weapon to ambush a Pennsylvania state trooper barracks and then fled into the mountains.
Frein was found guilty in April of killing a Pennsylvania state trooper and wounding another in the September 2014 attack.
Worshippers hailed the 'rod of iron' (Image: REUTERS)A spokesman for the church, now headed by Reverend Hyung Jin Moon after the death of his father and church founder, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, said the marriage blessing ceremony had been planned long before the shooting.
Students from an elementary school near the church were relocated for the day to distance them from the gun-toting couples at the ceremony, according to the Wallenpaupack School District website.
Gun fanatics gather in Pennsylvania (Image: Getty)(Image: REUTERS)Moon said in a statement that the staff of the Florida school should have been armed, an option President Donald Trump has said should be explored nationwide and which teacher unions have criticised.
Women wore white and men dressed in black (Image: JIM LO SCALZO/EPA)"Each of us is called to use the power of the 'rod of iron' not to arm or oppress as has been done in satanic kingdoms of this world, but to protect God's children," he said, citing the Book of Revelation in the Bible.
"If the football coach who rushed into the building to defend students from the shooter with his own body had been allowed to carry a firearm, many lives, including his own, could have been saved," Moon's statement said.
(Image: AFP)The Pennsylvania school district three years ago called off classes during the massive manhunt for survivalist Eric Frein, who police said used an AK-47 style weapon to ambush a Pennsylvania state trooper barracks and then fled into the mountains.
Frein was found guilty in April of killing a Pennsylvania state trooper and wounding another in the September 2014 attack.
