lanternlad1 said:
Ghost Walker seems sure it was a Smith Model 27. Don't know what proof he has, but the pics I've seen would bear that out. At least the OP has one of his questions answered. Regarding Mr. Dwyer's soul ... "For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten." Ecclesiastes 9:5 And I'm an atheist, but that seems comforting to me somehow.
First, the information on the pistol was contained in several of the early new reports on the event. It stayed with me, in part, because I own the same gun. Second, my compliments! That quote from Ecclesiastes is pretty good for an atheist. I’m not an atheist; so, if you will, allow me to offer you another biblical quotation:
‘And the spirit of Samuel said unto Saul, Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up?'
The living certainly have an ability to disquiet the dead. The, ‘reward’ referred to in Ecclesiastes 9:5 implies a form of conscious self-indulgence. The dead certainly receive a reward. Because the dead are judged they must stand to receive one form of reward, or another.
It is a common mistake to assume that the dead are only judged after they are resurrected. The biblical concepts of reward and punishment are much more complex than that. Don’t forget how, ‘the land’ cried out for justice during the reign of King David; and, what David did about it! That was an unusually gruesome response; however, according to scripture, it was all done without anyone sinning against The Lord.
Remember in condemning David for his sins and thereafter cursing, ‘his house’, the Prophet Nathan did NOT attribute the crucifixion of Saul’s children to David as sin. David was immediately rewarded for his adultery with Bathsheba and Uriah’s subsequent murder! After David died that reward continued because God’s curse did not depart from his house. In accord with Nathan’s prediction, God’s curse has remained closely associated with, first, Solomon and, second, with the reminder of David’s other family.
In my opinion you’d have to be a fool to fail to realize that this curse, also, remained with David’s soul, itself. As God, Himself, stated through Moses;
‘The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generations of them that hate Me.’
Kind of gives a whole new meaning to the scriptural warning;
‘God is not to be mocked.’
Doesn’t it!
Among men, Budd Dwyer's reputation and his soul, as well, are sure to remain unrequited. Human history is replete with numerous examples of this sort of behavior. Nevertheless, many men would do their own souls well were they to remember that it is also written,
What men cannot, or will not, set straight God shall certainly correct. Now, one more time, why don't we abandon this thread, and leave Budd Dwyer to his rest. In any event that's what I'm going to do.
