Re: speaking of a beard...
Reference #1 is utterly unrelated. Quran 4:59 has no reference to beard. The posters should be very careful about quoting quran willi nilli.
Sura 4 is titled "women"[Sura Nisa] and this Khan baba X is using this Surah for Men and beards. Do you all see the irony?
I highly disagree with you on this, Why? To know why you need to read Quran. You will find different issues in different chapters of Quran, for example you'll see that Al-Baqarah is not only about the cow but it covers plenty of different issues about three types of humans, about bani israel, about hajj, about martyrs, about women and so on.
You're right that this ayah is not about beard but you are wrong in saying thats its irrelevent.
And above all if you read my posts in context you'll find out that it was a reply to tariqlkhan and all those who follow any traditional Islamic fiqh and opinion of ijma.
You my brother can do what you think is right as you don't follow any of these famous school of thought(i think). My post wasn't intended for you or others like you.(I'm not saying that you are wrong for not following them)
May Allah make our Iman strong and give us the right understanding of Quran o Sunnah. Amen
PS: And I can't give you a reference about killing or bombing someone for not growing beard as there isn't any example where Prophet(SAW) or Sahabah(RA) killed someone for shaving the beard nor they had these type of weapons in those days.
khanbabax's ref doesn't say anything about killing someone for not growing beard either, also I personally think Prayer(salaat) is the issue we should be more worried about than keeping or not keeping the beard.