Running shooting thread 2023

The key sentence: Thoughts and prayers without action and change are meaningless

 

Well, you've always had your finger on the pulse of decorum, so we'll bow to you on this one.

 

Was telling a friend yesterday that I think we're ultimately going to become a country where everyone knows someone who has been affected by a mass shooting in the same way that we all know someone who has had cancer.

 

El Paso again

 

Plus, "I want to extend my deepest condolences" sounds an awful lot like...thoughts and prayers, to me.

I think I understand what he means and what he's trying to do with "Fuck your thoughts and prayers," but really, what he's doing is turning off and tuning out a large portion of people who might otherwise sympathize with his/the cause of actually doing something about guns.

 

No they wouldn’t have done anything anyway.

 

At this point, every time there’s another senseless shooting, another common sense gun law will be revoked. “Freedom.”

The most misunderstood amendment of the Constitution that money can buy.

 

Has anyone else done anything, whether they've offered thoughts and prayers, or not?

At least they've offered that. It's hypocritical and condescending -- unnecessarily so -- and unnecessary to begin with, to pick on that. To people who pray regularly, seriously and diligently as a matter of course, it is very meaningful, and is intended that way on behalf of those for whom they pray. Even if they do nothing else.

 

But do they really pray? I doubt it.

 

Well, I know a lot of people who do -- they let their requests be known to God in all things, by prayer and supplication, etc.

I've been around people who are willing and able to pray, and who do so, seemingly anywhere, anytime, for anyone, and about anything, oftentimes immediately, right where they're standing, wherever they may be, whether it's in middle of a conversation, at the beach, in the middle of a shopping aisle at Costco, in a social setting, a medical setting, or a parking lot, and whether they're surrounded by few people (who look at them strangely, wondering what's going on, or gone around by crowds of people, who look at them, too, also wondering what's going on). They do not care. I've seen it done by others and I've done it with others, usually for others. It is part of their lives, offered easily, sincerely and seriously, and acted upon, whether in private or in public, in simple, good, strong faith.

Anyway, I don't want to thread-jack over this on a thread like this, which is what Ranjeev Puri's opening line of that statement actually kind of does, itself. My point is just that people's offers of thoughts and prayers should not necessarily be taken so lightly, flippantly, and rudely, particularly when there is probably little else to give to grieving people in the immediate aftermath of a shooting.

 

https://www.si.com/college/2023/02/...eartfelt-speech-after-michigan-state-shooting

No major missteps. Stuck mostly to the right themes. Suggested action beyond T&P.

 

Call me when they get to James 2:17.