“There is something deeply hypocritical about praying for a problem you are unwilling to resolve.”
– Miroslav Volf
Yale Center for Faith and Culture
Yale University
There are elections in November. If you think access to assault weapons in America and the ease of buying and using weapons made to kill multiple people in seconds are wrong, save your thoughts and prayers for where you worship. We need leaders who are willing to do more than wring their hands, inflate the meaning of the 2nd Amendment, and accept money from the NRA.
If you think the rights of murderers who slaughtered students and teachers at Sandy Hook, Columbine, Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, and Robb Elementary are more important than their innocent victims, what kind of person are you, really?
What if you’re kind of liberal about the environment but not so liberal on tax breaks for the middle class? If you might be leaning towards Liberal, would cutting an arm off be enough to get your thinking right, or would it have to be an all or nothing policy?
Gee, before you know it, people would be afraid to question authority or speak out about anything for fear of being shot.
To clarify his thoughts, Nugent told Alex Jones, host of The Alex Jones Show on Infowars, “America, you got to cleanse this country.”
“Cleansing,” when referring to entire groups of people, is a scary scary idea.
Cleansing is what happened to Jews in Nazi Germany. Cleansing is what happened in Bosnia. Cleansing is what happened in Rwanda.
The threats to our country from terrorist groups like ISIL are real. The threats within our borders from people like Nugent, the KKK, Planned Parenthood opponents, and their ilk, are just as real, and maybe bigger, than those from any number of foreign groups.
Have we as Americans lost sight of recent history, or are we so certain “it will never happen here” that we are laying the groundwork for the very thing we think is impossible?
This was originally posted last year on September 11. We continue to be a badly broken country in too many ways. No photo today.
How we have failed since September 11, 2001
Tonight President Obama will address the nation about ISIS and any actions that we may take in response to the horrific murders of Americans and innocent civilians at the hands of terrorists.
Tomorrow there will be an observance in my community, and many others, to honor the thousands of lives lost to hate and terrorism, and to support the families and friends who knew someone they loved would never return home again.
Since September 11, 2001 we as a country have talked a lot about being kinder to one another and being a better country. Yet 13 years later this is what consumes us as a country:
fighting about allowing two consenting adults of the same-sex to legally marry each
failing to take care of the thousands of veterans who have defended our country, many of whom returned with horrible wounds from the Middle East since September 2001
allowing private corporations to decided which forms of legal birth control they will cover for employees through company based health insurance because some corporations should have the same privileges as churches
granting corporations the same rights as citizens so businesses can pour money into elections and our representatives’ pockets
making it harder for citizens to exercise their right to vote
subsidizing corporations with huge tax breaks while their employees working full-time never earn enough to break the poverty barrier
denying the hard facts of science because profits should come before cleaning up the mess we’ve made of the entire planet
deporting children
complaining about failing schools while slashing teacher pay and testing our children to death
sitting by silently while racism and sexism are displayed proudly
being sure we can take our assault rifles into the grocery store
we pay for and support violence on playing fields, in the movies we watch, video games we buy, music we listen to, and television shows we watch, but we react with horror when students are sprayed with bullets in their classrooms, women are drug from elevators by their hair, students are bullied, children and women are raped as well as being forced into prostitution
too many among us are convinced that their brand of faith should be followed above all others, and if necessary the rights of other citizens should be denied because they choose to worship differently, or not at all
We absolutely should remember and honor the victims of September 11th’s violence. I’m just not convinced we are a country that is a better reflection of the democratic values and freedoms which terrorists intended to destroy 13 years ago.
I posted this photo as a Friday Photo on August 29, 2014, almost two months after Georgia’s Open Carry (Guns Everywhere) law, passed by the Georgia General Assembly and signed into law by Governor Nathan Deal, went into effect.
Last night nine innocent people out for a night at the movies in Lafayette, Louisiana, became the victims of a shooting. Two victims died, seven are wounded.
Republican Presidential candidate and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who has signed over 12 bills increasing access to guns and where they can be carried in his state, told the media, “We never imagined this would happen in Louisiana.” Brushing off a reporter’s question about gun control after last night’s shooting rampage and murders, Jindal said the thing to do to do now is pray.
Governor Jindal doesn’t have much of an imagination.
As for prayers? How about praying for reduced access to guns, thorough background checks, removing banning the sale of assault weapons, and serious limits on where guns can be carried?
I don’t like guns. I’ve never fired one and I don’t care if I ever do.
I can appreciate the hand and eye coordination in shooting a target because some days I can barely thread a needle when wearing my readers.
I get the issues around hunting to provide food for families (Hunting is violent, but I don’t think Contained Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs, are any more humane than killing an animal with a single shot.)
What I don’t get is why AT LEAST 194 children have died in our country since Newtown. One hundred ninety-four. 10 x 19 +4. AT LEAST that many.
We don’t keep good data on gun deaths and children, so 194 is on the conservative side. Why don’t we have uniform reporting on children who die because they are shot? Who doesn’t want us to know how many children are dying because of guns in the country we say is the greatest in the world?
A year ago today we were stunned into silence as a nation while we waited for the students and teachers to emerge from Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Yesterday we waited for the body count at Arapahoe High School in Centennial, Colorado.
Shame on us for waiting to learn the body count at another school shooting.
Shame on us.
It took 10 years to get the Brady Bill passed after Jim Brady and Ronald Reagan were shot. 10 years.
Using the conservative data we have, are we willing, as Americans, to let 1,940 more children die while the NRA, the members of Congress that they own, chest-thumping state’s rights legislators, and gun waving citizens, prevent background checks and bans on assault weapons?
I am asking my fellow rural Americans who own guns and think enough children have died just since Newtown to do something about it.
The next time you buy bullets for hunting, put 194 individual bullets on the counter.
194 bullets
Ask the people standing there with you if they think 194 children shot and killed since Newtown is enough. Ask them why we need to be able to buy assault weapons and rigorous background checks aren’t the law. If they say “because of the Second Amendment,” ask them about the last time their home was invaded by an entire Army division. Owning an assault weapon is over-kill. No pun intended.
If you think speaking up for gun control isn’t “your thing,” ask any one of the 194 families who won’t open birthday presents with their daughter, son, sister, or brother, in 2014, why speaking up shouldn’t be “your thing.”
Being the President’s child in the White House can’t be easy. Now the NRA is dragging the Obama’s daughters into the politics of gun control by producing a web video criticizing the President as “elitist” because his daughters have security details at school.
Clearly the NRA is so desperate now that it resorted to using the President’s own children in its campaign to arm our society to the teeth with assault weapons and magazines.
Disgusting.
The NRA is losing the grip it has had on Americans for too long. We don’t need assault rifles and we don’t need high-capacity ammo magazines. Finally citizens are saying it.
What we do need are laws and procedures which will help reduce the all-to-easy access to guns.
And we have to couple that with increasing the access to mental health services so that people who need care can get it before they reach a crisis. Our mental health care delivery system is not set up to help patients and families until they reach the breaking point.
Congress and state legislatures have the power to make it harder to get a gun. New York did it last night and Governor Andrew Cuomo said after signing the legislation, “We put rules in place that actually protect innocent people in society. That is what the State of New York is doing today. It says common sense can win and good people can win. And you can actually get government to work and get good things to happen. You can overpower the extremists with intelligence and with reason and common sense.”
If Congress and state leaders won’t act, the President has Executive Authorities to make changes in gun ownership that Americans are calling for. He should use them.
Last night Lawrence O’Donnell reported on The Last Word that the NRA edited its video and took the Obama girls out of it during his broadcast. The NRA’s video begins at 2:00.
