Thoughts and Prayers

Once again I am going to hop on my gun control soap box. Las Vegas, so far our worst modern mass killing. Don't worry folks someone out there is planning a bigger and better killing spree. What do our representatives in Congress offer as a solution? Their thoughts and prayers are with those wounded and with the families of the slain. How about this? Fuck you and your thoughts and prayers. While we are on the subject of your ineffective response to these mass killings, maybe you could take your moment of silence and stick that up your ass. Something must be done and the answer is not more guns. The answer also is not found in you folks in Congress crawling back to the NRA and begging for more money and supportive campaign ads so you can be reelected to do nothing. You all seem to claim to be people of faith. That got me thinking. In the Bible, you know that book you set your hand on to take the oath of office and ignore the rest of the time. Well, in the book of James, chapter two verses 14 through 18 read like this.

      "What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can
      faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you
      says to them.'Go in peace, be warmed and filled.' without giving them the things needed for the
      body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone
     will say, "You have faith and I have works." Show me your faith apart from your works, and I
     will show you my faith by my works."

So your thoughts and prayers have no impact if you don't follow them up with works. The question becomes this. What should those works be?

President Ronald Reagan, hardly a liberal, stated the following. "I do not believe in taking away the right of the citizen for sporting, for hunting, and so forth, or for home defense. But I do believe that an AK-47, a machine gun, is not a sporting weapon or needed for the defense of a home." There was an assault weapon ban in effect in the United States from 1994 to 2004. It was challenged repeatedly in the courts but all challenges were rejected. The question is not the legality of such a ban but the political will to pass one into law again. It appears at this time there is no stomach for such bold action in Congress. After Columbine, Aurora, Newtown and Orlando we were told "now is not the time" to debate gun laws. I suspect that the same thing will happen in response to Las Vegas. When is the time? The day of the Las Vegas mass murder was the 275th day of 2017. We have had 273 mass shootings this year. That is defined as a shooting with at least 4 persons wounded or killed in a single incident. If we are waiting for a lull in the shooting we are never going to do anything.

I go back in my mind when these mass shootings take place and think about the 20 children and 6 adults murdered at Sandy Hook School in Newtown. Twenty children. No child was older than seven years of age. Our representatives in Congress managed of offer thoughts and prayers. What the hell, let's throw in a moment of silence just to extend the charade that we actually care what happens. Twenty children dead. We did nothing. Sorry Las Vegas 59 dead and over 500 injured. You will get thoughts and prayers from Washington. A visit from the President. The news will die down in a week or two. Congress will move on to what is really important to them- cutting taxes on the corporations and rich folks who get them elected. The only time they pretend to care about you is when they need you to vote. Their corporate overlords and donors are buying your vote with misleading ads. So sit back and watch while they take away your health care, your ability to join a union and fight for better wages and benefits. But by God you get to keep your guns and those fellas in the NFL are going to stand for the anthem. So who cares about that other stuff?

As for me, fuck your thoughts and prayers. I don't want or need them. If that is all you have to offer me as my representative in Congress, state or local government you should just shut your stupid fucking mouth.