May 24: Robb Elementary School, 19 Kids, Thoughts and Prayers

There will be no reflection on The Old Man and the Sea in this post.

Today, an 18-year-old boy entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and killed 19 students and two teachers with an automatic AR-15 rifle and a handgun.  He wounded 17 others.  Eventually, the shooter was killed by a United States Border tactical team.

Of course, social media has been flooded with posts about thoughts and prayers.  Almost as soon as it happened, politicians on both sides of the aisle started spewing the same invective they always do, pointing fingers and laying blame.  It's a news story that has become so common in the United States that it's numbing.  

Here's what I want to say tonight:

Prayers and thoughts are useless to dead children.

I'm a Christian.  I believe in the power of prayer.  But there is a solution to gun violence.  A pretty simple one.  Take the guns away.  If you are a Christian, praying for the end of Roe versus Wade in the United States, but you don't support gun control, you aren't pro-life.  There are 19 dead kids tonight who didn't have to die.

When Jesus saw the temple overrun with money changers and graft, he didn't just sit down and pray that it would stop.  He overturned tables.  Took off his belt and whipped people with it.  He screamed that they were making his father's house into a den of robbers.

It's time folks.  Put away your thoughts and prayers.  The temple is overrun with gun lobbyists and NRA supporters.  Jesus wouldn't be praying for these children.  He's be pissed.  Overturning tables.  Whipping politicians with his belt.  Before you worry about saving the children who aren't born yet, how about saving the ones we already have?

Nineteen kids.  Nineteen kids.  Nineteen kids.

Here's Saint Marty's thoughts and prayers for politicians and people who think the solution to guns is thoughts and prayers:  "Fuck" and "you."