By now you’ve seen it a thousand times. On Twitter, in print, and on the air, Democratic politicians and progressive activists try to name and shame conservatives — especially conservative politicians — who offer “thoughts and prayers” in the aftermath of a mass shooting. “Your job isn’t to pray,” they argue. “Your job is to legislate. Your job is to fix the problem.”
I hate to pick on Kirsten Powers — because she’s brave and right on many vital issues and also a thoughtful and kind person even when she’s wrong — but she wrote a piece in the Washington Post that’s almost the perfect representation of the mindset. Calling out her Christian brothers and sisters specifically, she says, “There’s something deeply hypocritical about praying for a problem you are unwilling to resolve.” She continues:
For those of us who identify as Christians, it’s particularly painful to watch elected officials use their Christian faith to attempt to spiritualize mass murder, while their inaction leads to people traumatized, maimed, disabled or dead. Mass shootings are not acts of God. They are not natural disasters. We know they are preventable, because no other country lives with this kind of madness.
But what, pray tell, is the “action” that will end mass shootings? Here Powers comes up empty. She refers to other countries, but the only concrete proposals she offers (“requiring criminal background checks at gun shows and on Internet sales”) not only would not have stopped the Las Vegas shooting — as she admits — they’re also misleading. As has been explained a million times, the so-called gun-show loophole applies only to private sales between citizens of the same state, not to all gun-show sales or to all Internet sales. If you buy a gun from a licensed dealer, the dealer is required by law to make sure that you’re legally eligible to buy that gun, no matter where you buy it.
by David French
