Any minute now, I’m expecting Donald Trump to say we didn’t have all these mass shootings when he was president.
It couldn’t be any dumber than what the congressman representing the site of the latest shooting said in response to people on social media attacking the usual platitudes about thoughts and prayers coming from Republicans.
Christian dominionist Rep. Keith Self (R) appeared on CNN after a gunman killed eight people, including at an outlet mall in the Dallas suburb of Allen on Saturday.
It is God “who is absolutely in control of our lives,” said Self. “Prayers are important, and they are powerful in the families who are devastated right now.”
Self said people who criticize the power of prayer obviously don’t believe in an Almighty God.
Essentially what he’s saying is that the only real way to keep safe is constantly begging God not to let anyone murder us, our children or the people we love. Nothing we can do here on Earth can possibly stop the ever-increasing number of crazy shootings in our country.
Think about those last three words.
In our country.
So far this year alone, we have had more than 200 different shootings in which there were at least four people other than the shooter killed.
There is no other civilized country in the world where this is happening. Every other place we hear about gun deaths, there are reasons for them. Crime, insurrection, etc. Only in this country does going to school, going to church or going to the shopping mall consistently result in people being murdered.
In fact, those last three examples all happened in Texas.
Remember 26 worshippers killed at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs.
Remember 19 children and two adults killed in a school in Uvalde, at least in part because police were too scared to go inside.
And now we can add Allen to that list.
Texas used to be called the Lone Star State, but maybe now we should called it the Abattoir State.
People aren’t just being shot to death in this country. They’re being shot for no valid reason. They’re being shot because when you have guns, it’s too easy for a bad day to turn into a homicidal rage. It’s too easy for people with too many guns to see themselves as the solution to non-existent problems.
The Allen shooter apparently was obsessed with white supremacist and neo-Nazi beliefs, and he apparently had an AR-15 assault rifle and several other weapons on his person at the mall. Oh, and five more guns in his car. The strangest part of it is, from his name — which I won’t give — and background. I’m not sure the white supremacists or the neo-Nazis would consider him one of them.
I live in a state that allows open carry, although I think the only place I ever go where I regularly see people carrying is Walmart.I spent nearly a whole summer in Texas in 2010 and I loved it there, but I’m not crazy. As long as there are this many people packing heat these days, you won’t see me in the Abattoir State.
I wonder if Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Terry Southern realized when they collaborated on the script for “Easy Rider” that one line would become so iconic.
“This used to be a helluva good country.”