Paul Ryan Criticized over "Thoughts and Prayers" Comment

[Minimalist]

No.  Demanding gun control is not the equivalent.

[Whateverist]

No.  Demanding gun control is not the equivalent.

Saw a meme today that said (more or less): if thoughts and prayers are enough to comfort people who've lost loved ones to gun violence, then thoughts and prayers should be enough to comfort people who lose their weapons to gun control.

[Brian37]

No.  Demanding gun control is not the equivalent.

Saw a meme today that said (more or less): if thoughts and prayers are enough to comfort people who've lost loved ones to gun violence, then thoughts and prayers should be enough to comfort people who lose their weapons to gun control.

It is sad to me humans worship objects on par with gods.  Even worse, they mix the worship of gods and weapons and call it a fight for peace.

[henryp]

It's funny how similar gun violence is to threats of terrorism. Both sides play it up, acting like Joe Schmoe should be worried about being randomly shot/blown up.

But that's just not real. It's just getting people wound up for votes. 10000 homicides a year. A small fraction of those are non-handguns. And a small fraction of that is something other than criminal on criminal violence. And a small fraction of all of that, is guns that were purchased at a gun show/store.

In the end, amazing gun control laws prevents a couple hundred deaths? Maybe. In a country of 300,000,000 people are we really losing our shit over a few hundred people? So much that this is a major priority that people are losing sleep over?

I don't care about guns, but I'm uninvested in them being more strictly regulated/banned because I'm almost certainly not going to get shot, just like I'm not going to get hit by lightning, or eaten by a shark, or blown up by a terrorist. The risk is incredibly tiny for most Americans.

---

The easy example I use to show it's all BS is alcohol. 10,000 drunk driving deaths a year (36 a day). 1.1 million DUI's a year. Then you've got spousal abuse, child abuse, rape, sexual assault, regular assault, disease, suicide, life ruining addiction, and on and on. And it's not a few 1000, it's millions of incidents.

Why no push for getting rid of alcohol? It's all about sacrifice? It costs nothing for Carl the Republican in Oklahoma to ban all Muslims. It costs nothing for Hippy Joe who has no interest in owning firearms to restrict the rights of others to own firearms.

But Carl and Joe both like their booze and pot, and shockingly, neither has any interest in trying to save lives going after those, because it'd actually cost them something. And politicians know those are losing issues, so they certainly aren't going to address it.

https://www.ncadd.org/about-addiction/al...-and-crime

It's all just a big jerkoff.

[Minimalist]

10000 homicides a year.

Yeah...right.  Fuck 'em.  They were going to die of something anyway, right?

Idiot.

[Rev. Rye]

Well, since apparently it needs to be said for the 3rd time:

Praying and doing nothing else when there are things you can do isn't enough. Prayer should always be accompanied by taking action when possible. That's why we have the Corporal Works of Mercy: feed the hungry, clothe the naked, etc. Prayer is meant to be a supplement to whatever action is possible, not a substitute for it.

So, unless someone is only praying and not helping when they have the opportunity to, I don't see why anyone would take issue with it. Especially when it brings a sense of comfort and peace to people who, oh, I don't know, just lost their daughter to a violent attack? Maybe we shouldn't use this as an opportunity to criticise prayer just for the heck of it when there are people out there who lost the ones they love most and feel comforted by prayers.

The part of your statement I bolded is the crucial point. Paul Ryan is a lawmaker. Not only that, but he's the Speaker of the House; if Donald Trump and Mike Pence were to be taken out of commission (assuming Pence goes before he has the chance to name a VP of his own), he would become the President. He has the power to at least do something about it; he could either find ways to increase funding for mental health programs so the people who might be mentally ill enough to do such things but not completely beyond the point of no return the help they need. He could also help pass some gun control legislation so that the people fucked up enough to want to commit mass murder can't actually get the means to do it (well, legally, anyway.) They're not the silver bullets that many people claim, but they can certainly be helpful. And yet, he does nothing. Every time a mass shooting happens, the Republican Party does nothing more than declare moments of silence, offer thoughts and prayers, and blame everyone else.





Make no mistake, though these words are technically speaking about AIDS activists who can't get their shit together enough to get anything done about a disease that's infected more people than Chairman Mao killed, they still resonate about other issues, like, for instance, mass shootings. Mother Jones has compiled a database of mass shootings (wherein a minimum of three people died) in the America in the past 35 years; this year, there have been a total of ten shootings, by far the highest number in over 35 years (and I'm sure the record stretches further back.) The rates of most crimes have decreased in the past couple of decades, but mass shootings have only become more common. And unless we do something about it, nothing will change. I don't expect I can do much to stop the tide (seriously, I live in a part of the country where Democrats [who are at least more inclined to do something in this area] are pretty much locked into winning, so much that when I voted for my state representative last year, the Republicans didn't even bother to field a candidate), but the Republican Party can do something. However, what do they do? "Thoughts and Prayers." And blocking any possible means to stem the tide.





Seriously, earlier in this thread, I stated it was like the Republican Party had a vested interest in keeping mass shootings going so it can always have a bogeyman. The fact that I can say shit like that and have it seem that bloody plausible says volumes about how fucked up this country really is.

[Catholic_Lady]

To clarify, my statements about prayer have been general. I don't know what Paul Ryan said, don't know much of anything about Him or his politics except that's hes republican.

[henryp]

10000 homicides a year.

Yeah...right.  Fuck 'em.  They were going to die of something anyway, right?

Idiot.

Do you think we should ban all guns?  Because if you're one of the dipshits talking about better background checks, and assault-rifle/bumpstock bans as a solution, you're saying 'fuck em' to the 9500+ who are still going to die.

[Rev. Rye]

To clarify, my statements about prayer have been general. I don't know what Paul Ryan said, don't know much of anything about Him or his politics except that's hes republican.

That's the unfortunate thing about you: you're kind, thoughtful (honestly, the first memory I have of you is trying to save a suicidal poster's life), and you certainly use your devotion to Catholicism in positive ways, but sometimes, you fail to look at the subtleties that make all the difference in a given discussion.

[Minimalist]

Do you think we should ban all guns?

Yes, ultimately.  You see people, even supposedly Law Abiding Responsible Gun Owners ( L-ARGOs) are too fucking careless to have that kind of power.  The "All Hail The Second Amendment" thread has story after story of supposedly trained and careful gun owners who made that one little mistake and now they are short one kid.

It's not worth it.