If Prayers Stopped Bullets

Donald Trump. (photo: Getty)

By Charles Pierce, Esquire

08 November 17

Republicans have nothing more to offer you.

s expected, the nominal leadership of the Republican Party has responded to the massacre in Sutherland Springs, Texas, with the kind of steady, rational leadership that can turn the ship of state into an artificial reef at the bottom of the bay.

First, the president*—who’s confounded the oddsmakers by being in Asia nearly a week without starting World War III—replied to a very good question from NBC’s Ali Vitali with a very bad answer.

When asked by NBC News about gun control in the aftermath of the deadly shooting at a Texas church over the weekend, Trump said it wasn't the right place or time to ask the question before explaining that such measures would have made "no difference" on Sunday. "You’re bringing up a situation that probably shouldn’t be discussed too much right now," he said during a joint press conference with South Korean President Moon Jae-in…Trump, who advocated for stricter vetting policies in the hours after a terror attack on New York City last week, said "we could let a little time go by" before talking about gun control, "but it's okay if you feel that that's an appropriate question, even though we're in the heart of South Korea."

I don’t know what the hell that means. Would Vitali’s question be more appropriate if they were all sitting by the side of the road on Wando, or in a GI bar in Itaewon? Bad answer. Could he come up with a worse one?

Why, yes. He could. However did you guess?

The president went on to applaud "that very brave person who happened to have a gun or a rifle in his truck" and shot the killer. "If he didn't have a gun," Trump alleged, "instead of having 26 dead, you would've had hundreds more dead. So that's the way I feel about it. Not gonna help."

It is the opinion of the president* of the United States that 26 people murdered in a church is proof that the system works. A year, it’s been. Only a year.

However, the lameness of the president*’s response was challenged strongly by Speaker Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny starver from the state of Wisconsin. From The Hill:

“It’s disappointing. It’s sad, and this is what you’ll get from the far secular left. People who do not have faith, don’t understand faith, I guess I’d have to say,” Ryan told Fox News’s Laura Ingraham on “The Ingraham Angle” when asked about the criticism. And it is the right thing to do, is to pray in moments like this because you know what? Prayer works.”

This kind of platitudinous slop is all the conservative movement has left as far as a political philosophy goes. Certainly, one can pray, for example, that the congressional majority regains some semblance of a clue and passes some sort of common sense gun regulations, but organizing to beat some of the NRA’s servants in that body seems to me to be a better use of people’s time. Besides, we probably should remind the Speaker of the shebeen’s favorite passage from the Epistle of St. James: faith without works is dead.