Melanie, of Sparks from a Combustible Mind, is still filling in for Frank, aka PCGuy, who is taking a temporary hiatus from his Truthful Tuesday prompt. This week Melanie wants to know about thoughts and prayers.
Do you think the thoughts and prayers sent to victims of disasters or mayhem are worth the effort? If not, please give your reasoning. If so, give your reasoning, too.
Worth the effort? What effort? How much effort does it take to say that you’re going to send someone your thoughts and prayers? For most people, it’s an almost meaningless, mechanical, rote response.
Many of us can do little to help the victims and the families of loved ones whose lives have been senselessly taken by some asshole with a semiautomatic assault rifle. So “sending out thoughts and prayers” may help us feel better, but it serves no good purpose for those directly affected.
But nothing sickens me more than when those who are in a position to actually do something about gun violence in America — our elected representatives — offer their thoughts and prayers each time another mass shooting occurs. These people we put in office and whose salaries we pay through our tax dollars are lawmakers. So let them make laws that will help reduce the availability of and accessibility to semiautomatic assault weapons and high capacity magazines. Let them close the loopholes in gun laws. Let them demand background checks and waiting periods. Let them raise the minimum age to purchase a gun, let them require, as with cars, licenses, registration, training, and testing. Let them not get away, time after time, with doing nothing more than sending out thoughts and prayers.
And we, the ordinary people, can also do more than send our thoughts and prayers. We can vote into office — at the local, state, and federal levels — candidates who will commit to taking definitive actions to do something meaningful about gun violence in America, rather than spouting empty words.
This, That, and the Other 
Right on! You said it all. T&P have become a joke 😡
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Yeah, a sick joke.
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What’s T&P?……
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Thoughts and Prayers.
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Of course……
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While we have seen “thoughts” and religious statements scrawled on missiles in battlefields, our own military services don’t send out troops based on thoughts and prayers (alone) — and no one argues the basic programs we provide should cease. Soldiers and sailors and so forth are stringently trained and disciplined in an ongoing manner beyond their basic training, not only in complex technology most citizens have never seen but also in the use of firearms now available to the general public. I believe any militia should be well-regulated and instructed (and allowed to exclude some people from it).
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I think whatever you personally or they personally believe is up to them and should be respected but I also think it is a trite politician’s response that the victims’ families are tired of hearing.
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Ditto.
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Well put. I agree with the whole “I’m a big cheese wheel politician who only offers my thoughts and prayers to victims of horrendous crimes I helped come into being.” For myself, as a private individual, I KNOW that those people (whom I don’t know and who don’t know me) don’t ‘get’ anything tangible out of my offering, and I’m curious what’s so wrong with someone wanting to feel they’ve done the best they can, when other avenues are solidly denied? Yeah it helps me feel better, and perhaps that’s good enough so that I don’t become one of the gun wielding nut jobs who take out random strangers because I feel shitty about myself, I know I’m a creep and a weirdo, and at least killing a lot of innocent people will give me my 15 seconds of fame. (of course I could never shoot another person, for one I don’t know how to work an automatic weapon and for two I’ve got an active conscience that tells me that sort of shit is wrong. No quibbling. I allow that each individual is more than entitled to their point of view too.
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I think thoughts and prayers are great especially when glued together with appropriate gun control laws. We got freedom to choose right and wrong AND we got a conscience. So did the assholes in the Senate. What happened there? How did they get missed?
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I don’t know. I privately think if your “how were they missed” remark is ‘how did they avoid getting shot to death in one of those sorts of mass shootings” that their cowardice is only exceeded by their dim-witted pandering stance. They have body guards for that too. And I’m fairly sure they are thinking of their own self interest over all.
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As I said in the post, sending out thoughts and prayers to the victims and their families may help YOU feel better. And there’s nothing wrong with that. For a large percentage of the population, that’s about all we can do. My beef is with the politicians who are in a position to do something meaningful but essentially choose to do nothing.
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We’re on the same page in that Fandango. As I said initially “well put!”
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Here, here, well said Fandango! 🙂
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I was sort of horrified to realize the Massachusetts has the nation’s strongest gun laws and the fewest shooting deaths nationally. Especially when you consider how many people own weapons. Big ones. Probably illegally at that. And this is the SAFEST state. Ye gads.
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Well said Fandango
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Thanks, Sadje.
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You’re always welcome
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I agree whole heartedly. We need to act… vote out the T&P politicians and get someone in that can accomplish some real progress.
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