As we slowly digest the trauma of this past week’s events in Connecticut, all of us are brought to the table with some deep burdensome questions. Why is it we are the way we? Why?
Outside of Connecticut, The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence reported that since 2005, there has been a multiple-victim shooting every 5.9 days in the United States, with 87 people dying of bullet wounds each day. And just today, 210 people across the country have been shot.
Accordingly, the most dangerous city for mass shootings is Chicago, the organization said, which has suffered through 17 shootings and resulting in 30 deaths and 72 injuries. Of those shootings, thirteen occurred in public places.
Fareed Zakaria in his CNN article, ‘Time to Face Facts on Gun Control, basically calls it as it is:
“We have 5 percent of the world’s population and 50 percent of the guns.
But the sheer number of guns isn’t an isolated statistic. The data shows we compare badly on fatalities, too. The U.S has three gun homicides per 100,000 people. That’s four times as many as Switzerland, ten times as many as India, 20 times as many as Australia and England.
Whatever you think of gun rights and gun control, the numbers don’t flatter America.”
Additionally, outside of prayer, many Respect Life Apostolate offices within the Catholic Archdiocese is silent. In such events and the message often appears dated to life’s day-to-day pressures. In fact one local chapter’s last ‘blog/website’ message was dated November 5th, requesting prayer about the November 6th election.
Still, much of the clergy is like that of Pastor Rocky Veach, whose church has 75 members.
“In times like these, there’s no really good answer. Words really don’t express enough. Our approach is just that you have to show people love. You have to be there for them and be understanding, even though nobody besides the victims can really understand what they are going through.“
In light of the fact we are a gun toting God fearing country, with respect to the guns we own, is prayer, condolences and thoughts the best we can do? The weekly television show, Meet the Press wanted to find out.
In the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut shootings, most pro-gun rights politicians have gone underground. NBC’s Meet the Press reportedly invited the 31 senators, Republican and Democrat, who openly oppose stricter gun control laws to appear on the program. However, none accepted.
Well, there is one exception: Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) told Fox News Sunday that he believed more guns are the answer to violence in schools. “I wish to god she had had an M4 in her office,” he said of Sandy Hook Elementary School principal Dawn Hochsprung, who was killed in the shooting.
Seriously Representative Gohmert …. Is this the best we can do?