thoughts and prayers. It started out as a cliché. It became a joke. It has become a national disgrace.
Tonight, as Americans turn to heaven in pain and sorrow for the lost children of Uvalde, Texas, they may hear the answer provided in the Bible by the words of Isaiah:
“And if you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you: yes, if you make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are covered with blood.”
We will learn more about the 18-year-old murderer of elementary school children: his personality, his ideology, what constellation of hatred and cruelty drove him to his horrible crime. But we already know the answer to one question: Who gave him the weapon of mass murder? The answer to that question is that the public order of this country has armed him.
Every other democracy goes to considerable lengths to keep guns from dangerous people and dangerous people from guns. For many years – and especially since the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Connecticut nearly a decade ago – the United States has put more and more guns into more and more hands: 120 guns for every 100 people in this country. The pandemic years were the years of the largest gun sales in US history: nearly 20 million guns sold in 2020; another 18.5 million were sold in 2021. No wonder, these two years have also witnessed an increase in gun violence: the spectacular slaughter of people by our recurring mass slaughter; the deadly one-on-one crime wave; the ceaseless tragic toll of neglect as American gun owners injure and kill loved ones and themselves.
Most of us are appalled. But not enough of us are horrified enough to cast our votes to stop them. And those who Americans entrust with political power at the state and federal levels seem determined to make things worse and bloodier. The US Supreme Court will rule in the case in the coming weeks New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. against Bruen, a decision that could take down the ban on concealed carry in even the few states that still have it. More guns, more places, less controls, less protection: since Sandy Hook, this country has tumbled backwards and downwards toward barbarism.
In his memoir on his career in the arms trade, former arms industry boss Ryan Busse writes about the impact of mass shootings on gun sales. They are, to put it bluntly, good for business. People think the authorities might do something and rush to the gun stores to buy guns before “something” happens. The weapon in the shooter’s hand multiplies to more weapons in more hands. Most of these hands have no intention of causing harm. But the damage still follows.
I wrote a parable in this magazine five years ago:
A village was built in the deepest gorge of a floodplain.
Periodically, flash floods sweep away homes, killing everyone inside. Less dramatic – but more deadly – is the steady toll as individual villagers slip and drown in the swamps around them.
After particularly deadly events, the villagers solemnly discuss what they could do to protect themselves. Maybe they could build their houses on stilts? But a powerful faction among the villagers is always on hand to explain why these ideas don’t work. “No law can protect our village! The answer is that our people need to learn to be better swimmers – and oh by the way, you said ‘stilts’ when the right term is ‘piles’, so why would anyone listen to you?”
So the dispute rages on without result, year after year, decade after decade, and the death toll keeps rising. Nearby villages built into the hills marvel at the canyon dwellers’ persistence in their seemingly ruthless way of life. But the canyon dwellers counter that they are following the wishes of their founders, whose decisions two centuries ago must always be borne by their descendants.
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Since then, of course, it’s only gotten worse. Can it be different this time? Whether a particular killer turns out to be a racist, a jihadist, a sexually frustrated Incel, or an accidentally malicious bearer of grief and grief, can Americans ever break the pattern of empty thoughts, meaningless prayers, and ever-worsening bloodshed?
The lobby groups and politicians enabling these killers will dominate the federal courts and state governments as they do today, until the powerful forces of decency and kindness in American life say to the enablers:
“That’s enough! This has to stop – and we will stop you.”
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