Sad, tired and angry: A prayer in the face of gun violence

AMEN

Too bad noone noticed how deranged he was and alerted someone to prevent this!Thank you fr Martin for the prayers.

After the Sandy Hook, Newton CT massacre, the GOP has proven itself to be johns for the NRA. Screw prayer -- what is needed is committed action. And the Church leadership . . . crickets. It's more important to defend an individual's right to not bake a cake for a same-sex couple than to marshal the will and resources​ to address this horrible issue. Jesus wept!

The world's civil and moral balance needs strong equal rights for racism sexism, unfair profit hoarding of the profits created by the workers, including managers and consumers, better meant for all people’s needs, not just for the greed of a few who then incite power wars.
As current bullies of inequality edge us closer to nuclear destruction.

The Word of “Equality”, like the Golden Rule is meant to treat All with Equal Respect and Concern!
Seek The Holy Spirit within, to confirm, to be guided best in this life, and for the world to come!
Please share on net, and/or send a copy to Pope Francis, at Vatican City State, Rome, Italy 00120. May need 3 stamps or an International.

Thanks for Prayers and Good Tweets.

YES.

I am tired of this time of national insanity. Our president explains that an island is surrounded by a lot of water and no one is prompted to suspect senile dementia. The carnage of gun violence goes on and on and our senators and representatives are not motivated to seriously consider laws to restrict or at least monitor gun ownership. We just squeaked past having our Congress trying to take healthcare away from millions - and Cardinal Dolan invites one of the perpetrators to a place of honor at a Catholic dinner. Now we have the American oligarchs wanting Congress to reduce their taxes so they can continue to cheat the rest of the nation out of their just wages and their votes. And of the whole tiresome list of craziness, the most sickening is Cardinal Dolan's invitation to Paul Ryan. Dolan is supposed to exhibit some degree of moral fiber, but he seems to be only a publicity hound.

Prayers are always good, but until I see some action out of our do-nothing government, I consider this mass shooting as just another addition to the list of mass shootings. I would like to be more hopeful, but I don't see much evidence to support a hopeful outlook.

Beautiful prayer that speaks to me. Let me turn my tiredness into advocacy. Let us all decline the right to bear arms.

As a Catholic magazine, shouldn't America focus on the evil that triggered the shooter instead of playing politics? Does a deranged man justify stripping citizens of their right of self-defense?

I am not an American nor I live in the United States, so please correct me if I am wrong: my understanding is that the Second Amendment of the Consitution is there not to protect hunters, but to always have an armed population to resist a tyrannical government (foreign or internal).

Here in Mexico it is almost imposible to have a licensed firearm. You think criminals have many problems getting powerful weapons? Not at all. In many parts of the country, civil population is at the mercy of cold-blooded killers or corrupt police officials. I sure wish there was a Second Amendment over here.

Good intentions do not justify unwise decisions. Don't let them take your guns.

Your prayers are a good beginning, Father. But we must, as you indicate, act as well as pray. For ideas of how to reduce gun violence, see the excellent column by Nick Kristof in the NY Times today:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/02/opinion/mass-shooting-vegas.html? action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=span-abc-region&region=span-abc-region&WT.nav=span-abc-region.

As Nick points out, the Aussies were inspired by a mass shooting to change their laws regarding guns, and they have cut their number of gun deaths by others in half, as well as their number of suicides.

My Lord. Here we’ve tortured and killed our unborns en masse for over 50 years now and no one makes the connection between that and incidents like this? The general devaluation of Life? How satanically stupid, criminal insanity.

Further, Carlos Orozco (above) is entirely correct. Stupidity doesn’t promote good (our illustrious ‘Pope’s’ vaunted m.o.), social or otherwise.. Wisdom is required.

America continues to have an editorial policy that reflects that of one of our political parties, and in this article Jim Martin is writing like party chairman. All the gun laws in the world would not have prevented this tragedy or the far greater one that goes on in cities like Chicago everyday. Unless of course we want to forbid firearms to law abiding citizens and rigorously enforce the policy, But a direct result of that policy would be that only criminals and evil doers would possess weapons of every kind. The very sad truth is that in a culture which tolerates violence of every kind—even in children’s games—none of is safe from a madman with a weapon of some kind—IED,guns, grenades, knives, airplanes, drones, or motor vehicles. Running to seize the moral high ground may be advantageous for politicians or editors, but the violence will go on until there is a spiritual awakening that results in changed hearts and minds.

Why specify gun violence? Violence in and of itself is the issue, regardless of how it is put into effect to harm others. Come on, America, let's stop with the politics.

Since 1982, fifteen U.S. mass killings have left 326 dead. From 1949 through 1981, two mass killings claimed twenty-eight lives.

What changed? The top federal income tax rate fell to 50 percent and inequality grew on steroids. The number of U.S. billionaires quadrupled during the Reagan presidency. Four of the fifteen mass killings occurred between 1982 and 1986.

Four percent of GDP today goes toward stock buybacks which drive stock prices up. Higher stock prices mean higher capital gains income. In 2012, the top 400 incomes averaged $300 million, primarily from capital gains. Again, we have inequality (top 400 incomes) growing on steroids (4% of GDP). Six of the fifteen mass killings occurred between 2012 and 2017.

Christ was not weeping over the death of Lazarus. If you read the account and as Trappist Abbot Thomas Keating pointed out in " Crisis of Faith ", when Christ was told by a messenger that Lazarus was dying..."He remained in the same place for two more days". He wanted Lazarus to die prior to his arrival.
What He wept about was the insufficient level of faith in Mary and Martha who believed that Christ could only have helped if He arrived on time...but not if He was late....which means they still did not know who He really was. They thought He was less than Eliseus who raised a dead boy to life from death in 2 Kings 4..... even though Eliseus arrived late to that family's house.
You'll never restrict guns much in the US but the bump stock which caused two weapons to be virtual machine guns should be outlawed but was approved stupidly by the AFT and totally circumvents the 1986 ban on machine guns which itself had another loop hole. I have two guns at home because there is a criminal in this city who threatened to get me with a pistol. Thank God I have a right to be armed equally to him.

What a missed opportunity by Fr. Martin here.
I'm so disappointed.

His prayer started very beautifully. I was thinking, "Wow. Very nice."
And then ...

The politics.
The finger-pointing.
The pretentious 'why-don't-others-see-this-like-I-do' verses.

You really blew it, Father.
You really blew it.

Why doesn't Fr. Martin seek out and engage in meaningful dialogue with the National Rifle Association (NRA) and gun owners--99 percent of whom do not use their weapons to commit murder or any other crime--and build a bridge and find common ground?