"Thoughts And Prayers" Are Always Needed After Terror Strikes

By Kimberly Ross | 4:30 PM on June 13, 2016

The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of RedState.com.

The realization that 49 of our fellow countrymen and women (they removed the dead gunman from the total count) were gunned down early Sunday morning – because of hate – stopped all of us in our tracks. Those with this hate are obsessed with the desire to destroy anything and everything that is different from them. This isn’t simple disagreement over differences; it’s murderous rage.

Generally, the first response to this type of horror is give your “thoughts and prayers” to the victims, their families, and the community at large. There is nothing wrong with this, except that the tolerant Left has no tolerance for it.

And many politicians send their “thoughts and prayers”, but refuse to even discuss any action on guns.

— Phil Plait (@BadAstronomer) June 12, 2016

Phil Plait wrote in Slate:

…it’s cynically hypocritical when politicians do it and nothing else.Congress made it extremely difficult for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to even study the effects of gun violence. Seeing all the NRA-funded lawmakers tweeting their “thoughts and prayers” was particularly galling.

Despite all the effort to stop such horrific events from occurring, we cannot. This is because the problem isn’t a weapon, it’s a matter of the heart. Crime against another human being is always a matter of the heart. Until the Left chooses to recognize this, they’ll fight endlessly to keep guns away from law-abiding citizens. Gun control never controls the guns in the hands of criminals, it only yanks them from citizens who would gladly use theirs to defend another’s life. But this truth has always been lost among dedicated liberals

The disgust over NRA-funded lawmakers is certainly at an all-time high, as if the NRA itself condones violence against another. The Left claims “they have blood on their hands!” We could say a similar thing about an automobile manufacturer when a car owner uses their vehicle to kill another through negligence or premeditation. Of course, this would be nonsense.

We shouldn’t blame anyone but the perpetrator for crimes committed, so that means we can do nothing on our own – in that moment – apart from submitting thoughts and prayers. If terror doesn’t strike you in a way that causes you to recognize life’s brevity and fragility, and realize none of it is under our control, then there’s a problem.

Don’t cease from the natural, human reaction to grieve another’s loss, even if you don’t know them, when they are violently taken from us. The victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting deserve to be honored and remembered, not used as pawns in another political debate about guns. Certainly their murders bring important issues to light, but they’re the same discussions we’ve had over and over. If motivations matter, and hearts are the problem, then centering ours on remembrance and petition is never wrong.