GOP Elected official, hard at work
It’s the same routine every time there’s a mass shooting — GOP elected officials offer their “thoughts and prayers”, and then proceed to do… nothing. It’s a trite phrase that takes the place of actual action. But of course you already know that. It’s been the subject of much discussion (and derision) here and elsewhere, so anyone living in the reality-based community know how meaningless that phrase has become.
But what if those GOP officials actually had to deliver those thoughts and prayers?
I mean, really, what % of those officials actually DO pray, and actually DO think about what happened when they say this? What % spend even five minutes actually praying and thinking about victims of gun violence when one of these tragedies takes place?
Think about it — they’re not just using thoughts and prayers to avoid actual action, they’re likely using the phrase to avoid even the minimal step of thoughts and prayers altogether.
It’s time we demand they actually deliver all those promised thoughts and prayers. Force them to actually take the time to do it.
To start, let’s agree that when a human life is ended by gun violence, it warrants at least 5 minutes of prayer, and 5 minutes of thought. If that seems crazily low, well, it is, but let’s start by asking the bare minimum from these GOP officials, since it would be an improvement over the “not even close to minimum” they’ve been delivering so far.
Okay, so looking at the stats for gun violence in the US, there’s a range you could take, depending on whether you’re looking at just homicides, or including suicides, etc. But let’s go with the lower end of the spectrum, just homicides, and use the figure of 9,000 per year (some sources say it’s a bit higher, some lower, but let’s go with that as a good ballpark range).
So that’s 90,000 minutes per year of thoughts and prayers, using the (woefully low) 10 minute figure. Or 1500 hours. Or 187.5 work days, at 8 hours each (which is probably about 10 times too high, given the work schedules of Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, but let’s go with it).
So we’re looking at roughly half a year of thoughts and prayers — per year. 50% of the year, devoted solely to thoughts and prayers about this issue. And real thoughts and prayers, too, no multitasking, devices, snacks, etc. And live-streamed, because we frankly can’t trust them.
It’d probably drive them nuts pretty quickly. Then again, with all that thinking and reflection, maybe they’d finally come up with a real way to fight gun violence, one that finally reduces the need for these thoughts and prayers in the first place.
Just a thought. And a prayer.
