Earlier today, I ran a roundup of all Current, Arena, and Way of Improvement Leads Home coverage on guns and gun control since May 2022. But I want to add here one more resource. In August 2021, Current Contributing Editor Timothy Larsen wrote a feature essay “Thoughts and Prayers,” which focuses not just on gun control, but on how in the midst of these tragedies, both sides keep talking past each other.
A few excerpts from the piece (and you can read the full essay here):
When a mass shooting occurs, the instinct of politicians—especially conservative ones—is to say that their “thoughts and prayers” are with those who have been impacted. It has become a phrase that infuriates some progressives. They hear it being offered as a full and sufficient response to the ongoing problem of mass shootings. In contrast, they themselves believe that gun-control legislation is both urgently needed and the only fitting response. This view was memorably articulated by Susan Orfanos, the mother of a victim in the Thousand Oaks shooting: “I don’t want prayers. I don’t want thoughts. I want gun control.”
So as not to be unduly cagey, let me say that I, like most Americans, believe that we need to enact some common-sense gun control laws, and that I am often exasperated by the recalcitrance of gun-rights purists. Nevertheless, my task at hand is not to join this ideological dispute but rather to clarify some ways in which people are speaking past each other.
“Thoughts and prayers” are no substitute for taking the action needed to prevent further tragedies. Progressives have that right. Nevertheless, we still need ways to accompany those who are grieving. We can and should do that with our thoughts and prayers. In thinking about how to respond to the challenges that confront society, I think the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer got the balance right. His preferred phrase: “prayer and righteous action.”