Yesterday in Minneapolis, two children were murdered inside a church during Mass. Seventeen others — kids and elders — were wounded. The shooter was a former student armed with a rifle, pistol, and shotgun. He opened fire on a congregation gathered for worship. That’s the bare fact of it. And like every other time, we already know the script that follows: politicians, pundits, and parishioners offering “thoughts and prayers.”
But here’s the truth: thoughts and prayers don’t stop bullets. They don’t bring people back. They don’t stitch wounds. They don’t disarm shooters. They are nothing but a ritual; an empty, performative hymn for a country that has decided mass shootings are just the price of being “free.”
I say this not as someone outside gun culture, but as someone who — as you already know if you’ve been reading my blog for a while — owns guns. I grew up with them. I have an AR-15 in my closet. I keep them around “just in case.” I know guns. And because I know guns, I don’t pretend they’re holy. They’re tools. They’re dangerous, powerful machines designed to kill. They’re not symbols of freedom. They’re not the cornerstone of civilization. They’re not worth more than the lives of those people in the pews.
In America we’ve turned guns into idols. We treat them like sacred objects, untouchable by law or criticism. Our culture doesn’t just allow mass shootings, it fuels them. We raise generations of people who see killing machines as toys, as symbols of manhood, as birthrights that matter more than the lives of strangers.
Gun culture is the sickness. And “thoughts and prayers” are the cover-up. They’re what we say when we’ve already decided we’d rather keep our guns than keep children alive.
If you own guns, you have a responsibility to break this culture. Don’t hide behind the excuse of “responsible ownership” while staying silent. Silence is complicity. And if you don’t own guns, stop letting your leaders hand you Bible verses instead of policies. Stop letting them offer condolences instead of consequences. If we keep swallowing “thoughts and prayers” as if they’re medicine, the shootings will keep coming. The funerals will keep coming. The blood on the church floor will keep coming.
America doesn’t need thoughts and prayers. America needs to choose: guns or children.
Sisyphus Shrugged 