If you have not heard, two students were killed at a Catholic School in Minneapolis today, during Mass.
People’s knee jerk reaction is to offer up ‘thoughts and prayers’ without stopping to think about the fact that these kids were literally praying when the gunman shot them, then shot himself. It takes a unique level of delusion to offer up prayers for the kids victimized while praying.
I remember after 9-11 my Mormon friends answer was, “Just pray.” Pray for what? They just died in a terrorist attack. Pretty sure i was like,”Pray for what?”
If God wanted to prevent that and had the power to do so, he would.
But he didn’t have either, so that means he is non existent.
Maybe instead of thoughts and prayers how about pragmatic solutions to the epidemic of mass school shootings that only happen in America.
I have kids raising my grandkids in a strict Muslim country because they don’t have to worry about mass murders there.

"If God wanted to prevent that"

That's why we have a living prophet. Church leaders should have called the cops beforehand. It's not God's fault Rusty dropped the ball.

God wanted them on the other side and to inflict eternal torture on the shooter.

God always wins.

It's about expressing sympathy with the families. No different than sticking a Ukrainian flag on your Facebook profile, because that has no effect either.

Sure Thing Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It's about expressing sympathy with the families.
> No different than sticking a Ukrainian flag on
> your Facebook profile, because that has no effect
> either.

Yes. This.

Too bad that some expressions sound trite as you hear them so often and they seem like knee-jerk reflexes at this point, devoid of real feeling, but what is there really to say?

Even way up here in Canada we cried at the news.

My sister and her family live in MN. Their only child has attended school there her whole life. That brings this even closer to us, even though we're not in America. Their daughter is so very precious to them, of course. If they lost her, I can't imagine.

It's absolutely heartbreaking, even for those not involved in any way. I ache thinking of the depth of the pain the families are experiencing. It is just total unimaginable tragedy. As one of the commentators mentioned, those young children will remember this now for their entire lives. Who knows how that will affect their joy, happiness and peace.

Such a tragic sad story. Suspect it will not be the last incident like this happening.

The shooter was publicly identified quickly, Coulter's Law in effect?

Also, what's with the rash of transgender shootings the past few years, seems like there is a lot of them.

El Gato, nice to see you back. Was getting worried you were no longer frequenting these parts.

Thanks Scooby,
Here’s a Scooby Snack!

I’ve been reprimanded for suggesting we are well past thoughts and prayers. The school involved is a few miles from my brothers, blocks from where my Mom grew up. The shooter graduated with my great nephew.

Clearly if children praying in Mass for the first week of school are the victims, prayers are not the answer.

sbg Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I’ve been reprimanded for suggesting we are well
> past thoughts and prayers. The school involved is
> a few miles from my brothers, blocks from where my
> Mom grew up. The shooter graduated with my great
> nephew.
>
> Clearly if children praying in Mass for the first
> week of school are the victims, prayers are not
> the answer.

Seems like 1/4 of the way through the 21st we ought to have technology to stop these kinds of things from happening, with CVTV’s, AI facial recognition software, Drone Swarms and non-lethal, tazers, phasers and lasers, we have the technology to take out bad guys on the other side of the world, but somehow when it comes to protecting kids America’s eyes glaze over.

Militarize the domestic United States with police-state surveillance and remote assassination systems?

You should move to the other Washington. There are presently plenty of prestigious jobs for people who think that way.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/29/2025 01:48AM by Lot's Wife.

I know reading comprehension isn’t your strong suit, but if you go back and read my comment you’ll see I said,”Non lethal” not “assassination”that came from you.
But I’m sure people like you would prefer mass murder of innocent children in their classrooms and church pews, rather than leverage the pragmatic solutions we already employ against enemies abroad. Why not use the same tools to protect innocent children at home?
Oh yeah, let’s just pray it doesn’t happen again instead of actually doing anything!

You claim to be a liberal, a progressive, an opponent of the Great Pumpkin, but you call for the establishment of a police state that uses violence against people without due process of law.

You, my friend, are advocating a form of fascism far more intrusive than anything the United States has ever seen or its leaders contemplated.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/29/2025 01:24PM by Lot's Wife.

Way to argue for maintaining the current status quo, mass murders every damn day!

Actually, there's a far more reasonable way to address mass murders. But you skip right past that and propose fascism. EOD made precisely that point immediately below this post although you probably failed to understand it.

Anyway, your passionate error is how democracies with limited governments fall. Part of the citizenry advocates tyranny and then their duller fellows, who think they are centrists or liberals, decide that tyranny is indeed the only way to address major social ills. That's what happened in Italy in the early 1920s and to Germany in late 1932 and the winter of 1933.

So hey, go ahead and advocate a police state with cameras everywhere, social media monitoring, and extrajudicial attacks on citizens. You're not alone. But be consistent and stop pretending to be a liberal, a believer in democracy and limited government, or a constitutionalist.

For you are none of those things.

Extra judicial attacks on citizens?
You mean stopping mass murderers before they murder innocent children, that’s what you oppose?
Wow.
Ok! Let’s just do nothing and let the mass murders go on unchecked, great plan!
Bravo!

How do you propose to identify/stop mass murderers before they kill?

I think this mass murder, arbitrarily chosen from among the hundred or so other mass murders that have occurred this year, is El Gato's Reichstag Fire.

It is an event so shocking to his sensibilities that the only "logical" response is to throw away democracy and give all power to the state.

What could possibly go wrong?

Is the Cat purposely supporting and promoting Satan's plan of salvation, or does he think it kind of sounds like one of various applicable solutions?

Was there ever a message board in the "Pre-Existence" where discussions were held regarding the best way to save and promote as many of ghawd's 'chilins' as possible? (I wonder what my screenname was?)

> I wonder what my screenname was?

There were so many to choose from--some of whose utterance was enough to get an indecisive soul knocked off the fence!

Tots and pears

Yes, there is a sense of irony to it. I was watching the evening news last night, and a little girl (with her dad at her side) was being interviewed. She had a black burn mark on her forehead from being grazed by one bullet, and she has bullet fragments in her back skull from another gunshot which physicians elected not to remove for fear of damaging her further.

She told the reporter that she was lying on the ground, between pews, praying as the shooting continued. He asked her what she was praying for, and she replied, "Help." Sounds sensible to me.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/29/2025 06:12AM by summer.

Religious fundamentalists who are waiting for the "end times" and various others who think that they are constantly under "attack" or "threatened" by people who do not look or think like them believe they need vast personal arsenals of quasi-military weapons that they should be able to obtain on demand without *any* formal safety or weapons training or even minimal mental health screening. They believe their right to live armed to the teeth ensconced in a cocoon of self-imaginary fear or to make themselves feel "powerful" or the right intimidate others to everyone know who's "in charge" is more important than your or your child's life.


You know the list. Columbine, Sandy Hook, El Paso, Orlando, Las Vegas, and now Minneapolis.


How many more deaths will it take?



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/29/2025 05:41PM by anybody.

It will take enough deaths to drive an amendment through. There's not much left that can be done that will survive scrutiny from the Supreme Court for a few more decades most likely.

IMHO, it really will take an amendment to make significant headway.