How does praying prevent mass shootings???? https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entr...f1fe4b07eb51181be67?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
November 7, 2017
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is defending his call for prayers after a gunman killed 26 people in a Texas church on Sunday.
Ryan and other politicians have been criticized for offering thoughts and prayers instead of legislative action to reduce gun violence. But on Monday night, Ryan told Fox News host Laura Ingraham:
"It's disappointing, it's sad, and this is what you'll get from the far secular left. People who do not have faith don't understand faith, I guess I'd have to say. And it is the right thing to do is to pray in moments like this, because you know what? Prayer works. And I know you believe that, and I believe that and when you hear the secular left doing this thing, it's no wonder you have so much polarization and disunity in this country when people think like that."
Sending "thoughts and prayers" on social media has become a way for both religious and secular people to grieve after national tragedies.
For religious people in particular, prayer is an important form of worship and a way to ask God for guidance and intervention.
Especially after great personal sorrow, faith helps people to cling to hope. The Rev. Frank Pomeroy, pastor of First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, lost his 14-year-old daughter and at least 25 other church members in Sunday's mass shooting. He told reporters on Monday that he has decided to "lean into the Lord."
"I don't understand, but I know my God does," Pomeroy said.
But it is one thing for Pomeroy to lean into his faith after the shooting at his church, and something completely different for Ryan to offer prayers without action ― especially after reportedly receiving more than $170,000 in contributions from gun rights groups in 2016.