The People of Lafayette Don’t Need Your Prayers; They Need Better Laws

In response to the shootings in Lafayette, Louisiana earlier tonight, Governor Bobby Jindal asked his Twitter followers to “say a prayer for the victims at Grand Theatre and their families.”

While I understand the sentiment — you want to do something in the aftermath of a tragedy — let’s all admit that prayer won’t change anything. They won’t stop another shooting in the future. They won’t bring back the victims. Maybe they’ll help the people saying them get through the night, but there’s no effect greater than that.

This cartoon by James MacLeod offers a more useful suggestion:

That’s the only thing that might prevent some of these tragedies in the future: Laws that prevent guns from getting in the hands of wrong people. No law is perfect, but as we’ve all heard so many times by now, no other civilized country in the world has to deal with this much gun violence. No one else is even close.

We don’t need prayers. We need politicians with the courage to take on the NRA.