Michael Ramirez for March 30, 2023

Which, of several possibilities is, MR saying? Abundantly unclear….

Ramirez; Do you have any children?

Hey Mike!

How about we fund programs to STOP SHOOTING, not just the guys who STOP SHOOTERS?

Thoughts and prayers do nothing reduce mass shootings.

We have at least one mass shooting a day, despite all the thoughts and prayers that have oozed from the mouths of the radical right pols.

Just the results of an increasingly depressed and depraved society. You reap what you sow.

What an offensive piece of sophistry. Please tell me which police department was defunded in any of the 135 school shootings? But many of the gun owners keep saying, they need a weapon that shoots 60 rounds per minute to defend themselves from their government. Please tell me which of these victims posed such a threat.

Apparently, christians believe it’s okay to shoot children into unrecognizable pieces as long as thoughts and prayers are administered afterward. Maintaining the holiness of the gun is the most important thing.

I guess the point is that we need more thoughts and prayers? Idiotic.

350 cops stood around in Uvalde, they were defunded!?? How many would have stood around before defunding!?! If the money used to pay these useless POS cops had been put into mental health services, things might improve a bit. Also without a gun you can kill dozens of people easily? According to people like Mr. Ramirez the Las Vegas shooter could have done the same with a knife or baseball bat.

Let me see if I got this right, Mike is promoting prayer and love? Mike? The I never met a good Dem accept a dead Dem, Mike? Wow. Will miracles never cease?

If those guns weren’t there, the slaughters wouldn’t happen. Mass shootings don’t happen anywhere else but here. How anyone an defend that, I don’t know.

Thoughts and prayers?? Shootings and tornados are either: god’s plan (he wanted the children dead), he had the power to stop but didn’t, he is powerless to stop. So, aren’t thoughts and prayers useless and a rebuke to god and his divine judgement? “You can not petition the Lord with prayers”-Jim Morrison Also apologize for the use of “he”.

I’m waaaaay past astonishment at the bottomless imbecility of this cartoonist.

Ramirez has hit a new low.

If only those murdered kids in the Christian school had done a little praying now and then, they would have been safe.

Are but there is something left. There’s sensible gun restrictions and mental health counseling. Neither of which republicans are interested in.

There is something final about thoughts and prayers, they’re cheap.

So true! There hasn’t been prayer in schools in over 30 years now, that whole time things have gotten worse. Many say that doesn’t prove cause of our decline. After a third of a century, that argument doesn’t hold much water with me. I mean none. Then their is what prayer teaches, love they neighbor, a respect your parents, belief in something greater than the Government Check.

We had guns a whole lot earlier, in the 80s kids who hunt would leave their rifles in their trucks, no problem.

It continues to amaze me that all of the people above who deny the power of prayer and actually loving your fellow humans, have no problem with their cherished leaders such as Schumer and our professed Catholic president inciting their followers to riot and harm Supreme Court justices because of denying them the so-called right to murder their own unborn children. 63,000,000 and counting since the unconstitutional overreach by a liberal leaning Supreme Court in1973. The 2nd amendment is there and it can’t be argued what it says. I, and I think many others see a connection between this infatuation with abortion and the downward spiral of the greatest society in the history of the world. As far as your disbelieve, you have the freewill to believe the way you wish. Just please don’t try to push the idea that intentionally stopping a beating, live heartbeat isn’t murder. It’s the very definition of murder. So spare us the sanctimonious lectures on your versions of killing innocent children. Your fondness of abortion says it better than anything the believers can.

And remember, thoughts and prayers are free. Politicians aren’t. Ask the NRA.

What would Jesus do? Imagine his response to a politician that offered thoughts and prayers, but refused to do anything about guns. I imagine he would label all of them as hypocrites and condemn them. Personally, I think Jesus spits on your thoughts and prayers.

An amendment that has no modern value. We have a military, so we do not need a “well-regulated militia.” And by the wording of the second amendment, that is why the guns rights “shall not be infringed.” When one goes, so does the other." Owning a musket and a single-shot pistol is a long way from assault rifles.

Mr Ramirez uses maga red and maga words to demonstrate the loss of temper about deadly mass killings using guns. (And, for some reason, to toss in the worn out adage of defund the police.) I have no idea as to whom the elderly woman symbolizes (thoughts and prayers with a few flowers?). And considering most mass shootings are committed by men, I don’t know why he seems to be focusing on women. Actually, only magas are filled with hate. I, personally cannot comprehend why grown adults would continue supporting (money & votes & words & deeds) an unceasing tirade by a grumpy old geezer whose finances & influence are way more than they have and has dodged the law over and over and over. Unfathomable.

“Blame Guns” — No . Blame easy access to guns. The gun itself is just a thing. The problem is people who want to kill other people. The solution is to make it difficult for those people to have access to a tool that makes it very easy for them to kill multiple people in a short period of time.

“Defund Police” — Sort of . More a matter of reducing the funding for police, not defunding them entirely. Maybe demilitarize police would have been a better slogan… but the left have a bad habit of adopting stupid misleading slogans. And this only works if the funding is re-assigned to preventative measures.

“Hate haters” — Again, not a problem if you actually unpackage the statement. It isn’t the expression of hate that is the problem, it is why someone feels hate. The term “haters” isn’t referring to anyone who feels hate, it is referring to people who hate others for no justified reason. Hating someone who has wronged you, or who is a threat to you and those you care about… there is nothing morally wrong with that. It might not be the most productive way of addressing things, but there is nothing wrong with it. Hating people who are different than you, simply because you think they are icky, or weird or whatever… that’s not ok, that makes you a “hater”.

Does JC have a quota on the number of prayers before he does anything? If both 9 year old Johnny and Billy are dying from cancer and 12 people are praying for Johnny and only one for Billy does he save Johnny and let Billy die?

The only thing affected by prayer is the person doing the praying. Nothing else

I am so tired of people equating mass shooters with “responsible gun owners”.

Here’s a direct quote from the final report of the Jan. 6 committee, page 667:

“Lonnie Leroy Coffman from Falkville, Alabama, parked by the Capitol building before walking nearly 2 miles to the Ellipse to hear the President speak. In his car, he had stocked a handgun, a rifle, a shotgun, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, large-capacity ammunition-feeding devices, machetes, camouflage smoke devices, a bow and arrow, and 11 Mason jars filled with gasoline and styrofoam, as well as rags and a lighter (tools needed to make Molotov cocktails). Police found two more handguns onCoffman when he was arrested later that day.”

This is what you unleash when you get rid of any sane and sensible gun laws. This is the price our society has to pay because “everyone has the right to decide how to defend their family”. I’ll go on record as saying that anyone who needs an AR-15 to defend their family is a lousy shot, and therefore shouldn’t be allowed to have one.

A word from James:

If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

The Templeton Foundation funded the most rigorous, empirically sound study of the possible positive effects of prayer ever conducted in the history of science. The study — which received over $2.4 million dollars in funding — was double-blind and involved a control group and an experimental group.

The researchers randomly divided up over 1,800 coronary bypass heart surgery patients, from six different hospitals, into three groups: the first group had Christians praying for them; Christians prayed that the selected heart patients would have “a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications”—and the patients in this group were told that people might or might not be praying for them. The second group of heart patients was not prayed for, but they were also told that they might or might not have people praying for them. The third group was prayed for, and these patients were told that they were definitely being prayed for. The Christians that were doing all the praying were given the first name and last initial of the specific patients they were to pray for.

The result: There was virtually no difference in the recovery trajectories of each group, with all three groups experiencing more or less the same rates and levels of complications. The only minor differences that did arise actually worked against the prayers: 18 percent of the patients who had been prayed for suffered major complications such as strokes or heart attacks, compared to only 13 percent of the patients who did not receive any prayers.

Prayer can be a solid source of self-soothing and self-comfort when one is experiencing pain, coping with loss, or dealing with traumatic circumstances. Prayer can also be of benefit as a form of concentrated mental motivation for achieving personal goals. Prayer can also help people focus on the well-being of others. And, of course, when one finds oneself in a hopeless or helpless situation, with no real options, no clear solution, and no actionable form of alleviation, then prayer is something to engage in to—at the very least—make one feel like one is doing at least something in the face of dire circumstances.

Clearly, people pray because it makes them feel better, or makes them feel hope, or makes them feel love, or makes them feel just a welcomed hair shy of being utterly powerless. So, concerning all of the above, it can be said that prayer works.

But when it comes to prayer as a form of asking for something from a divine source and then getting it — there is simply no empirical evidence that such mental messaging to an invisible deity works. All stories of “answered prayers” are merely anecdotal, and nothing more.

Ramirez LIEs, as usual.

There is NO movement to defund police. There IS a lot of talk and sentiment toward restructuring parts of their responsibilities and holding them accountable for their actions.

Ramirez and other Republicans want NONE of that.

No, Ramirez, that is not the problem.

We are way past nothing but thoughts and nothing but prayers. The shooters aren’t just thinking. The crazies aren’t just praying (though some of them seem to be preying). Match actions for actions for pitysake. PRAYERS DON’T STOP BULLETS!

So a “christian” school bullied someone and she retaliated with the FAR-TOO-READILY-AVAILABLE guns and your only answer is the nonsense about “thoughts and prayers”. SICK!!!

When " Our thoughts and prayers are with you," condolences mentioned by these politicians means more than " thoughts and prayers." It requires ACTION on they’re part to ANSWER those PRAYERS. Anything short of that is just WHISTLING IN THE WIND!

Thoughts and prayers. When you want to something slightly more than nothing.

I once proved the idea that God answered prayer by flipping a coin and feverishly praying for heads. And God answered my prayers 50% of the time.

Ramirez is accidentally right. We are way past thoughts and prayers. When thoughts and prayers are all you, can offer, well, it has been said that faith without works is dead. And Jesus told a lot of parables about the supposedly righteous people doing all the socially acceptable things at temple (full on thoughts and prayers, basically) but ignoring the needy in their day to day lives, while someone who wasn’t even a proper Jew went and helped a needy person to an extreme — and in every example, who was the righteous person?

This isn’t even difficult. Thoughts and prayers are nice. They’re not bad at all. But if they’re all you have to offer, they are hollow. If you’re a Christian, then you know that we are the body of Christ, and it’s our job to do His work — which means those thoughts and prayers won’t come to anything at all if we don’t take any action.

If ‘Thoughts and prayers’ actually Worked, the shootings would have stopped after the first one. Insanity is repeating the same actions but expecting different results- so, by definition, every GOP politician is clinically insane.