GOP Says More Religion Will Prevent Gun Violence - It Won't!

This GOP claim is ridiculous, and they don't even try to explain how it would work. They are just pandering to the religious right because they don't want to admit what the real solutions are to prevent gun violence.

The following post is by Kate Cohen in The Washington Post:

At last, Congress has passed its something’s-better-than-nothing package of gun-safety legislation. Though the vast majority of Republicans voted against the extremely modest law, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) assures us that they are “committed to identifying and solving the root causes of violent crimes.”

And what might those causes be? According to many Republicans: The United States doesn’t need more gun control; it needs more God.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), for instance, has said that “the secularization of society” is to blame for the massacre at a Texas elementary school. “I think the solution is renewed faith.” Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.) said we needed to “embrace religious beliefs.” “The fact is,” said Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.), “before prayers were eliminated in schools we didn’t have the kind of mass shootings we do today.” Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) blamed “the left” for having “taken God out of our classrooms.”

Of course, if they’re not going to vote for serious gun control, they have to say something about why yet another mass shooting happened and why it won’t be their fault when it happens again.

But let’s pretend that the “renewed faith” argument is made in good faith: They really believe more religion will equal fewer gun deaths.

This country already has a lot of religion, of course. Among citizens of wealthy Western countries, Americans are by far the most religious (and by far the most likely to die by gun violence). But with church membership falling along with the percentage of us who believe in God, it’s fair to say we’re more secular than we once were.

So … what if we all renewed our faith, put God back in classrooms and embraced religious belief — how exactly would that keep people from shooting children?

Seriously, Congressmen, please explain. How would it work?

Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) gave us a hint when he said, “We had a public school in my district that was forced by the left and the courts to take down ‘thou shalt not kill’ from in front of the schools.”

By his implication, without explicit reminders of Judeo-Christian rules of moral conduct, children fail to learn that things like murder, stealing and lying are wrong. But it’s not a question of knowing the rules. Studies show even psychopaths know right from wrong. It’s a matter of following those rules. Perhaps that’s where religion helps: Believing you’ll be punished (or rewarded) in the next life changes your behavior here and now.

That can’t be it, either. If the specter of hell dissuaded believers from doing wrong, surely Catholic priests would not have committed — nor would their superiors have countenanced — child sexual abuse. Neither would leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention have ignored or covered up reports of sexual abuse in its ranks.

If the fear of hell prevented believers from committing mass shootings, even, then the eight victims of evangelical Christian Robert Aaron Long would still be alive.

Religion doesn’t magically erase evil; it doesn’t even claim to. In addition to rules of moral conduct, the religions practiced by most members of Congress offer steps to follow when someone breaks a rule. The Catholic Church includes penance, with confession and absolution, in its seven sacraments. Jews observe an annual Day of Atonement, which features a process of confession and repentance called teshuvah. Muslims have a rite of repentance or tawbah, in which a believer regrets the sin, asks Allah for forgiveness and promises not to do it again.

Why do religions spell out what to do next when people do wrong? Because they understand that everyone does. Even their adherents.

That’s why the prisons are not filled exclusively with nonbelievers. In fact, self-identified atheists make up just 0.1 percent of the federal prison population. As for morality, a 2021 study indicates that nonbelievers are just as concerned as believers with protecting vulnerable individuals from harm.

So, religious belief doesn’t make people moral, it doesn’t keep them from committing crimes and it doesn’t stop them from killing.

It does help in one way, though. It offers a consoling vision of life after death.

At Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Uvalde, Tex., the Rev. Eduardo Morales urged mourners devastated by the massacre at Robb Elementary to keep their faith, saying of the 19 dead children and two dead teachers, “When we don’t believe, that is when they truly die.”

“My little love is now flying high with the angels above,” Angel Garza said after his 10-year-old, Amerie Jo, was killed in her classroom while trying to call 911.

If Republicans keep insisting guns aren’t the problem, they’ll be absolutely right about one thing: America will need more religion — to console more grieving families.