'Thoughts and Prayers' aren’t enough any more

This is a letter to the editor in response to Kevin Donoghue, Aug. 23-29:

I’ve got news, not “fake” but real: Not everybody Believes, like they did in the Middle Ages.

“Thoughts and Prayers” aren’t enough any more. Take your head out of the comforting sands of religions and get real.

Serious background checks, strict licensing and the removal of weapons of war are the real answers.

Should you be alarmed if you watched me load AR-15s and body armor from my car into my garage?

Wouldn’t you like to know that I had passed real background checks, had real and adequate licenses, real permits and had real reasons for anything beyond hunting rifles, along with proper training and intentions?

Saint (Moscow) Mitchell McConnell’s need for the NRA’s money is the only reason that we don't have those things.

Perhaps you could do more than pray for him?

Don’t try to blame mental health or spiritual decay or the real media.

No other country in the world has a different level of mental health than we do and none of them have the obscene quantity of weaponry in public hands that we do.

But they all have lower gun violence.

What, other than easy access to weapons, can be the difference?

They even have about the same level of Believers.

Isn’t that odd?

The next resentful dropout who sprays bullets through your child’s school or the next brainwashed stalker who doesn’t like the bumper sticker on your wife’s car will not be stopped by God, gods or virtue.

John W. Stevens

Warwick