Following a mass shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas, that left 26 killed, a new study finds that a cult of gun enthusiasts in the United States Congress is more powerful than God almighty. Despite millions of “thoughts and prayers” that were sent to God between the Virginia Tech (2007) and Las Vegas (2017) massacres pleading for divine intervention to put an end to America’s gun violence epidemic, these entreaties have amounted to little effect: Almost all of the deadliest mass shootings in US history have taken place over the last ten years, with the worst two slaughters occurring within the last 18 months.
Lead author of the study, Dr. Judy Flanders, expressed surprise at the findings. “I would have assumed ‘thoughts and prayers’ would stop bullets”, she said. “Apparently all they stop is common sense gun legislation from passing in congress.”
Polling of leading members of U.S. Congress that was part of the study revealed a possible reason why reasonable gun regulations, such as universal background checks, which have been found to save lives and are supported by both a large majority of Democrats and Republicans in America, have previously failed to pass into law: Whereas Democratic legislators were most likely to agree that God was “a supreme omniscient being who created the universe”, Republican legislators were most likely to agree that God was “a supreme omniscient 68-year-old man who loves guns, America, and freedom.”
Repeated polling has previously documented that regardless of political orientation, Americans’ favored description of the “supreme omniscient 68-year-old man” - who bears a striking resemblance to the National Rifle Association’s (NRA’s) chief executive officer, Wayne Lapierre - is “a slimy orc who somehow crawled his way onto the surface of our planet from Middle-earth.”
According to several leading Republican legislators, however, God was far from a slimy orc. “He’s a very helpful guy - really good at proofreading things before I send them out”, said Senator Marco Rubio (R) of Florida. “Sometimes, he’s so helpful he writes my statements himself. Without him, I’d never have known that the word ‘AR-15’ is a synonym for ‘freedom’, or that the serial comma is unnecessary for tweeting.”
Facing criticism from several Democratic senators that “Wayne Lapierre is more than an excellent proofreader”, several Republican senators fired back in a joint two-sentence statement: “Democrats and the liberal media often claim that the tens-of-millions of dollars that God has provided us in direct and indirect campaign donations amount to a ‘quid pro quo’ for our votes against any and all gun regulations”, the statement began. “We assure you that this scenario is impossible since none of us know any Latin.”
As of press time, the God who resembles “a supreme omniscient being who created the universe” was not available for comment. A representative reported that the almighty deity was currently tied up with attending to “a fallen angel” who was on a campaign to convince America that “there’s no problem that can’t be solved with a gun.”