The caption was accompanied by the praying hands emoji. 🙏(Praying white hands, naturally.)
Religion (Christian variant) and gun ownership are often in close proximity to each other. Praying white hand in glove, as it were. American gun rights supporters frequently spout off about having access to all sorts of weaponry as a "God-given right." As if...
A number of the more extreme gun advocates, including several members of Congress, eagerly post Christmas cards that depict each member of their family cradling a gun. This jolly-holly picture was tweeted out last December by Thomas Massie, R-KY with the greeting:
ps. Santa, please bring ammo. 
Just spitballing here, but I'm guessing Massie is a big proponent of keeping Christ in Christmas.
Not surprisingly, some of the blame-game players on the right are pointing to lack of prayer in the schools, and the general decline in religious observance, as the reason for the increase in mass killing events where weapons of mass destruction are deployed.
So there's nothing unusual about Daniel Defense promoting what to me is an ungodly combo of God and guns.
The company’s social media ads often blend Bible verses with images of their guns. In an Easter-themed post on 17 April of this year, the caption “He is Risen!” ran underneath an image of a cross, atop a rifle, lying on an open Bible.(Source: The Guardian)
Just good marketing? Maybe. I'm sure they know their audience. Bad - as in evil - marketing? Yep.
The Uvalde attack is also not the first time that Daniel Defense weapons have been involved in a mass shooting. Guns manufactured by the company were in the arsenal of the gunman who killed 58 people and injured more than 500 in Las Vegas in 2017.
Post-Uvalde, Daniel Defense did offer "thoughts and prayers." They apparently didn't get the word from the NRA and/or Republican Messaging HQ that "thoughts and prayers" is so yesterday. The new thing is "horrified and heartbroken."
There are really no words. Nineteen little ones, two teachers, mowed down by a deeply disturbed 18 year old who, on his 18th birthday, was able to legally purchase two assault rifles and thousands of rounds of ammunition.
Unimaginable horror, but not so unimaginable that we've already forgotten the last unimaginable horror (TOPS grocery store in Buffalo). Not so unimaginable that we're not already anticipating the next unimaginable horror. (No doubt coming soon to a school, grocery store, church, theater, shopping mall near you.)
There are really no words, to convey the horror of all these dead children, the grief of their families.
Still, it's probably worth a few words to say that a few common sense gun laws might help. A ban on selling magazines with more than 10 bullets in them. Red flag laws. More in-depth background checks for gun purchase. Training, licensing, insurance. Upping the age at which someone can purchase an assault rifle. Maybe even banning assault rifles. (A girl can hope, can't she?)
The other day, someone on Twitter commented that, when they went to adopt a rescue mutt, they had to fill out a ten-page application form and have a home visit for an evaluation of their fitness to rescue a pupper. Yet Salvador Ramos could just waltz in and buy assault rifles.
High powered assault rifles. They're designed for war, they're designed to kill humans. Why on earth does a civilian need one? The only answer I've seen offered was from Senator Bill Cassidy, who suggested that they were needed to kill feral hogs. (This is the same solon who recently said that the maternal death rate in his state, Louisiana, would be no higher than the rates experienced anyplace else if they removed the statistics on Black mothers.)
Anyway, a few new laws, while they won't prevent all future massacres - there are more than 400 million guns in civilian hands in this country, including 20 million assault rifles - may stop some of the carnage. (Which, of course, we'll never be able to prove to the satisfaction of those who oppose any limitations on gun ownership.)
I really don't expect much of anything to happen with respect to new gun laws. Those who oppose any gun restrictions, however mild, tend to vote single-issue. For those who favor some restrictions, new laws seem like "nice to haves." Just one of many wants. Not enough to get someone to actually vote for a Democrat.
We're likely to see plenty of performative "action." Harden the schools. Calls for arming of teachers. (What a swell idea that is.) More armed police officers in schools. And the one I'm waiting for: arm all local LEOs with assault rifles so they're on equal footing with the bad guys.
The first time I went to Europe in 1973, I went to a couple of places where there'd been civil unrest.
If my memory is accurate, we saw soldiers/police officers in Greece roaming the streets carrying assault rifles. (A right wing junta was ruling Greece at that time.) In Italy, in the train stations, there were soldiers with machine guns. (This was during the "Years of Lead," when there was plentiful right- and left-wing political terrorism.)
It was scary, seeing men thus armed. Even if they were the "good guys" protecting us.
Will we see it here? I wouldn't be surprised.
It's all so terrible.
I heard that one little girl survived by painting herself with her dead friend's blood and playing dead. Amazing intelligence, presence of mind, and bravery on the part of this little one. But do we really want our little ones to have to display such intelligence, presence of mind, and bravery in order to get out of their school day alive.
And what about the children trained up to accept that guns are the norm, that they can and should - make that must - be everywhere?
Is this the best that American Exceptionalism has to offer?
I only wish this was “unimaginable.” But the next one will be in the headlines any day now.
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