Shove It!
“We couldn’t hold him or hug him or nothing.
They said it was too ugly.
His body was supposedly torn to pieces.
The only way they identified him was because of his clothes
and a scar on his left foot.”
Christopher Salazar, uncle of fourth grader Jose Salazar,
killed at Robb Elementary School, Uvalde, Texas
In an interview with CNN, Jose Sr.
said that a Texas Ranger told him,
“As a father, I wouldn’t let you go back there
and see him, because he was not recognizable.”
Republican Representative Tony Gonzalez of Texas is a man without shame – a sin verguenza.
In the words of the Almighty’s angel to the Church of Laodicea in the Book of Revelations/Apocalypse fit only to be vomited from the mouth of God.
This “representative,” whose district includes Uvalde and Robb Elementary School, where 19 children and two teachers were killed on May 24, dared – DARED – to text “Children are a gift from the Lord… Pray for the families.” He is the same shameless man who bragged in texts in March 2021 that he had just “voted no on two gun control measures in the House today” and he was a “proud supporter of the Second Amendment and will do everything I can to oppose gun grabs from the far left.”
After the third mass shooting in August 2019, Texas governor Greg Abbott declared himself “heartbroken by the crying of the people of the state of Texas. I am tired of the dying of the people of the state of Texas.”
On October 28, 2015, the same Greg Abbott tweeted “I’m EMBARRASSED: Texas #2 in nation for new gun purchases, behind CALIFORNIA. Let’s pick up the pace Texans.”
The same Greg Abbott who tweeted on October 6, 2015 “Obama said nation has been ‘inactive’ on gun legislation. WRONG. Texas EXPANDED GUN RIGHTS WITH Open Carry” and on February 1, 2016 advised his followers “Texas barbecue joint gives discount for carrying a gun. Freedom with a side of brisket”
This is the Greg Abbott who, the day after the Uvalde massacre cited Texas’ sixty-year history of allowing 18-year-olds to buy “long guns” and dishonestly claimed that the state had never had an incident like the previously day’s violence.
This is the Greg Abbott who, less than a month before the Uvalde massacre, slashed $211 million from the budget of the Texas department that oversees mental health programs.
This is the Greg Abbott whose state ranked last out of all fifty states and the District of Columbia for overall access to mental health care, according to the 2021 State of Mental Health in America report.
This is the Greg Abbott who, within hours of learning of the Uvalde massacre - even before all of victims had been identified, decided to attend a private fundraiser and excused his cold-heartedness by saying his was providing an update on Uvalde to his money-folks. Apparently, the governor does not have a cell phone or access to email and text messaging. Or maybe money is just too important to him.
This is the Greg Abbott who served as Texas Attorney General from late 2002 until he became governor in January 15. This is the Greg Abbott whose career in public service has included:
August 24, 2012. College Station - Three people were killed and four injured when the perpetrator fatally shot an officer attempting to serve him with a notice to appear in court.
July 9, 2014. Spring – A man in Harris County killed six of his family members and wounded a seventh before he was arrested following a seven-hours-long shootout with police.
May 17, 2915. Waco - An estimated 200 motor cycle club members – reportedly feuding over turf - became involved in a shootout with police. Nine people were killed and eighteen were injured.
August 8, 2015. Harris County. After breaking into the home of his ex-girlfriend, over a nine hour period, a man killed her and her husband and six children (one of whom was his son) before surrendering.
July 7, 2916. Dallas. A shooter killed five police officers and wounded nine others and two civilians while protesting earlier police shootings of two Black civilians; the shooter was killed by a bomb delivered by a remote-control robot.
September 10, 2017. Plano. Nine people, including the ex-wife of the killer, were murdered, during a football game watch party in her home.
November 5, 2017. Sutherland Springs. Twenty-six people, including an unborn child, were killed and 20 injured when a gunman assaulted the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs.
May 18, 2018. Santa Fe. A high school student shot and killed ten people and wounded fourteen others; undetonated explosive devices were also found at the scene,
January 28, 2019. Houston. Two people were killed and four police officers injured during a police drug-related raid at a home.
August 3, 2019. El Paso. A gunman drove ten hours to an El Paso Walmart with the intention of killing Hispanic men, women and children. He opened fire killing 22 and wounding 24 before being arrested.
August 31, 2019. Midland-Odessa. A gunman opened fire on a police officer during a traffic stop. He killed eight people and wounded 25 others, including three police officers, before being killed by police.
West Freeway Church of Christ. December 29, 2019. Two people were murdered before the gunman was killed by a volunteer security guard. The entire event was captured and broadcast on the church’s live-stream.
Robb Elementary School. May 23, 2022. An 18-year-old gunman killed 19 children and two teachers.
But Govern Abbott explained all of this bloodshed during the 2018 NRA convention in Dallas: “The answer to gun violence is not to take guns away, the answer is the strengthen the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens… The problem is not guns, it’s hearts without God.”
“Hearts without God”?????????
Bless his heart!
That denies basic Jewish and Christian theologies and spiritualities that declare that God is Omnipotent and Omnipresent – all powerful and everywhere, including in the human heart.
In seminary, we were taught that the role of the prophets was to read “the signs of the times,” prayerfully reflect upon those signs in the context of Word of God, and finally speak a Truth to the People of God that many did not want to hear.
In a March 4, 2018 article – “Wounds From Military-Style Rifles? A Ghastly Thing to See” – The New York Times cited a number of trauma surgeons who have treated the victims of military-style rifle shootings, providing critical grist for the prophetic mill and those who would speak prophetic Truth:
“The tissue destruction is almost unimaginable. Bones are exploded, soft tissue is absolutely destroyed. The injuries to the chest or abdomen — it’s like a bomb went off.” Moreover, victims wounded in an arm or leg may require a dozen surgeries over months. “Some eventually decide to undergo an amputation if there is severe pain in the limb and it is dysfunctional.”
Dr. Jeremy Cannon, the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan
“Because a bullet departs the muzzle of an M16 or AR-15 at a velocity of more than 3,000 feet per second, you see multiple organs shattered. The exit wounds can be a foot wide… I’ve seen people with entire quadrants of their abdomens destroyed.”
Dr. Martin Schreiber, Oregon Health & Science University, who served in Iraq in 2005 and in Afghanistan in 2010 and 2014
“You will typically see a small penetrating wound. Then you roll the patient over and see a huge exit wound.” High energy bullets create a blast wave and a larger exit wound; striking bone can create fragments that cut through tissue in each fragment’s path. “Then the bullet starts tumbling, causing more destruction… If they are shot in the torso, there is not a whole lot we can do… These weapons are meant to kill people.”
Dr. Jeffrey Kerby, the University of Alabama at Birmingham was an Air Force surgeon.
“Muscles and skin and fat surrounding skin can be sheared off. We saw holes in intestines and bladders.”
Dr. Lillian Liao, University Hospital and UT Health in San Antonio, operated on children shot in the Sutherland Spring (Texas) First Baptist Church shooting in which twenty-six were killed and 20 others were wounded by a shooter using an AR-15
On the issue of gun-related mass shootings, physicians are prophets – witnessing the horrific reality and proclaiming to the People of God a Truth many may not wish to hear.
Among those speaking about the realities of our day has been Dr. Heather Sher, a radiologist on duty in a trauma center when student-victims of the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School were brought in. Writing in The Atlantic on February 22, 2018, Dr. Sher was a prophet:
I was looking at a CT scan of one of the mass-shooting victims from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, who had been brought to the trauma center during my call shift. The organ looked like an overripe melon smashed by a sledgehammer, and was bleeding extensively.
One of the trauma surgeons opened a young victim in the operating room, and found only shreds of the organ that had been hit by a bullet from an AR-15, a semiautomatic rifle that delivers a devastatingly lethal, high-velocity bullet to the victim. Nothing was left to repair - and utterly, devastatingly, nothing could be done to fix the problem. The injury was fatal.
The bullets fired by an AR-15 are different: They travel at a higher velocity and are far more lethal than routine bullets fired from a handgun. The damage they cause is a function of the energy they impart as they pass through the body. A typical AR-15 bullet leaves the barrel traveling almost three times faster than - and imparting more than three times the energy of a typical 9mm bullet from a handgun. An AR-15 rifle outfitted with a magazine with 50 rounds allows many more lethal bullets to be delivered quickly without reloading.
The bullet from an AR-15 passes through the body like a cigarette boat traveling at maximum speed through a tiny canal. The tissue next to the bullet is elastic - moving away from the bullet like waves of water displaced by the boat - and then returns and settles back. This process is called cavitation; it leaves the displaced tissue damaged or killed. The high-velocity bullet causes a swath of tissue damage that extends several inches from its path. It does not have to actually hit an artery to damage it and cause catastrophic bleeding. Exit wounds can be the size of an orange.
An AR-15 bullet wound to the middle of the liver would cause so much bleeding that the patient would likely never make it to the trauma center to receive our care.
One of my ER colleagues was waiting nervously for his own children outside the school. While the shooting was still in progress, the first responders were gathering up victims whenever they could and carrying them outside the building. Even as a physician trained in trauma situations, there was nothing he could do at the scene to help save the victims who had been shot with the AR-15. Most of them died on the spot; they had no fighting chance at life. As a doctor, I feel I have a duty to inform the public of what I have learned as I have observed these wounds and cared for these patients. It’s clear to me that AR-15 and other high-velocity weapons, especially when outfitted with a high-capacity magazine, have no place in a civilian’s gun cabinet.
In the eleventh chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus cautions “He who has ears, let him hear.”
It is possible, just possible, that in 2022, he might say to Representative Gonzalez, Governor Abbott, half of the Senate of the United States and so many others, “And take you tired old ‘thoughts and prayers’ and shove them.”