Ross: When is the right time to politicize tragedy?

Beto O’Rourke, campaigning again to be governor of Texas, interrupted Governor Greg Abbot accusing him of doing nothing to keep guns out of the wrong hands.

Once Beto was escorted away, the Lieutenant Governor, Dan Patrick, calmly explained that this is not the time for politics:

“But now’s the time to focus on these families, as the governor just said. Right now, we need to put our arms around the families of these victims,” Patrick said.

It’s a time, he said, to put these families first and everything else second.

But some of these families want more than consolation.

“Two days after their daughter… was shot and killed …Kimberly Rubio and her husband are urging elected officials to pass restrictive gun laws to help prevent future tragedies. “We live in this really small town in this red state, and everyone keeps telling us…that it’s not the time to be political, but it is — ” Ms. Rubio said, her voice breaking through tears. “Don’t let this happen to anybody else,” a New York Times article reads.

And yet, what the Rubios and the other families got from the Lt Governor was this:

“Evil will always walk among us. And in times like this, I’ve seen it. It’s God that brings a community together. It’s God that heals a community. It’s God that heals a shattered and broken heart. And if we don’t turn back as a nation to understanding what we were founded upon, what we were taught by our parents, and what we believe in, then these situations will only get worse,” Patrick said.

What… does… that… mean? Do you think there have ever been prayers as desperate, as intense, and as brutally sincere as the prayers that were said by those parents on Tuesday?

And yet God has not brought any of those children back to life.

That’s not how it works. God works through human beings – at least that’s what my religious tradition teaches. And those families that Lt Governor Patrick wants to “put first” are begging the human beings in the Texas legislature to do something.

So how about this: since the politicians seem to be stuck on this issue, suppose Texas asks the families what they think ought to be done.

I can’t predict what they might demand.

Being that it’s Texas – maybe a law that anyone can sue whoever puts a gun into the hands of someone who uses it to kill children.

And once the families agree on what to do, they tell the legislature: this law is how GOD wants us to fight this evil you keep talking about, and it’s time for you to vote.

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