On Wednesday, December 2, 2015, Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 29, murdered 14 people and injured 21 during a targeted attack at Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, CA. In the aftermath of the attack, a number of Republican presidential candidates and elected officials issued tweets that, many have argued ad nauseum, demonstrated a commitment to public piety instead of public policy as a response to the massacre. In a rare moment, news and social media outlets in the U.S. became a forum for a surprising debate about spiritual disciplines—the meaning and import of prayer.
Layered approaches to prayer and “prayer shaming” dominated public discourse in the days following the shooting. On the right and left, religious and non-religious alike debated the efficacy and appropriateness of prayer. A select set of Senate Democrats tried to foreground the issue of gun control but to no avail, failing to upend the National Rifle Associations’ lucrative death grip on the trigger conscience of the Republican Party. Republicans voted down expansions of background checks that would include stricter limits to online and gun show purchases and the prevention of firearm sales to persons on the terror watch list.
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