I got a breaking news email right as it was happening, and could not not look. It took me straight back to Reagan’s face in pain and hand in the air as the Secret Service gave their all to protect him from the crazy who had just shot him.

I wish harm on no one. Ever. It hurt to see him hurt.

My attempt at prayer, though, could only be an honest, Lord, I…I’m… so sorry that I’m having a really hard time praying for him because I know he would only twist it towards evil intentions if he could and I know what he intends to do to innocent people (again–how many years did those little kids live in metal cages thinking their mothers had abandoned them? While depriving each side of information of where the other had been taken? And that’s not even starting on the whole January 6 and dead cops thing and the vice president who won’t run with him again because he, y’know, tried to kill him), so I’m just going to leave it up to You. You know what’s best for him and for the whole country, and I’m asking for You to bless all of us in this horrific moment and especially the critically hurt and the families of the dead. Forgive me my hesitancy. I know that even that man is one of Your children. I’m trying. Thank You for being better than me.

Maybe we’ll finally now vote out the people who voted to allow the convicted, the violent, the underage, and the mentally ill to have war-level weaponry. Maybe we can fund taking care of the mentally ill again. Maybe we can value the life of a child above a gun. Maybe we can pass the bill sponsored by Senators Hinreich and King to allow no sale nor gifting of any automatic-type weapon from here on out: let the current owner register it, have it as long as they’re in good standing with the law, and have it die along with them someday.

And then I checked the updates: every single Democrat expressed their horror and their prayers for Trump’s well-being and safety, Biden, Pelosi, Harris, Obama, on down to the state level. Every single one. Their prayers. They are better than I, and it humbles me.

So it comes down to, yes I want his well-being and safety, too–and I want the country’s. And eventually I was able to offer up a real one of my own.

Nearly every Republican the reporters talked to tried to somehow blame Trump’s opponent for the thing that Biden was most horrified by, to use the shootings as a political tool towards power for their own, to blame blame blame and falsely accuse of the most vile accusations.

And that level of gaslighting is how we ended up here in the first place.