On June 3, 2011, 73 year-old Carey Dyess went on a shooting rampage in Yuma, Arizona. By the time the gunfire had stopped, five people laid dead, including the gunman. Nearly five months before to the day, Jared Loughner shot six people dead and wounded another thirteen 240 miles east of Yuma in Tucson, Arizona. Among the wounded was Congressman Gabrielle Gifford.

Though the mass shootings occurred within the same state only a couple hundred miles apart and separated by five months, the outpouring of collective grief could not have been more different. Almost immediately following the first reports of the shooting in Tucson, a choir that included the Governor of Arizona, members of Congress and even the President sang hymns of grief. Four days after the shooting in January, President Obama travelled to Tucson where he led a national memorial service for the victims.

The public expressions of grief were not limited to government officials, our pastor on the Sunday morning following the shootings asked the congregation to join him in praying for the victims and the city of Tucson. I am certain it was a prayer echoed in churches throughout the country on that Sunday morning.

In the immediate aftermath of the murders in Yuma, the choir that sang so beautifully for the victims in Tucson apparently lost their voices. The deep sorrows were gone and the hall for the memorial service sat empty. At church, our pastor led the congregation in prayer that did not mention a word about the people in Yuma, Arizona. The President or Governor could not muster the time or even the money for a sympathy card.

Tragedy also hit this spring in the form of violent tornadoes that killed hundreds and property destroyed beyond recognition. Two populated areas where the death and destruction was relatively extreme happened in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and Joplin, Missouri. As we witnessed after the shootings in Tucson, President Obama acting as a taxpayer funded ambulance chaser visited the cities to observe the effects of the tornadoes firsthand. In Joplin, he told the residents that the rest of the country would not forget their city until it had been restored.

Two days after the Joplin twister, a series of tornadoes touched down in the Oklahoma City area that killed at least four people and destroyed millions in property. The President arranged to fly thousands of miles across the Atlantic Ocean, where he attended a meeting of the elites, to express his sympathies to the people of Joplin. Though he was sitting in the White House, the President could not find time in his schedule to fly a couple of hours to Oklahoma to show his or the nation’s care. I doubt even a phone call was made. Read More→