‘Puter’s been busier today than a three legged cat trying to bury its turd on a frozen pond. As such, it is only within the last hour that ‘Puter’s had the opportunity to review the news revolving around America’s latest mass slaughter of innocents in Newtown, Connecticut.

For now, ‘Puter will spare you any political discussion of the futility of gun control and how such well intentioned efforts may actually make such tragedies more likely to occur. There will certainly be plenty of opportunity in the coming days to have such discussions. 

President Obama let two or three entire hours pass before holding a press conference to announce, in addition to his very real grief, that he will “take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.” More succinctly, President Obama wants to renew his push to restrict or eliminate Americans’ constitutional right to keep and to bear arms.

NPR and its bleeding heart leftist All Liberals Embittered All Things Considered, truly paragons of decorum, decided that around 4:00 PM eastern time was an appropriate interval of time to wait before politicizing this tragedy, with E.J. Dionne leading the charge to ban all firearms.

Well kudos to you, Messrs. Obama and Dionne! Not letting a good tragedy go to waste, you’re content to push your preferred political agenda before the child victims’ corpses have cooled.  Even politicians and pundits used to be human enough to wait until the victims are interred before overtly politicking.  No more, ‘Puter guesses.

‘Puter’s bile aside, he thought it would be a good time to remind us all that the most effective weapon against evil and its concomitant violence is love.  That’s right, ‘Puter said love.  And before you call ‘Puter a hippie stoner, let ‘Puter say he’s not talking about the 1960s infantile concept of love.  ‘Puter’s talking about true love, the love God has for each of us and the love he wants us to have for each other.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 may be ‘Puter’s most hated Bible passage.  If you’ve been to a Christian wedding, you’ve heard it. It’s putridly treacly and sappy. 

Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Or is it?  Maybe ‘Puter’s had it wrong all these years. Maybe there’s something deeper Paul’s trying to tell us about love in this passage.

Real love isn’t the “she’s so hot, my pants just got shorter” kind. Nor is it the “dude, I totes love Bronies and unicorns” kind. 

Real love means, when necessary, telling people the truth, no matter how unpleasant or uncomfortable or unwelcome the truth may be.  Real love is protecting the weak.  Real love is doing the right thing in difficult circumstances.  Most of all, real love is offering forgiveness when asked.

Out of this latest massacre, and through the Paul’s wisdom that ‘Puter’s overlooked for so many years, ‘Puter thinks he sees Paul’s point, and a way forward.

It is love to say to the violently mentally ill that they are a danger to society, and that for the good of all, including themselves, they must be separated from society and monitored.  It is love to say to the violently mentally ill that they cannot have guns.  It is love to do so, for we speak the truth: the evil and the mentally ill cannot remain free to roam society and free to act on their deranged and/or evil impulses.

It is love to say to qualified and properly licensed teachers and administrators that if they wish, they can concealed carry firearms on school grounds.  What greater love can their be than an unrelated teacher willing to kill if necessary to defend her classroom full of innocents?  After all, love always protects.

It is kind to treat the violently mentally ill, even against their will when necessary.  It is kind both to society and to the patients themselves. In so doing, we cannot lose love’s patience, nor its perseverance, for the proper and just treatment of the mentally ill requires scads of each from all involved.

But most of all, we all must trust and hope.  Trust in God, and hope in the future he has provided for each of us.

So, perhaps we’d all do well to step back and consider the deeper meaning of Virgil’s words, “Omnia vincit amor et nos cedamus amori.” In English, “Love conquers all; let us all yield to love.”

Tonight, as we head home to join our families, yield to love.  For when we act out of real love, God is truly present among us, and, as we are told, with God all things are possible, including finding the good in today’s senseless, evil slaughter.

'Puter

Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.

’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.

The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.

His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.

He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.

Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.

‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.