The intersection of these things is downright wacky and goes directly to the link between Trumpism and cultism and, in the extreme, mental illness.
"And while a recent poll shows Republicans’ approval of Trump’s handling of gun policy being among his lowest in the GOP, no religious group has been more steadfast in their support for Trump and taken a more central role in debates over gun violence than evangelical Protestants. This is no coincidence, because when it comes to guns in America, evangelicals stand apart from all other Americans in what they believe causes gun violence, what they think we need to do to stop it and especially how guns make them feel."
"Less than 24 hours after the carnage in Texas and Ohio in early August, Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor of Texas and an evangelical Christian, appeared on “Fox & Friends” and condemned “this evil act,” which he blamed on “a video game industry that teaches young people to kill” and God no longer being a central part of American culture.
“Half of the country are getting ready to go to church, and yet tomorrow we won’t let our kids even pray in our schools,” Patrick said. “As long as we continue to only praise God and look at God on a Sunday morning and kick him out of the town square at our schools the other six days of the week, what do we expect? What do we expect?”
"Patrick’s views are widely shared among American evangelicals. Drawing on data from the 2014 Baylor Religion Survey, a national sample of Americans, we are able to examine what evangelicals think contributes “a great deal” to gun violence and compare it to what other Americans think (find out more about the survey by clicking on the hyperlink). While this survey is now five years old, it remains the only national survey with high-quality religion questions and a broad collection of measures addressing attitudes toward guns and gun violence.
A few patterns clearly stand out in our research. First, over 74 percent of evangelicals (almost 40 percent more than other Americans) believe that “the absence of God from our public schools and places” contributes “a great deal” to gun violence, almost a word-for-word echo of Dan Patrick’s statement."
Second, we see that less than half (44 percent) of all evangelicals believe the availability of guns has much to do with gun violence. The bigger issue, they feel, is the lack of God in Americans’ hearts.
