By STAN HORWITZ

PHILADELPHIA — This morning, I woke up to the horrible news about the mass shooting in Las Vegas. They’re saying that at least 50 people perished and at least 200 people were injured by the sniper while attending a country music festival at the Mandalay Bay.

My condolences to the victims and injured and their friends and family. Not enough thanks can be given to all the heroes who helped take out the shooter and stop him from doing even more harm. Bravery like that is a rare trait.

I saw that my state’s own senator Pat Toomey offered his prayers to the victims, their friends and families. Other politicians are no doubt doing the same. How nice of them to offer prayers at this tragic time in our history.

Maybe instead of Toomey and his fellow senators and President Trump just offering useless prayers to the dead and their survivors, they actually do something real to fix this problem of violence in our country. These mass shootings seem to be growing in frequency and body counts. Prayer isn’t helping. I doubt it hurts, but it obviously isn’t helpful either.

Here’s my prayer: Dear Deity who knows all blah, blah, blah and who presumably saw this tragedy blah blah blah coming yet did nothing blah blah blah to prevent it, blah, please blah blah let those shooting blah blah blah victims blah blah blah go to your blah blah Candy Land.

If I did believe in the power of prayer, I would pray every day to the God in which I believe to stop the violence from occurring in the first place.

But what do I know?