Because prayer works:

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) in an interview broadcast Monday dismissed criticism of his tweet saying the Texas shooting victims “need our prayers,” arguing “prayer works.”

“It’s disappointing. It’s sad and this is what you’ll get from the far secular left. People who do not have faith, don’t understand faith, I guess I’d have to say,” Ryan told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham on “The Ingraham Angle” when asked about the criticism. “And, it is the right thing to do, is to pray in moments like this because you know what? Prayer works.”

Republican elected officials pray their little hearts out after each and every mass shooting... but mass shootings are coming closer and closer together and the body counts keep rising. ("These are three of the five worst mass shootings in modern U.S. history. All happened in the past two years. Two occurred within the same two months.") So unless Republican elected officials are praying for more mass shootings and worse ones, PRAYER DOES NOT WORK. The proof, Mr. Speaker, is down at the morgue. And the most recent victims? They were in church and praying when they were gunned down. So either prayer doesn't work or God only hears the prayers of the NRA and gun manufacturers or, hey, maybe Sister Mary was right:

Are all our prayers answered? Yes, they are; what people who ask that question often don’t realize is that sometimes the answer to our prayer is "no." Dear God, please make my mother not be crazy. God’s answer: no. Dear God, please let me recover from cancer. God’s answer: no. Dear God, please take away this toothache. God’s answer: alright, but you’re going to be run over by a car. But every bad thing that happens to us, God has a special reason for.

Dear God, please don't let me be gunned down in a movie theater or at a country music concert or in a classroom or at a gay nightclub or in a church? God's answer: Ha ha, you live in the United States of America. Good luck, sucker. (Paul Ryan—that a pious, pompous, lying piece of shit—wasn't sent to Washington to pray. He was sent to Washington to legislate. And if Ryan thinks prayer works and legislation doesn't, he should be in a seminary, not the House of Representatives. And weird how when Ryan wants to give tax breaks to billionaires or deprive millions of Americans of health care he doesn't pray, he legislates.)