Mass Shooting at South Carolina AME Church

[Irvine511]

Originally Posted by The_Pac_Mule

I know, but you brought up how Vermont has very little violent crime, and I just wanted to make the connection that we also have no gun laws.

you also have a very small population and a hunting population that knows how to handle firearms. and very liberal politicians.

[dazzledbylight]

Originally Posted by the iron horse

Exactly, his face is already plastered all over the media.

This will drive the news for days. Forget that 60 plus people who have been murdered in Baltimore since May. I can't remember the number for Chicago or L.A.

A news leak about pills found on him is not confirmed yet, but I'm guessing he's another Adam Lanza. Red flags all around him, but no one took them seriously.


President (not gonna bring us together) Obama wasted no time in pulling out his race card and pressing his anti-gun agenda.

IH-
Your seeming inability to understand just how much Racism STILL exists in the USA continues to confound me, sometimes.

[Irvine511]

We mistake racism for that which is depicted in movies like The Help -- racism is when people are mean to one another because of race. If you smile at a black person today or go home and hug your Mexican maid, it means you are not a racist because you are nice to individuals of a different race than you.

In reality, racism is a system and worldview and such behavior as depicted by Hollywood -- and which seems to be accepted by many conservative politicians -- is merely a symptom.

[dazzledbylight]

Originally Posted by trojanchick99

I'm so fucking angry today. Because of our insane gun culture, this racist scumbag was able to murder 9 innocent people. Because he's a lone white male, we're not allowed to call him a terrorist. Because he was a white male he was able to be taken into custody alive. This country is so fucked up.

Originally Posted by trojanchick99

Oh, so it's all about bad parenting? So, the difference between us, Australia, The UK, France, Spain, Italy, etc is that Americans just suck at parenting?

No. The difference is that it's easier to get a gun than a driver's license. The difference is that our culture reveres gun ownership like we're still in 1775. It's sick.

Originally Posted by Irvine511

given that this was a white nationalist murdering african americans in a church where MLK had preached and was once a stop on the Underground Railroad, combined with the fact that this person has easy access to firearms especially in a southern state, how is this issue not about race and guns?

honestly.

first time ive had a chance to be online since this happened
(no net at home, no working computer either right now)

Thank you both for being here at the outset when I cound not be.

before i read the rest of the thread...

I caught the very beginning of this new late weds night. When they said
"Historic Black Church" I went from possibility of a wider range of people to "uh oh" then I went back to doing some unexpected astonishing art work on my part.

Woke up with the Art work joyfully on my mind. Then turned on my local Publuc radio and WHAM got hit by the full news.

THIS makes me think THAT'S howmy parents felt on seeing the reports on TV when that Afro-American Church was bombed back in ?64 the where the little girls were slaughtered. I was just a bit too young so I was not yet watching the Nightly News back then.


(My parents welcomed all my friends of all "races" in to our home and I was allowed to go visit theirs as well)

AND Just to REMIND people MOST people with Mental Illness are NOT Violent.

EVEN IF he turns out to have a mental illness he's still been Steeped in the Easy Gun Culture and ongoing Racism that still exists in The South [as well as in the The North. Which is where he went to.

[dazzledbylight]

Originally Posted by Vlad n U 2

Hardly obscure, these flags (and colonial regimes) are quite popular amongst white supremacists I would imagine. All it would take to learn about it is a quick browse through Wikipedia.


In my view, this is first and foremost about white supremacy, the gun issue (whilst still important) is secondary.

thank you Guns a very close 1 & 1/4

[dazzledbylight]

Originally Posted by AllIWantIs

He wants to start a civil war. This is what he told someone he personally knows.
Sounds like terrorism based on hate.
Suspect Heard Talking of 'Starting a Civil War'

I belive McVey had read some book on a new civil war that a lot of WHite Supremacists have read

[dazzledbylight]

Originally Posted by nbelcik

And Fox News turned this into a case of anti-Christian persecution to support their agenda and claimed without evidence that the shooter had to be atheist instead of saying that it was based on racism, which it clearly was.

Also, 10 black people are killed by a white supremacist and you still bring up the murder rate in predominantly black communities out of faux concern? Shame on you.


Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference

I believe John Stewart used to have a segment "is THIS The BottoM Now?"
or something similar

[dazzledbylight]

Originally Posted by trojanchick99

Here's what I don't understand. The same people who preach about American Exceptionalism think that it's citizens are so morally bankrupt that if we tried to ban guns the country would devolve into chaos. They think that we are so inherently inferior to every other developed country, that eliminating guns isn't going to help, because well, we are just so violent. It's sad that they think like this.

What's also telling, is that the number of guns sold under the Obama administration is much, much higher than those sold under W. And yet, according to these same folks, racism isn't a problem.

ANd the threats that the Secret Service have gotten related to Obama has gone sky high since he steeped into office ( and probably before )

[dazzledbylight]

Originally Posted by Diemen

You can really tell how desperately out of touch much of the right wing is by their response to this. Governor Haley says she can't understand what leads a person to commit this kind of act, while the stars and bars fly outside the capitol building, and on this racist murderer's car. The NRA and their purchased politicians talk about more guns solving this problem (the lunacy of that stance is astounding to me - because what we really want is for everyone to be packing heat in a house of God).

No one, not one of them, has been able to utter the word racist yet. It's appalling.

yeah thanks

[gump]

I have my issues with them, but The Economist was pitch perfect on this.

Charleston massacre: The latest American mass killing | The Economist

The regularity of mass killings breeds familiarity. The rhythms of grief and outrage that accompany them become—for those not directly affected by tragedy—ritualised and then blend into the background noise. That normalisation makes it ever less likely that America's political system will groan into action to take steps to reduce their frequency or deadliness. Those who live in America, or visit it, might do best to regard them the way one regards air pollution in China: an endemic local health hazard which, for deep-rooted cultural, social, economic and political reasons, the country is incapable of addressing. This may, however, be a bit unfair. China seems to be making progress on pollution.

I think many Americans don't realize how completely non-sensical the gun control system (or lack thereof) looks to the rest of the world.

[deep]

Originally Posted by dazzledbylight

I belive McVey had read some book on a new civil war that a lot of WHite Supremacists have read

The Turner Diaries.

[Vlad n U 2]

Originally Posted by anitram

Rand Paul doesn't think it's about gun control...

Amusing given his father's links to white supremacists ...

[cobl04]

I don't wish to preach, but again, there's been one gun massacre in my lifetime in my country. After it, our conservative, right-wing government, made our gun laws far stricter. They even had a buy-back scheme. And we haven't had one gun massacre since.

And Pac Mule, I have no issue whatsoever with people shooting for recreation. It's not my thing (I shot a 9mm in Thailand a few years ago and hated it) but I've got a fair few friends who do it and enjoy it. One of my dad's good mates is a recreational shooter. He has guns tattooed on his forearms. His backyard contains a saloon that he built. He's in the States right now competing in some shooting championships. He loves guns. But he is also fully supportive of our gun legislation So I don't understand why your gun nuts are so wacky.

I guess I can see where Charles Cotton is coming from; maybe if one of those churchgoers did have a gun, they might have shot him and maybe two people would have died instead of nine. Maybe. But as trojanchick points out...

Originally Posted by trojanchick99

The NRA asshole suggesting that someone else armed would have helped is as bad as blaming the woman who was raped because her skirt was too short.

It is so fucked up that some people think the discussion should be around arming people for safety rather than addressing the racism that is so systemically ingrained in your society or addressing whether your gun legislation is suitable.

Originally Posted by BVS

https://www.facebook.com/11668795501...7868420565397/

Jon pretty much nailed it.

"a racial wound that will not heal but we pretend doesn't exist..."

Sums it up. Some pretend it doesn't exist and others try their hardest to diminish the fact that it exists.

This was great, thanks for sharing

[LemonMelon]

Originally Posted by cobl04

So I don't understand why your gun nuts are so wacky.

It's ingrained in our culture from the Constitution out. We think we're entitled to live out our John Wayne fantasies on our own terms regardless of the nationwide ramifications. There's nothing more valuable than our God-given right to shoot things.

[cobl04]

But wasn't that put into the Constitution because it gave the "people" a way of defending themselves should an evil government ever turn into the enemy? I mean I could be wrong but I think in 2015 the chances of any United States government turning tyrannical overnight would be pretty fucking slim

[Vlad n U 2]

Originally Posted by cobl04

But wasn't that put into the Constitution because it gave the "people" a way of defending themselves should an evil government ever turn into the enemy? I mean I could be wrong but I think in 2015 the chances of any United States government turning tyrannical overnight would be pretty fucking slim

What do we mean by 'tyrannical' here, exactly?

[Kieran McConville]

I think the chances are quite good that the United States government already is a tyranny. But a bunch of guys with semi-automatics are not likely to do much about it. Anyhow my understanding was that a 'well regulated militia' was intended to be thought of as something like a standing army in reserve; to fight the British foreign aggressors, not the republic itself.

[LemonMelon]

There's a great deal of paranoia on the right wing. The concept of losing one's means of protection is a deep seated fear and tantamount to living in an Orwellian society. On a practical level, the 2nd Amendment could really use some tweaking, but the gun-clutching becomes a brick wall when any policy changes to firearm possession are suggested. No one is even calling for the population to relinquish all their guns, just to tighten up regulations and throw out the military grade weapons for civilians. DEY TOOK R GUNZ is strawman bullshit that distracts from meaningful change.

The whole thing is embarrassing, really. I wouldn't even trust some of these people to properly interpret an amendment.

[bono_212]

I mean, that's the thing...no one who isn't doing anything wrong is losing guns...

[DaveC]

Originally Posted by Kieran McConville

I think the chances are quite good that the United States government already is a tyranny. But a bunch of guys with semi-automatics are not likely to do much about it. Anyhow my understanding was that a 'well regulated militia' was intended to be thought of as something like a standing army in reserve; to fight the British foreign aggressors, not the republic itself.

This is what people don't understand. "Militia" was not meant to be some sort of people's guerrilla force guarding against some hypothetical President-turned-King; the Constitution was written back in the days before large professional standing armies could be organized or paid for by a country as new as the US (Britain, France, et al could but they were also much more advanced in nearly every way and had global colonies that required occupation armies). It's much cheaper to field an army on short notice if the people can bring their own guns to the fight than if the Federal government has to manufacture or buy them to hand out to everyone.

The British still had large colonies in Canada and the Caribbean and armies in the Caribbean in particular to control the slave colonies there along with many loyalist colonists in Canada who still wanted to see the colonies returned to the crown.

The United States of America in the 1780s was quite literally threatened on all sides. If war was declared they needed to re-form the Continental Army as rapidly as possible and at the highest strength possible. This was the reasoning behind the second amendment - this "defend against tyranny" stuff is just language to couch the pragmatic reason behind it. Obviously it's had some unforseen consequences since that time.