Last night, there was an unprovoked mass shooting at one of the oldest and largest black churches in that area. The pastor and several others were shot and killed. They were reporting at least eight people dead. This is indeed a very strange event, and a very sad one. I got the alert on my iPad right away, and was following the news reports and also the Facebook posts as the event was unfolding last night. Some things seem odd to me. For one thing, within a short time after the shootings, they were reporting that it was a 21 year old, grey sweatshirt/t-shirt/hoodie, blue jeans and Timberland boots. Sure enough , when they arrested him, he is 21 years old and wearing Timberland boots. Who in the world was looking at the brand of his boots while they were being shot and killed ? ? Another thing that is not much in the news so far, is that the man who is the pastor at that church is also a senator for the state of South Carolina. This makes me wonder if maybe he was the actual target for some reason, and the others were shot just to make it look like a hate crime. He was one of the people killed by the shooter; so he definitely could have been targeted. One thing that really distresses me is the amount of facebook posts that were crying for "war" (in those words) by black people against white people. Just because there is a crazy person who apparently is racist; that does not mean that all white people hate all black people. We already seem to have that being pushed here in America, and it makes the division between people even worse than it would otherwise be. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/06/17/charleston-south-carolina-shooting/28902017/
I am sitting here actually crying for my black brothers and sisters who died at the hands of this madman. Something has to be terribly wrong with the mind of someone who could do this act. I can only hope that the black community realizes that all white people don't share his insane ideas. I don't know what else to say. What an awful tragedy.
It looks like the kid was just a nut. About half the people on his Facebook friends list were black. He was there for about an hour before he started killing anyone, so it's possible that someone had the chance to look at him closely during that time. He may have been the only white guy in the room, so he'd attract attention.
I tend to agree with Ken that the guy was probably just a nut. This may not be the right place to say it, but I really believe that if tolerance weren't the word these days and the courts weren't so soft on nuts you wouldn't see as many of these things happening as we do now. I think it is wrong to go soft on a person who commits a violent crime just because he or she is proven by some doctor to be insane and is said, therefore, to be not responsible for his or her actions. I think it just sets up an excuse for many who probably would use better judgement otherwise. That being said, I do think this is a truly heartbreaking event that did not need to happen, but what amazes me most is that I believe I am becoming somewhat hardened at hearing such things. They do not affect me in the same way that they used to. I don't honestly know if that's more a reflection on myself or upon the world we live in today. Either way, I don't much like it.
This guy was mentally ill no doubt about that. The sad thing is we don't do anything about gun control because of the second amendment, but at the same token guns and crazy people are a lethal combination. This has been proven time and time again in this country. We cut from healthcare especially in the area of mental health and we make it easy to get a gun. Something has got to be done, I'm not saying gun control, but maybe its time for mental health control We need to help the mentally ill in the United States. Because so far leaving the issue alone and burying our heads in the sand is changing nothing. As for the event itself, I feel so bad for the victims and my heart goes out to their families.
The police cannot keep us safe. They no longer even consider it their jobs to keep us safe. As for the federal government, I doubt they are even on our side. This is the same federal government, and the same president, who wants to disarm Americans at the same time that he is arming civilians in several Muslim countries. The same president who uses American resources to protect Iraqi borders while leaving our own defenseless. If you think that makes any sense, then I don't know what to say. Given that the police cannot keep us safe, disarming seems to be the very worst thing that we should allow to have done to us. Had someone in that church been armed for example, the death rate would have been altered significantly.
Good thread, Yvonne. I have yet to read about any crimes about blacks assaulting whites being called hate crimes, let alone that the DOJ and the FBI investigated the crimes. President Obama has never offered white families his condolences and prayers in speeches regarding black on white serious crimes. His bias is very obvious. I had not read about the mom, dad, and two kids being attacked in Florence, Alabama. So sad for them. It's amazing that even tho the attackers used racial slurs, the attack was not considered a hate crime.
It is a truly shocking incident which has been widely reported here in the UK. We have hate crimes and racial attacks but the difference is that 21 year old men are not given guns as a birthday gift. I have heard that in this case the gun was a gift from his father. When a young muslim goes into a building and kills people he or she is named as a terrorist extremist and other muslims are blamed for radicalizing young people. When a white man does this he is called a crazy individual, and no-one ever asks who has radicalized him into thinking he must carry out such an atrocity. Prejudice and hatred are generated through the influence of prejudiced and hateful people. He may well have mental issues but this young man must also have been influenced into racial hatred.
The more that comes out about this crime, the more that I think it was actually something more than just a racist hate crime. The shooter lived in Columbia, SC; which is clear across the state from Charleston. He had a job as a landscaper where he worked every day. He had many friends who were black people. He had a history of doing drugs; but I did not see anything that was any kind of a violent crime in the information about prior arrests. To commit this crime, he drove all of the way across the state, and then went to the one church there where the senator went to church. When he went into the church, he asked to meet the senator, and then sat next to him during the meeting. He even knew what time to arrive for the meeting, and that he should go in the side door of the church rather than use the front door, like most people would have done. Afterwards, one of the first posts on Facebook was that the FBI was at the scene, almost as soon as the shooting happened. How would they know to be there that fast, and are they usually called in for local shootings ? How likely is all of this just a coincidence ? Another really odd fact is that he re-loaded his gun at least five times during the shooting. You would have thought that someone could have escaped to call for help while he was reloading. Some of the people who were shot were elderly; but others were younger people. Another question that comes to mind is the timing of this event, which effectively diverted the nation's attention away from the President pushing through the TTP trade agreement. Hmmm....
I saw on the news today, that the victims relatives were able to let the shooter know their feelings about taking their loved ones from them, and they forgave him and asked God to Bless his soul. It was so sad.....brought tears. My heart and prayers go out to the families. ♥
Yesterday, I read an article that the government has decided to fast-track money to the families of the victims. This happened on Wednesday, late in the evening, so barely three days later, and they are being sent money. And the amount that the government is sending these families is $29 MILLION DOLLARS ! Yes, this was a terrible tragedy; but we have been seeing other similar tragedies, and the government isn't helping like that. How about $29 million for those poor people in Texas who lost family members, lost their homes, lost their livestock ? Did they receive anything at all ? Not that I heard of. Yet, these families are getting around $3,000,000 each to compensate for the loss of a person in their family. Listening for your thoughts on this, Friends.......
There is a way to stop all these shooting. 95% of these killers are all on prescribed drugs given to them by doctors and the other 5% have the medical records sealed so you don't know. If the doctors were held responsible for these killings. They might start thinking of treating these mentally ill people in a different way. No one hears about who was the doctors that made these mistakes they all get off with out even a warning. If they sent a few of these doctors to jail it might end all these drugs that not only don't help but make the patent even worse.
The government is as disturbed (and disturbing) as the young man who did the shooting and is devious to boot. I have no idea what this could really add up to. What could it possibly all mean? Things like this are why I don't usually watch the news anymore nor even catch up on the internet as much as I used to. On the one hand I feel the need to know somewhat of what is going on but then I always decide that no matter how much I watch, listen or read I will never really know anything more than that the world is in a mess and it appears that the government likes it like that.