Emanuel AME Church Attack

[allegro]

Wow. There ya go. He speaks the truth.

I am not a gun apologist, I am not a huge gun advocate, but pointing at guns as a cause is side-stepping the real issue, here (he was using a normal and legal handgun, one that has been endorsed as legal and constitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States). That church has survived FIRES set by white supremacists; the real issue, here, is racism in this country; that guy went into that church intending to "start a race war."

edit: sorry, I didn't know he had a GLOCK, wtf.

[Khrz]

I am not a gun apologist, I am not a huge gun advocate, but pointing at guns as a cause is side-stepping the real issue, here

As much as I can't even begin to comprehend the fact that guns can be so easily accessible to -mostly- anyone, I agree here. Focusing on gun laws only amounts to blaming TV, video games and rock music.
I'd argue, though, that this very accessibility and the refusal to question it is a societal problem in itself, but as I said, there is a cultural gap I can't bridge here, between North American culture and the European one.

[DigitalChaos]

I'm not sure what exactly is your point with this statistic.

Read what allegro just posted. Then realize there is institutional racism reflected by the second chart. You have to dig much deeper to understand, but that's not about to happen if you are someone who looks at this situation and immediately blames it on guns.

[aggroculture]

@allegro you ARE a gun apologist and a gun advocate. Your position is closer to DigitalChaos than you perhaps like to think, and every time you say "it's not about guns" (and you say this a lot) you distract from the fact that the US has more deaths-by-guns than anywhere else in the "developed world" because it has more guns than anywhere else.

Sometimes 2+2=4.

And yet Americans like you, who think they are on the side of reason and rationality and the law, are aiding and abetting this obscene situation where 30000 people are being killed for no reason every year.
And I'm addressing you in particular because you are on the whole a voice of reason. People like DigitalChaos uphold a dangerous, sociopathic position that ultimately causes people to die: it's the so-called Americans who think themselves "reasonable" about guns that are the real danger, because they allow this situation to continue.

The second amendment of the constitution can go rip itself to shreds.

And yes, of course it's about racism, and right wing racist white supremacy covertly endorsed by the state (take that fucking Confederate flag down South Carolina). But take those guns away and it's a lot harder to just walk into a church and kill nine people with no harm to yourself.

[Deepvoid]

I'm looking at the different reactions from Conservatives and it's no wonder you can't find common ground on what to do next.

Fox News was spinning this as an attack on Christians and not against black people.
Rick Santorum called it an attack on religious liberty.
NRA board member blamed the pastor for the shooting. The pastor who's dead by the way. Why? Because he voted against concealed-carry in churches.
Lindsey Graham: "This guy's just whacked out," he said. "It's 2015—there are people who are looking for Christians to kill them." Graham also defended the Confederate Flag because "it's part of who we are".

Alex Jones didn't actually believe this was a false flag. That's got to be a first.

You got a long road ahead of you my friends. I mean, when giving a gun as a birthday present is considered normal...

[howdidislipinto]

Lotta fucking idiots up in here.

New low btw, Tony.

[DigitalChaos]

deaths-by-guns

voice of reason

Death by anything else is a nonissue in aggroculture's imaginary voice of reason.

[allegro]

@allegro you ARE a gun apologist and a gun advocate. Your position is closer to DigitalChaos than you perhaps like to think, and every time you say "it's not about guns" (and you say this a lot) .

you forgot about all the times I have said that the SCOTUS refuses to hear cases about assault weapons and I agree with them. I don't care if this country passes a ban on assault weapons; there is no need for them, and the 2nd Amendment includes "well regulated." I am a constitutionalist. HOWEVER, blacks in this country have been lynched, beaten, sunk to the bottom of lakes with cement, unfairly incarcerated, held in jails for years without trial, tortured, etc. You are focusing on guns and this attack is about racism. South Carolina still flies the fucking CONFEDERATE FLAG, which is nothing more than a SYMBOL OF SLAVERY. Before handguns, blacks were killed every fucking day. Hung, beaten, shot with shotguns, set on fire .. you are ignoring the problem. And we are NEVER going to ban guns in this country, end of story. IT WILL NEVER FUCKING HAPPEN. The US Constitution has made sure of it, so focusing your argument on getting rid of guns (or the 2nd Amendment) is just showing your ignorance of our legal system. We might as well discuss unicorns.

Let me remind you that black people weren't granted the Constitutional ability to VOTE until fucking 1965.

Also, we recently marked the anniversary of this terrible event.

[DigitalChaos]

And how many terrorist attacks per year is happening in USA with use of pressure cooker in comparison to killings with use of a gun? No offense here, but you have to be delusional not to see that the insanely high number of shootings is to some degree caused by insanely high number of people owning a gun and the fact, that buying a gun in USA is easier than buying a beer.

Just look at the same statistics in Great Britain or France or any other 1st world country. Why is USA so different if not because of their benevolent attitude towards guns?

Actually, when you control for the fact that the USA is much bigger and has a shitload more people, it's not as clear as you claim it to be. It's completely dishonest NOT to account for this major difference when trying to compare rates. Things like terrorist attacks and rampage shootings get everyone all excited, but they are statistically small things. Still.... per capita, the USA is far from the top "first world country" when it comes to shooting rampage fatalities or shooting rampage incidents.

[DigitalChaos]

...
You are focusing on guns and this attack is about racism.
...
so focusing on your argument is just showing your ignorance of our legal system.

You are kinder than I.
People like @aggroculture that continue to focus on guns even after being shown how blatantly race-oriented this is are demonstrating something pretty disgusting. When forced to choose between focusing on "guns are bad" and "racism is bad" they decided that first takes priority. They would rather ignore racism if it means they can push a false narrative that satisfies their hate of guns. It makes you wonder how masturbatory it is for them when they do decide to actually talk about racism (once someone takes all the guns out of the topic). FuckYeaDemocracy!

[aggroculture]

Yeah both of you read my post again. Clearly this crime is motivated by racism and white supremacy and the legacy of slavery, which I said. So I'm not choosing or forced to choose between or ignoring anything. I'm responding to points being made about guns, by gun nuts (I know, I must be stupid).

But you know, they have racism and race riots and a colonial legacy in Britain and France too. But without the 30000 pointless gun deaths a year.

@allegro people said they would never abolish slavery either. And then it happened. So this idea that they will never abolish guns is a self-fulfilling prophecy, that's why I maintain that you are a gun advocate. "It will never happen." Instead of repeating this pointless mantra, let's try to make it happen.

@DigitalChaos you on the other hand are not at all disgusting for making every fucking gun tragedy an opportunity to say that guns do not cause people to be killed so easily and in such massive numbers: "it's not guns, it's something else (racism, poverty, whatever)." You can have all of those things and without guns you cut out the 30000 dead people from guns every year. People are going to kill each other, because humans are shitty: why make it so easy for them? Why? Because of a sentence in a 200-year old document? Please.

[DigitalChaos]

I didn't make this about guns. I made this NOT about guns after people like Obama decided to try and turn it into a gun topic. But whatever makes you feel better about defending them.

edit: lol, you edited your post. I'm leaving this here though. It still stands that you are siding with the people who want to make this topic about guns. If you want to get angry about people talking about a statement from THE PRESIDENT, then you are ridiculous. You should be bitching about people like Obama making every incident a platform to cry about guns.

[aggroculture]

Exactly. You tried to make it "not about guns."
But it IS about guns because the guy took a gun to a church and killed nine people.

Stop trying to say that I'm saying that the only reason this happened is because the guy had a gun. You know I'm not.

[DigitalChaos]

Exactly. You tried to make it "not about guns."
But it IS about guns because the guy took a gun to a church and killed nine people.

Stop trying to say that I'm saying that the only reason this happened is because the guy had a gun. You know I'm not.

You came in here ranting about how guns are totally part of this, like most of your additions to these threads are. Race was an afterthought thrown on to the ends of your thought... literally. And then you further capped it off with a "but still, GUNS!" before hitting submit.


Under your logic, this must be about churches too. Cause it totally happened in a church. Oh hey, that's a Fox News angle actually...

[allegro]

@aggroculture , there are currently over 30 million guns in this country. Unless we go all Gestapo and go door-to-door and bust down doors to confiscate guns, we can't undo something that has been legal for over 250 years. Not unless somebody akin to Joseph Stalin takes over power. We give up too many rights (search and seizure, right to privacy, etc.) to undo what our founding fathers deliberately wrote into the Constitution for a reason. This isn't pro-gun so much as logic; we don't have the manpower, we don't have the physical ability.

And please don't group me in with these Charleton Heston pro-gun morons who want all guns and zero regulations. I hate them all, the Constitution clearly says "well regulated." But people without guns (like Tim McVeigh) use bombs. The Internet teaches you how to build a bomb, cheaply and easily and efficiently.

Meanwhile, bail was just set for this guy at a million, which means for $100,000 he can get bonded out after killing 9 people.

[aggroculture]

@DigitalChaos stop putting words in my mouth or assigning ideas to me that I did not express. You suck at debating.
I came in here responding to your grand graphics, which irritated me because you're trying to pretend that having a gun did not help this man commit this murder. Which is bullshit, utter bullshit. You are in this thread, spreading malicious propaganda that ultimately contributes to facilitating the death of innocent people, and sorry I cannot keep silent (although clearly I should).

@allegro is doing more or less the same, in a more highbrow way. It's all good and legal, and only the Nazis or Stalin could take away our guns. Again, slavery also existed for 100s of years and it took a civil war to get rid of it. But I think we can all agree it was worth it. What I am trying to say is that your "we can't change this, it's all legal and in the constitution" position is the respectable face that allows the Charlton Hestonites to keep letting Americans kill each other in absurdly high numbers.

[aggroculture]

edit: lol, you edited your post. I'm leaving this here though. It still stands that you are siding with the people who want to make this topic about guns. If you want to get angry about people talking about a statement from THE PRESIDENT, then you are ridiculous. You should be bitching about people like Obama making every incident a platform to cry about guns.

I edited for grammar, nothing more. What can I say, I am a grammarian.
There are no "people who want to make this topic about guns": it is already about guns, because a freely available gun was used in the massacre.
It is about racism, whiteness, supremacy, violence, masculinity, power...and many other things, including guns.
You can't pretend that aspect of the crime doesn't matter or is irrelevant (he could have done it with it a knife! a bomb! Yes, but he DIDN'T.)

[aggroculture]

Under your logic, this must be about churches too. Cause it totally happened in a church. Oh hey, that's a Fox News angle actually...

Also, this is about churches: black churches: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...ations/396212/

[DigitalChaos]

It's a good thing we are still talking about guns instead of focusing on race. Thanks @aggroculture .

[allegro]

@DigitalChaos stop putting words in my mouth or assigning ideas to me that I did not express. You suck at debating.
I came in here responding to your grand graphics, which irritated me because you're trying to pretend that having a gun did not help this man commit this murder. Which is bullshit, utter bullshit. You are in this thread, spreading malicious propaganda that ultimately contributes to facilitating the death of innocent people, and sorry I cannot keep silent (although clearly I should).

@allegro is doing more or less the same, in a more highbrow way. It's all good and legal, and only the Nazis or Stalin could take away our guns. Again, slavery also existed for 100s of years and it took a civil war to get rid of it. But I think we can all agree it was worth it. What I am trying to say is that your "we can't change this, it's all legal and in the constitution" position is the respectable face that allows the Charlton Hestonites to keep letting Americans kill each other in absurdly high numbers.

Jesus fucking Christ, now I see why you're an English teacher. Freeing the slaves was LOGISTICALLY EASIER. "YOU ARE FREE." And they are free and they get up and leave.

Guns don't fucking get up and leave. 70,000 gang members who get their guns from drug cartels and use them to protect their drug business aren't going to have a gun emancipation parade. 30 million gun owners in this country are not going to voluntarily turn in their guns.

Do you know how much an average gun COSTS? At least $700. Nobody is gonna part with something that expensive very easily.

Handguns were illegal in the City of Chicago for over 40 years, yet gun deaths in Chicago were higher than in any other city during that time for decades.

Just like before Roe v Wade, when abortion was illegal in this country yet there were still millions of abortions.

Overturning slavery is a faulty comparison; a better comparison would be prohibition, a Constitutional amendment that was a total disaster that led to mob crime and Al Capone, and was eventually reversed.

Meanwhile, we better pray these racists don"t learn anything from those Boston Marathon dudes; pressure cooker bombs are really cheap and much more efficient, take out a LOT more people.

Speaking of which: when Tim McVeigh used homemade bombs to take out over 165 people (including children in a daycare center in the building), the focus back then was "HOW DID THIS GUY LEARN HOW TO BUILD A BOMB ON THE INTERNET? FUCK THE INTERNET! WE HAVE TO REGULATE THE INTERNET!!!!"

[elevenism]

JESUS i knew you fuckers were gonna do this, but i didn't know it was gonna be THIS bad.

i'm leaving

[telee.kom]

@DigitalChaos look. I'm not anti-gun shill or whatever. I'm from different country and I'm telling you my "outside" opinion. I really don't give a shit if your laws regarding guns will be this or that. But they are fucking stupid in my opinion. And whenever I hear about another shooting in USA, first thing that comes to my mind is "oh, another shooting, I would never see that one coming". And if you want to pretend that your gun policy have nothing to do with it? Okay. Go on. Make up whatever excuses you need. But I'm telling that from the outside world this gun policy of yours just looks stupid. You are trying to find problems everywhere else but the most obvious place.

[DigitalChaos]

@DigitalChaos look. I'm not anti-gun shill or whatever. I'm from different country and I'm telling you my "outside" opinion. I really don't give a shit if your laws regarding guns will be this or that. But they are fucking stupid in my opinion. And whenever I hear about another shooting in USA, first thing that comes to my mind is "oh, another shooting, I would never see that one coming". And if you want to pretend that your gun policy have nothing to do with it? Okay. Go on. Make up whatever excuses you need. But I'm telling that from the outside world this gun policy of yours just looks stupid. You are trying to find problems everywhere else but the most obvious place.

I'm going to split the pure gun discussion over to the gun thread, but replying here for now (so that you know).


Your stance is equal to saying "the USA consumes 500% more meals than France every day. This should clearly stand out as a cause of obesity in the USA."

I have no doubt that this is your perception. It's clear that your view is based on initial perspective and not any sort of analysis. If your claims don't hold up in a per capital analysis... and your answer is "well whatever, I'm still going to think this way" instead of a thought out response... that's fine! Most people approach topics this way. It's the reason many problems exist today and will take generations to slowly correct. Just like the racism problem in this country.

[telee.kom]

But you said it yourself earlier that comparing nations based on terrorist attacks/killing sprees is basically useless because of how sparse they are. Just look at Norway on top, that alone should tell you that this statistic is just stupid. That's why I was talking about gun violence in general where USA is leading among 1st world countries (per capita of course). And if you look closely at the nature of these attacks there is one big difference. Take Breivik in Norway for example, he planed this massacre for years, he amassed immense amount of guns and ammunition on black market and even in different countries, it was calculated mass murder that took a lot of effort from his part. Now if you compare it to killing sprees in America, this is almost exclusively not the case. People who got on a killing spree in USA usually just take what they have laying around at home, kid who wants to go about shoot up his school saves the trouble of buying a gun from black market, he can legally buy it without any trouble or use whatever gun his parents have at home. And I'm arguing that it just shouldn't be that easy. I'm not saying that it would stop all killing sprees, there is nothing that would manage to do that. But at least you can make it harder for people like Adam Lanza, James Holmes or Dylann Roof to get the gun in the first place, because there just wouldn't be that much guns in American society.

[orestes]

[Jinsai]

Here's the problem... someone out there took this picture... and never thought that maybe something really sucked about this person. Maybe share this picture with the authorities, and tell them that he's a fucking lunatic?

His former roommate goes to tell the news that he was "really into segregation" and that he wanted to do something "big" that would incite a race war. And he waits until after he kills a bunch of people to mention that to others.

People knew this guy was fucked up, yet his family is buying him guns and then later saying "oops, sorry."

How much of a crazy shitbag violent racist do you have to be before people will notice that you suck and maybe legitimately worry? Do we need people to spell it out before we stop arming them with lethal weapons? Does he have to wear a t-shirt that says "I'm going to kill people" for people to get it?

I don't know... the last time mom was cutting his hair in the bowl and listening to him rant about how he wanted to go on a murder spree, maybe she shouldn't have just said "that's nice honey."

[Presideo]

SC politicians will never get rid of it because they rely on bigots for votes, and bigots love that flag more than their cousins (and you know how much we love our cousins in the South.) I'm pretty sure SC also has an official license plate you can purchase with the Confederate flag on it; it's more than symbolism, our state government literally profits from it.

Having been born and raised in SC, I find the fact that many covet that flag to be sickening. However, I also don't think getting rid of it would solve anything. It'd be akin to putting a bandage over a gaping gunshot wound; you covered up the problem, but you did nothing to actually solve it.

[allegro]

People knew this guy was fucked up, yet his family is buying him guns and then later saying "oops, sorry."

Ends up that his family gave him birthday money and he put the money together and bought a .45 caliber pistol, himself (it wasn't purchased for him by his family, as previously reported). Reportedly, his parents took the gun away from him at least once. Also, friends are saying this guy actually has black friends so they didn't take him seriously, they thought he was joking or just trying to get attention, he kept mentioning Trayvon Martin*. Also, reports are saying he told the cops that he felt kinda bad after it was all over because those people he shot were "really nice."

*From Roof's "manifesto":

“The event that truly awakened me was the Trayvon Martin case,” the essay says. “I kept hearing and seeing his name, and eventually I decided to look him up. I read the Wikipedia article and right away I was unable to understand what the big deal was. It was obvious that Zimmerman was in the right. But more importantly this prompted me to type in the words ‘black on White crime’ into Google, and I have never been the same since that day.’’

SC politicians will never get rid of it because they rely on bigots for votes, and bigots love that flag more than their cousins (and you know how much we love our cousins in the South.) I'm pretty sure SC also has an official license plate you can purchase with the Confederate flag on it; it's more than symbolism, our state government literally profits from it.

I know some people from the south and they don't seem to acknowledge what the flag really MEANS, they just think it means "THE SOUTH" like "The South Will Rise Again" and when I say "Yeah, but the history of that means slavery," they say "aw, you Yankees are too fucking hung up on that slavery shit." Umm ...

[50 Volt Phantom]

Drove by the church today, people of all kinds were there paying respects, peacefully, without incident. People can rag on the south or South Carolina, but between this and the quick, decisive handling of the police shooting several weeks ago I think South Carolina, specifically Charleston, is showing the country that these incidents don't have to result in communities burning everything down, rioting and violence, that they can be handled appropriately and can unite people rather than divide them.

[GulDukat]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-help-him.html

Very disturbing.