#CharlestonShooting

[stevew]

Originally Posted by Shkspr

Seems odder to me that we have to shoot or choke or break the necks of all these black kids for low-penalty crimes, but a white spree killing suspect we can bring in just fine without pulling the trigger.

I guess he must not have been driving around delivering newspapers when he was arrested.

[Grover]

Originally Posted by Shkspr

So, was one of the victims the person that cut his hair? Because if not, then frankly, dude was fighting the wrong war.

I'm assuming that would have to be a suicide and maybe a smashed bowl.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by nol

Hold on, I suppose the apartheid confederate license plate guy could also have been talking about Christians, the real persecuted group in this country. Until we get clarification, it's just a "he said, she said" thing and we ALWAYS have to hear both sides to every story.

Edit: It's sarcasm!

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

The jacket with Apartheid flags is a good sign, I think.

Perhaps this is somewhat random but ... that's such an obscure thing to me.

I don't recall ever seeing anything like that, never heard one mentioned in the U.S. that I can think of, etc etc.

I suspect you might find them (now that I even know they exist) at something like a seriously hardcore rally or something of that nature but I'm not sure if it means he was exceptionally hardcore OR if he was just incredibly random about what he chose to latch onto.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

I suspect you might find them (now that I even know they exist) at something like a seriously hardcore rally or something of that nature but I'm not sure if it means he was exceptionally hardcore OR if he was just incredibly random about what he chose to latch onto.

Yeah...that seems pretty odd to me as well. This guy was born around the time Apartheid ended, and Rhodesia-->Zimbabwe took place well before he was on this earth. Neither is the sort of thing that would likely get much attention in a high school World History course, if it got any at all. For a guy his age to connect with those particular images would indicate that he either took the time to seek out some pretty hardcore white supremacy information or was taught it by someone.

[molson]

It just sounds like the product of random lonely late night racism-fueled internet browsing to me. It's like the weirdo loner racist version of finding obscure music or comic books. I bet you could find racist message boards or blogs where people have stuff like that and tell you where to get them.

Young minds can get really intense about stuff like this in a hurry - not usually race-fueled-killing kind of stuff, but a lot of teenagers and young adults can get obsessed with various subversive social and political stuff, like nazis or whatever. And then because they're young they think they know everything about it. Maybe this guy was smarter and more put-together and organized in his thoughts than all that, but most of these angsty young male shooters seem to fit that mold.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Neither is the sort of thing that would likely get much attention in a high school World History course, if it got any at all. For a guy his age to connect with those particular images would indicate that he either took the time to seek out some pretty hardcore white supremacy information or was taught it by someone.

Well there IS the "serious student of history" possibility* I suppose but, uh, well I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that might not be the origin here.



*He's not home for me to ask right now but I'd say it's at least 50-50 I could ask my future History major something like "what did Zimbabwe used to be called?" and get the right answer. Then again, he rages when people say WWII started in 1941 instead of 1939.

[ISiddiqui]

Well if you are into African racism, Rhodesia is particular notorious. It also helps understand a little bit of the current Mugabe craziness in Zimbabwe (basically the pendulum has swung aaaaalll the way over)

[Jukeman]

Curious to know what terrorist group he's apart of.

[BillJasper]

Originally Posted by Jukeman

Curious to know what terrorist group he's apart of.

Do you have to be part of a terrorist group to be a terrorist?

[molson]

Originally Posted by Jukeman

Curious to know what terrorist group he's apart of.

I'd bet anything he's part of the "league of socially under-developed losers who develop intense feelings of racial superiority to fill the gaps in their miserable existence caused by feelings of inadequacy".

Edit: I think almost all of us are at risk to do this a LITTLE BIT, finding people to look down on to make ourselves feel better - that's why we like politics and reality shows, but this is just that human need getting completely out of control, probably because of all kind of various factors.

[Jukeman]

He's 21, born in the 90'.. He was taught by someone. Parents maybe?

He committed an act of terror.

Originally Posted by BillJasper

Do you have to be part of a terrorist group to be a terrorist?

I don't know.

[nol]

Originally Posted by molson

I'd bet anything he's part of the "league of socially under-developed losers who develop intense feelings of racial superiority to fill the gaps in their miserable existence caused by feelings of inadequacy".

I think the point is that you could describe the Boston bombers in the exact way, but the Boston bombers were considered Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. This guy is a white supremacist terrorist by that logic.

[molson]

Originally Posted by nol

I think the point is that you could describe the Boston bombers in the exact way, but the Boston bombers were considered Islamic terrorists. This guy is a white supremacist terrorist by that logic.

It's hard to label any of this stuff. The old-school definition of terrorist requires some kind of political goal I think, but then you have to figure out what "political goal" means.

I'm really making snap judgments based on almost no information but the Boston marathon bombers strike me as more similar to the Columbine shooters than the South Carolina kid and the Connecticut school shooter. But they're all different than the 9/11 hijackers.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Well there IS the "serious student of history" possibility* I suppose but, uh, well I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that might not be the origin here.



*He's not home for me to ask right now but I'd say it's at least 50-50 I could ask my future History major something like "what did Zimbabwe used to be called?" and get the right answer. Then again, he rages when people say WWII started in 1941 instead of 1939.

Heh. Yeah. Pretty sure I knew the Rhodesia question, but only because it was the sort of thing that was asked at Academic Bowl tournaments. Like you, I am guessing he learned it elsewhere.


As far as the overall "terrorist" label, ehhhhh....whatever. As labels go, I am perfectly fine with that which--assuming they have they right guy--is inarguable: "mass murderer" works.

[nol]

Originally Posted by molson

It's hard to label any of this stuff. The old-school definition of terrorist requires some kind of political goal I think, but then you have to figure out what "political goal" means.

I guarantee you there are already more mentions of mental illness in this thread than there were in the entire Boston bombing thread, so it does seem like people have an easier time labeling something as terrorism when there's some "foreign" element to it. This guy in South Carolina had a pretty clear political goal; it's just not the kind of politics people like to think exists in this country.

[molson]

Originally Posted by nol

This guy in South Carolina had a pretty clear political goal

His photo and age just screams crazy-town to me more than organized and calculated political racial agenda guy, but I could be wrong. Not that that makes him any less evil or deserving of execution. And I wouldn't disagree with anyone calling him a terrorist, because of how he chose his victims, and because I'm sure he got off scaring all those people that he didn't manage to kill, and because I'm sure he developed some kind of nut-ball racial philosophy before he did this. Racism and antisemitism and other group-based hate is a common outlet for people whose brains don't work right.

[Easy Mac]

Thankfully we have the infowars nuts to tell us this was all just a false flag.

[stevew]

Originally Posted by Easy Mac

Thankfully we have the infowars nuts to tell us this was all just a false flag.

obummer take ur guns away

[Jukeman]

FWIW his roommate said he was planning something big for months, was into segregation and also wanted to start a civil war.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by nol

I think the point is that you could describe the Boston bombers in the exact way, but the Boston bombers were considered Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. This guy is a white supremacist terrorist by that logic.

Originally Posted by nol

I guarantee you there are already more mentions of mental illness in this thread than there were in the entire Boston bombing thread, so it does seem like people have an easier time labeling something as terrorism when there's some "foreign" element to it. This guy in South Carolina had a pretty clear political goal; it's just not the kind of politics people like to think exists in this country.

Yes.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Jukeman

He's 21, born in the 90'.. He was taught by someone. Parents maybe?

In this information era I think I'd have to disagree about much in the way of direct instruction being required.

If you can think it, dream it, ponder it, consider it, conceive it, then the internet has more than enough info for you to form an entire philosophy around it .. no matter what "it" happens to be.

[Grover]

Originally Posted by BillJasper

Do you have to be part of a terrorist group to be a terrorist?

I'd definitely say no.

[SteveMax58]

Originally Posted by BillJasper

Do you have to be part of a terrorist group to be a terrorist?

Nope...I can tell you with certainty my son at 2 years old was NOT affiliated with any known terror group.

[Ben E Lou]

Y'know, another thing that suggests that he was pretty deeply into this stuff would be where he lives vs. where he killed. There's not exactly a shortage of black churches in the Columbia area, or in the area between Columbia and Charleston, and there are many, many, many black churches in the Charleston area that are closer to Columbia than this one was. (I don't know the makeup of every downtown church there, but it's possible, actually, that this one and Morris Brown would be the farthest ones *away* from Columbia.) Point being, there seems to be very little chance that he chose this church randomly or out of convenience. He likely did some homework to pick this target.

[Jukeman]

This church wasn't random at all. It has history.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Point being, there seems to be very little chance that he chose this church randomly or out of convenience. He likely did some homework to pick this target.

The question I'd have about that is whether it was about the church ... or about the political activity of the pastor.

I mean, that's really the most obvious thing that makes the target stand out.

[BillJasper]

Originally Posted by SteveMax58

Nope...I can tell you with certainty my son at 2 years old was NOT affiliated with any known terror group.

I like that you injected a touch of humor into this without making fun of anyone involved.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by molson

It just sounds like the product of random lonely late night racism-fueled internet browsing to me. It's like the weirdo loner racist version of finding obscure music or comic books. I bet you could find racist message boards or blogs where people have stuff like that and tell you where to get them.

Young minds can get really intense about stuff like this in a hurry - not usually race-fueled-killing kind of stuff, but a lot of teenagers and young adults can get obsessed with various subversive social and political stuff, like nazis or whatever. And then because they're young they think they know everything about it. Maybe this guy was smarter and more put-together and organized in his thoughts than all that, but most of these angsty young male shooters seem to fit that mold.

This is what it sounds like to me. Similar to the guy who gets really caught up in militant Islam or some other cause and decides to kill people over it. I'm sure our narcissistic culture and a media that turns these people into celebrities does not help.

The sad thing is that I don't know how you really stop it. How do you foresee a person getting so intense about something that they will commit mass murder? How do you find these people without committing massive invasions of privacy?

[nol]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

The sad thing is that I don't know how you really stop it. How do you foresee a person getting so intense about something that they will commit mass murder? How do you find these people without committing massive invasions of privacy?

If only he had grown up in a culture where saying "Black people are raping our women and taking over our county" was met with "OK, have a nice time in jail" rather than "Close enough, but maybe tone it down just a bit."

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by nol

If only he had grown up in a culture where saying "Black people are raping our women and taking over our county" was met with "OK, have a nice time in jail" rather than "Close enough, but maybe tone it down just a bit."

So, umm, you want to jail him for expressing an opinion?

And here I thought I was our token extremist.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by nol

If only he had grown up in a culture where saying "Black people are raping our women and taking over our county" was met with "OK, have a nice time in jail" rather than "Close enough, but maybe tone it down just a bit."

Throwing people in jail for having shitty political opinions does not seem like a realistic strategy.

[nol]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

So, umm, you want to jail him for expressing an opinion?

And here I thought I was our token extremist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksverhetzung

I'm sure this shitbag was doing something more than expressing an opinion over his six-month planning phase; there seem to be a lot of people who were privy to his desire to start a civil war. But trying to split some hairs over whether it was "just an opinion" is pretty much the definition of "the nuanced language of lack of effort" Jon Stewart referred to tonight.

Or perhaps more to your liking, the police could have diverted some small fraction of the resources it uses stopping people who "look like" they may have marijuana on them to stopping those who "look like" they abuse hard prescription drugs. From the sounds of it, it wouldn't have been hard to rack up 3 strikes on him that way.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by nol

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksverhetzung

a) he wasn't in Germany afaik
b) their Constitution doesn't forbid it, ours largely does

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by nol

Or perhaps more to your liking, the police could have diverted some small fraction of the resources it uses stopping people who "look like" they may have marijuana on them to stopping those who "look like" they abuse hard prescription drugs. From the sounds of it, it wouldn't have been hard to rack up 3 strikes on him that way.

He was arrested and out on bond for drug charges. Seems like they did use the resources the way you want.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by nol

I'm sure this shitbag was doing something more than expressing an opinion over his six-month planning phase

That's kind of obvious (I think) ... but whether he was doing anything more publicly is still kinda up in the air (afaik)

This really doesn't appear to have had much in the way of other elements that would have been notable. He was on no watch lists targeting white supremacists, etc. No co-conspirators I've seen mentioned, no associations with any groups that are on anybody's radar, etc.

There's a very legitimate reason that a lot of experts consider the most dangerous terrorists of all to be those who plan & act on their own.

It's nearly impossible to stop one person who is determined to act against soft targets (as opposed to a hard target like assassinating a president or such), sort of one of those things that the public doesn't like to think much about 'cause it bursts the fictional bubble that is the notion of being generally "safe".

[nol]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

a) he wasn't in Germany afaik
b) their Constitution doesn't forbid it, ours largely does

Which nicely illustrates why you don't hear much about neo-Nazi murder rampages in Germany despite that being a fresher wound.

Originally Posted by RainMaker

He was arrested and out on bond for drug charges. Seems like they did use the resources the way you want.

If you believe that was his only time out in public with drugs and that the area whose police department was last in the news for Walter Scott has its shit together, then oh yeah, definitely.

[RainMaker]

You don't hear much about neo-Nazi murder rampages here either. It's extremely rare.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by nol

Which nicely illustrates why you don't hear much about neo-Nazi murder rampages in Germany despite that being a fresher wound.

Not worth the tradeoff afaic. And I doubt there's very many Americans who would consider it so either.

[nol]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

You don't hear much about neo-Nazi murder rampages here either. It's extremely rare.

But you hear a lot about white supremacist murders and acts of terrorism that have persisted for the past 150+ years.

Systematic racism is attempting to treat every incident like this as some nuanced, case-by-case issue while ignoring the common thread.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by nol

But you hear a lot about white supremacist murders and acts of terrorism that have persisted for the past 150+ years.

Systematic racism is attempting to treat every incident like this as some nuanced, case-by-case issue while ignoring the common thread.

Well I'm not talking about 150 years ago. I'm talking about issues in modern times. And ye

White on black murders are incredibly low in this country. Significantly lower than black on white murders. These incidences are terrible and most everyone would like to find a way to stop them from occurring. But they are still incredibly rare in a country of over 300 million.

Over the past decade we average 6 hate crime homicides a year. This in a country that has around 13,000 homicides a year. Now that number is likely low because of some reporting issues, but even inflated a bit it's still not the epidemic you are insinuating it is.

[stevew]

The story of the Florist identifying the pos's car and calling it into the cops was pretty neat. Good looking out.

It's on CNN.com and others, my phone doesn't always paste well.

[RainMaker]

Here it is:

http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/18/us/cha...tip/index.html

Followed him for 30 miles. Maybe saved some lives.

[stevew]

How'd he make it thru (presumably) Columbia and Charlotte. Obviously he could have taken back roads but where he was pulled over has to be a pretty busy stretch.

[nol]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Well I'm not talking about 150 years ago. I'm talking about issues in modern times. And ye

White on black murders are incredibly low in this country. Significantly lower than black on white murders. These incidences are terrible and most everyone would like to find a way to stop them from occurring. But they are still incredibly rare in a country of over 300 million.

Over the past decade we average 6 hate crime homicides a year. This in a country that has around 13,000 homicides a year. Now that number is likely low because of some reporting issues, but even inflated a bit it's still not the epidemic you are insinuating it is.

They are not incredibly rare for a developed country's standards. Even if you want to pretend that the hatred present throughout our country's history is completely independent from many of the issues that persist today and just focus on the past 10 years, there have been more American civilians killed by domestic terrorists than those in Al Qaeda or ISIS or anywhere else. Obviously the frequency is not the only determinant of what people expect the response to be.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by stevew

How'd he make it thru (presumably) Columbia and Charlotte. Obviously he could have taken back roads but where he was pulled over has to be a pretty busy stretch.

I don't think his description had been out for more than an hour or so when he was spotted. And clearly he did not drive straight through. If he had jumped in his car and started driving right after the murders, he could've been *much* farther away by the time he was captured. He stopped somewhere.

[Ben E Lou]

Dylann Roof confessed to killing 9 people in Charleston church and said he wanted to start race war, official says.

Hey Dylann, Charleston says "SUCK IT!!!"



(Seriously, he may have done his homework in finding a target for the killings, but in all the places I've lived, he picked just about the absolute WORST combination of locale and event to try to start a race war.)

[GrantDawg]

Just some random comments:

It is the motivation of the action that defines it as terrorism, not the inclusion of a group or sponsor state. His motivation was to incite and strike fear, so it was a terrorist act imho.

I was not totally surprised by the number of people I talked to yesterday (before we knew more about the shooter) who were upset that people were already calling this a "hate crime." Just knowing the situation (white shooter killing multiple people in an historic black church), what were the odds that it wasn't a hate crime? That it wasn't racially motivated? On the other side (and this is how a responded to people), if it were a black man shooting multiple people at an historic white church, wouldn't you assume a racial motivation there? This was not situation where you think "maybe it was a drug deal gone bad." It is always possible it was something more mundane (the preacher slept with his wife/sister/mother or something), and the shooter went overboard, but it really wasn't likely. There is no doubt that people can jump to race on some situations when there really isn't a connection, but this was clearly never going to be one.

[Ben E Lou]

Video footage from the same event:

https://video-atl1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hv...ee&oe=558423E0

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

There is no doubt that people can jump to race on some situations when there really isn't a connection, but this was clearly never going to be one.

There are also always going to be people who want to divert the topic away from race when it's obviously a race issue.



Fox News and Lindsey Graham Lament Hate Crime Against Christians

Attack on Faith. Yep, that's the takeaway here, Fox News.