Charleston church shooting: Multiple fatalities in South Carolina, source says

[fan_since79]

News conference starting now:

 

http://www.live5news.com/category/219058/live-stream?clienttype=generic

[Blarg]

Hopefully the death penalty is still in use and they don't play the 30 years of appeals game.

[nate]

I hate these press conferences because it is just politicians telling us how sorry they are and thankful they are for the people that caught the guy.

 

We should be hearing from the leaders of the church and the family members who were affected.

[Blarg]

They already interviewed them this morning and they pleaded for peace. Evidently it wasn't important enough to repeat.

[red321]

Some history about the church

 

This was the church founded by Denmark Vesey, who planned a slave revolt in 1822. Vesey was convicted in a secret trial in which many of the witnesses testified after being tortured. After they hung him, a mob burned down the church he built. His sons rebuilt it. On Wednesday night, someone turned it into a slaughter pen.

 

Here is a video of Reverand Clementa Pinckney speaking about the history of the church

 

Edited June 18, 2015 by red321

[Blarg]

And the asshole killed the leader of the church.

[fan_since79]

The mayor is rightly emotional, but going on and on about the suspect being a "terrible" and "awful" man is going to be fodder for a change of venue motion.

 

The lawyers don't miss a trick.

 

As far as the death penalty is concerned, South Carolina is not California. This creep will be dispatched quickly.

[gotbeer]

Hopefully the death penalty is still in use and they don't play the 30 years of appeals game.

 

Should be a deathmatch between him and the theater shooter and the laza kid.

[Blarg]

I am serious, **** this guy and his entire gene pool that somehow decided they were superior simply because they rode the coattails of oppression.

[Catwhoshatinthehat]

If a confederate flag, racist jokes and creepy looking white guys are red flags then the South is in a lot of trouble.

 

Terrible situation anyway you look at it.  

[Blarg]

Don't worry about the south, they have Lynard Skynard singing songs about how great it is to be white.

[fan_since79]

Obama will speak to the nation today.

 

That's when things will really start to ramp up.

[red321]

I wonder if South Carolina will fly the confederate flag at half mast at all their government buildings

 

 

This was a hateful racist attack in a historic church that was a significant symbol of the fight against slavery and oppression, in a state that still chooses to fly the flag of that hateful time. Maybe things should be ramped up.

[fan_since79]

So how far should things be ramped up?

 

Riots and destruction in major cities? Blacks killing whites in retaliation? How far should America push it?

 

People are sick of the race baiting.

[arch stanton]

Who are these people of which you speak?

[red321]

 

People are sick of the race baiting.

 

race baiting huh...yeah...no greater sign this country still has a huge issue with race...trying to sluff of a conversation about why this happened, the racial divisions the country still faces, as race baiting

[red321]

More on the history of the church, and it's significance to Charleston and racial struggles this country has faced.

 

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/emanuel-ame-church-south-carolina-shooting-history-vesey-citadel

 

An excerpt...

 

Further, the very spot of land on which the Emanuel Church is built has witnessed much of this sobering history. In the summer of 1822, white residents of Charleston discovered that one of their worst fears had come true: a slave conspiracy to rise against their masters and slaughter all white residents was afoot in the city. The accused ringleader, Denmark Vesey, was a former slave who had been a free carpenter in Charleston for two decades. His insurrection was supposedly planned to take place on July 14—Bastille Day. Once the plot was uncovered, however, authorities were swift with retaliation: 131 men were charged with conspiracy, 67 were convicted, and 35, including Vesey, were hanged. While historians today debate the extent of the conceived rebellion, the event proved formidable in confirming southern angst over an “internal enemy,” and white supremacists knew they had to respond quickly and violently.

 

That Vesey was one of the founders of the Emanuel Methodist Episcopal Church was no mere coincidence. To those who pushed prosecution, the church was central to the conspiracy. The year prior, city officials had closed the church because they feared it was breaking slave codes concerning unsupervised black gatherings after sunset and the law against teaching slaves to read. Charleston authorities depicted Vesey’s frustrations over their suppression of church activities as one of his three primary motivations. (The other two were the Haitian Revolution and the debates over the Missouri Compromise.) The punishment for these sins was the noose.

 

In the wake of the suppressed rebellion, Charleston lawyer Edwin Holland specifically blamed black churches. These preachers, he accused, carried “the Sacred Volume of God in one hand” while spreading ideas “of discord and destruction, and secretly disperse among our Negro Population, the seeds of discontent and sedition” with the other. The city decided the African Methodist Episcopal Church, which attracted nearly 2,000 congregants, was the problem. New draconian measures were instituted that banned religious services without a white person present. The AME Church, only built four years previously, was then burned to the ground even as the conspirators were hung from the sky.

 

Seven years later, the state constructed an arsenal just around the corner to house arms and ammunition. They wanted to be prepared the next time their black population conspired an insurrection. Soon, in an agreement with the War Department, this location transformed into the South Carolina Military Academy–also known as the Citadel. The crown jewel of southern militarism, then, was in part birthed as a way to protect whites from the type of racial threats the AME Church posed.

[fan_since79]

race baiting huh...yeah...no greater sign this country still has a huge issue with race...trying to sluff of a conversation about why this happened, the racial divisions the country still faces, as race baiting

 

Certain politicians like to stoke the racial divisions and fan the flames for their own agendas.

[Crampknees]

Terrible thing.  Fan, let these people mourn and do their investigation.  You can lay blame later.

[Mark68]

Or a van filled with fertilizer?

Evil will always find a way.

It happened once.

 

How many times has a deranged person taken a gun or guns into a building and opened fire?

 

Since the 2nd amendment guarantees the "right to bear arms" (but does not define "arms"), we should restrict ammunition sales. The amendment does not guarantee the right to ammunition.

 

Either way, there are a lot of mentally sick people who have firearms, and there are a lot of people who aren't necessarily "clinically" sick, but have hatred deep in their core, who also have firearms.

 

Violent crime, as a whole, is on the decrease nationwide, and has been for a quarter century now. Yet, people are buying more and more guns. Why is this? It is because certain pieholes are ramping up the fears of government conspiracy, that they're "coming for your guns", even though there is no evidence to support these claims.

 

That is worse than "race baiting", in that there is well-documented history of institutionalized racism in this country, not so much on the government conspiracy to take away your guns.

[Glen]

Certain politicians like to stoke the racial divisions and fan the flames for their own agendas.

So far, you're the only one in this thread with a can of gasoline.

[nate]

So far, you're the only one in this thread with a can of gasoline.

 

I ate at La Palma's last night.  I have plenty of gas.

[arch stanton]

I'm glad the gun control crowd are not my doctor else they'd be frantically treating my symptoms while the disease destroyed me.

[nate]

On the contrary, if the disease was too many white blood cells, the doctor would be fighting to reduce them.

 

By the way, it just highlights the different ideologies when it comes to this.  Too many bad people or too many guns.  I don't think there is a point arguing it on this forum.  It is all philosophical.

Edited June 18, 2015 by nate

[Jason]

If it is true that his father gave him the gun and his father was aware he had a mental illness, then the father should be held liable too right?

 

I realize that this is 100% speculative but when you give a crazy man the tools to kill you should be held accountable.

100% yes. I am a gun owner and 2nd amendment supporter so I am all about accountability for this stuff.