Trebla Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 Right now, a headline on Fox News website, with all the other stories related to this shooting: "OPINION: Gun-free zones an easy target for killers" And what else did I say earlier? Oh yeah... Another "expert" will cry crocodile tears saying that if ONLY one of the victims had been armed and could have prevented this! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted June 18, 2015 Author Share Posted June 18, 2015 Seli,See my later post;In fairness, maybe he wasn't nuts. Maybe he was as big a racist scumbag as he appears at first glance. Even worse maybe my my own first instinct to declare him "nuts" is a glaring sign of my own bias. Edited by Ser Scot A Ellison, 21 minutes ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seli Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 Seli,See my later post; Yes, should have read more before reacting. It is so easy to just blame incidents like these on something that is wrong with the individual, because that allows us to other the crimes and ignore the environment that make them possible. It is an easy reflex in all of us, and something we should be aware of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebla Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 In a "you have to laugh to keep from crying" way, I present you the Charleston Post and Courier who placed a gun ad sticker over the story of the church massacre. http://tktk.gawker.com/charleston-newspaper-puts-gun-ad-over-shooting-massacre-1712249260 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanteGabriel Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 Re: arming everyone to prevent massacres: not sure the Fox News crowd has thought this through. I doubt the typical Fox viewer wants more armed black people. Fear of black people exercising their 2nd Amendment rights, after all, is why then-Governor Ronald Reagan signed California's highly restrictive gun laws into being. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Talleyrand Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 After looking at the Fox news thing and comments all around the web I'm becoming increasingly more thankful that the UK's response to Dunblane was Snowdrop rather than to advocate for some "polite society" where everyone is so fucking terrified of each other that everyone has to be armed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commodore Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 how often does something of this scale with this motivation happen in the US? Once in a decade? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Littlefingers In The Air Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 Oh, try the entire history of the nation, in one way or another, Commodore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanteGabriel Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 how often does something of this scale with this motivation happen in the US? Once in a decade? Racist violence against black people? Even you aren't this dense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The guy from the Vale Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 TgftV,Should he be held for domestic terrorism?Why shouldn't he? Wasn't his white nationalist ideology most probably the driving reason for committing a similar act that if driven by another ideology (namely, Islamism or Arabic Nationalism) would have him tried for terrorism? And wasn't he committing an act of terrorism against the black population of South Carolina, killing one of their political spokespeople in the process? Alas, I'm not hlding my breath. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanteGabriel Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 The excellent Charles P. Pierce: What happened in a church in Charleston, South Carolina on Wednesday night is a lot of things, but one thing it's not is "unthinkable." Somebody thought long and hard about it. Somebody thought to load the weapon. Somebody thought to pick the church. Somebody thought to sit, quietly, through some of Wednesday night bible study. Somebody thought to stand up and open fire, killing nine people, including the pastor. Somebody reportedly thought to leave one woman alive so she could tell his story to the world. Somebody thought enough to flee. What happened in that church was a lot of things, but unthinkable is not one of them. What happened in a Charleston church on Wednesday night is a lot of things, but one thing it's not is "unspeakable." We should speak of it often. We should speak of it loudly. We should speak of it as terrorism, which is what it was. We should speak of it as racial violence, which is what it was. We should speak of it as an attack on history, which it was. 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. We should speak of it as an assault on the idea of a political commonwealth, which is what it was. And we should speak of it as one more example of all of these, another link in a bloody chain of events that reaches all the way back to African wharves and Southern docks. It is not an isolated incident, not if you consider history as something alive that can live and breathe and bleed. We should speak of all these things. What happened in that church was a lot of things, but unspeakable is not one of them. Not to think about these things is to betray the dead. Not to speak of these things is to dishonor them. Let Nikki Haley, the governor of South Carolina, look out her window at the flag of treason that is flown proudly at her state capitol and think about these things, and speak of them, before she pronounces herself so puzzled at how something like this could happen in South Carolina, the home office of American sedition. http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a35793/charleston-shooting-discussion/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commodore Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 Why shouldn't he? Wasn't his white nationalist ideology most probably the driving reason for committing a similar act that if driven by another ideology (namely, Islamism or Arabic Nationalism) would have him tried for terrorism? And wasn't he committing an act of terrorism against the black population of South Carolina, killing one of their political spokespeople in the process? Alas, I'm not hlding my breath. I think he should and will be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted June 18, 2015 Author Share Posted June 18, 2015 DG,Please see the inumerable threads and discussion on secession on why flying a confederate flag is not a banner of "treason". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Humble AK Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 Go check any Fox News article on the subject, particularly the one on Facebook. Their followers are already making this argument.This is exhausting. I guess it is simply beyond my ability to relate in any way to this mindset. It seems that it virtually demands escalation (it is an attitude of fear, that anyone could potentially have a gun and use it to prey on anyone without a gun, so everyone should have a gun to defend themselves, a MAD gone mad), and this idealized degree of escalation is not just unrealistic, it is terrifying.Do people who advocate this position of everyone being armed ever mentally simulate what that would really be like? Suddenly, everyone around you has the ability to immediately instigate a situation that imperils a lot of people. Adults are carrying guns, kids are carrying guns, and when it comes down to it, most people don't exercise the best judgment at all times. And everyone knows this. And that is an atmosphere of constant terror. I don't know why anyone would find that appealing.Actually, scratch that, I kind of do. I think people have this romantic perception of themselves as the 'hero', the cool collected cowboy who spots the villian harming another and, as a hero, they are able to effectively and effortlessly take care of the problem by gunning down the villian. And they associate this purely with the ability a gun gives you to equilize the power differential in a confrontation.And I think reality and this idea of reality that advocates have are two very different things. And we see this with the horror that is wrought every day by the misuse of firearms.I don't know. Am I off here? What really is the mindset behind the those who are against gun regulations? I'm really interested. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanteGabriel Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 DG,Please see the inumerable threads and discussion on secession on why flying a confederate flag is not a banner of "treason". I remember the threads. I simply disagree. The Confederate flag is the flag of traitors who went to war to defend their right to own and abuse other humans. Deny it all you want, Scot, doesn't make it less true to people who haven't been conditioned in "Southern pride." I don't know. Am I off here? What really is the mindset behind the those who are against gun regulations? I'm really interested. Well, a lot of it comes from the dominant founding cultures of the American South -- Scottish and Irish borderlanders who came from a chaotic and war-torn region of the world and resolved disputes with violence; and slavelords who were vastly outnumbered by the humans they owned and oppressed, who used a monopoly of violence to maintain their dominance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted June 18, 2015 Author Share Posted June 18, 2015 DG,So, you're right and I'm wrong with no basis for the position that the choice to secede, while made for stupid and immoral reasons, has a legal basis and was therefore not really "treasonous"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Summah Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 So confederate flags are just a symbol of racism then? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanteGabriel Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 DG,So, you're right and I'm wrong with no basis for the position that the choice to secede, while made for stupid and immoral reasons, has a legal basis and was therefore not really "treasonous"? I'm saying that goddamn flag has barbaric historical associations you can't just wish away with a bunch of lawyered-up arguments about whether or not the Constitution permits states to secede from the Union. Be an armchair secessionist all you want, but you will NEVER erase the stain from that fucking flag. Come up with a different symbol to represent your cause -- not one that racist murderers mount on their cars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commodore Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 Racist violence against black people? Even you aren't this dense. Pre-meditated, indiscriminate mass murder based on race is a rare occurrence in the US Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanteGabriel Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 Pre-meditated, indiscriminate mass murder based on race is a rare occurrence in the US So we should only care because this guy managed to kill a lot of people at once? Fatal violence against black people is not at all rare, and you fucking well know it, so I wonder what point you are trying to get to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.