This guy sounds brainwashed. Evil thrives in such an atmosphere.
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Mr. Roof “had that kind of Southern pride, I guess some would say — strong conservative beliefs,”
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Just to be clear. This is not part of “southern pride” nor conservative beliefs.
Anyone else remember this church shooting? (UUs don’t get much air play.) Another politically motivated whack job.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knoxville_Unitarian_Universalist_church_shooting
It is not clear that he wasn’t influenced by a group. If we can have closet jihadists living “amongst us” in their parents’ basements and consider them to be terrorists because they acted in concert with the ideals of a larger movement, then how does that not describe this guy? The internet makes group affiliation pretty streamlined these days.
At first I thought, this was more like a Newtown, socially awkward, mental issues, etc, and that may be the case. However, the more people that knew him talk about him, and based on what he said before he started shooting, the more I think, nah, he was a just a flat out racist, so lets call a spade a spade. Again, if Muslims had done this to a synagogue, it would be called a terrorist attack.
@albert69 When I say regulations, I mean that gun shops should delve deep into their client’s past before selling a firearm to them. With his past, why on earth would they sell it to him?
He could have killed with a knife, but that wouldn’t have garnered as many causalities.
“If we can have closet jihadists living “amongst us” in their parents’ basements and consider them to be terrorists because they acted in concert with the ideals of a larger movement, then how does that not describe this guy?”
One doesn’t need to even be in the closet in South Carolina. Lots of out in the open hate groups there.
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/06/south-carolina-is-home-to-at-least-19-known-hate-groups/
It’s abundantly clear that this was primarily a racial hate crime, and it should be covered as such. There is certainly evidence that it was also a religious hate crime. The killer targeted people at a church. If he had targeted people of Arabic descent in a mosque, raving about “Arabs” rather than Muslims, people would still have, rightly, considered it a hate crime based on religion.
The killer sat among these people, who probably welcomed him graciously to their Bible study group, for an hour as they, presumably, discussed Bible verses and prayed. Then he killed them.
"I mean that gun shops should delve deep into their client’s past before selling a firearm to them. With his past, why on earth would they sell it to him?
He could have killed with a knife, but that wouldn’t have garnered as many causalities."
His father gave him the gun for a birthday present.
I can't see calling this a religious hate crime. He didn't go to a black church to kill people because he wanted to kill churchgoers. He wanted to kill black people. Where else would you find a group of people so at their most unguarded and defenseless?
There ought to be serious soul-searching among all the racist hate-spewers in America over this.
" I do believe that religious hatred existed here."
If I had to put money on it I would bet Dylann Roof was Christian.
I don’t think this has anything to do even remotely related to religion. Just that a black church was an easy place to kill a bunch of black people.
There is a long history of racist attacks on black churches.
Why of course! Because all attacks on Christians in this country are motivated by the belief that Christians are “rapists” who are “taking over their [attacker’s] country”.
If the killer claims to be Christian, he is like the killers who shoot innocent people in mosques but claim to be Muslim themselves. Both types are full of religious hatred that is incompatible with the religion that they claim to follow.
“Both types are full of religious hatred that is incompatible with the religion that they claim to follow.”
No. He didn’t kill them because they are Christian. He killed them because they are black.
Exactly. It’s not a coincidence that he chose a black church rather than a white church. He wanted to find a large group of black people all in one place. And of course he comes from a Christian background himself. (Does anyone think he comes from a Jewish or Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist family?)
I agree that he killed them because they were black. As I said before, I think that is abundantly clear. However, there is certainly evidence of religious hatred as well. A person like him is obviously capable of exhibiting more than one type of hate at the same time. In any case, hate crime charges are a given, as they should be.
My questions are: Do we have the national resolve to pass laws to try to keep dangerous people from getting weapons that will allow them to kill people easily? How do we identify such people? Is there anything we can do to stop parents from giving their children (often adolescent and early adult males) non-hunting type guns as gifts?
I am a SC resident . It has been a terrible day here, very emotional to say the least . I’ve spent the day following the story , as well as reading the many posts on CC. I am very dismayed about what has gone on today in this state, but reading so many of these posts calling this person mentally ill frustrates me greatly. Many people making this assessment have very little experience or exposure to the mentally ill population. I’ve worked with mentally ill people for over 30 years . It has been my experience that most of the violence by mentally ill people is turned inward not to the community . You just don’t hear about those cases. By all accounts , this was a planned , controlled
And calculated act. Someone experiencing a psychotic break rarely has the organizational capacity to plan and carry out such an attack. I know it makes many feel better to think that only" crazy people" who could commit such an act, but the reality of the situation is evil is alive and well and it has nothing to do with mental illness.
carolinamom2boys – My heart goes out to you and other South Carolina folks, especially those in Charleston. If it’s any consolation, most of the comments that I have read in the North Carolina media are not focused on mental illness. Rather, I have seen more references to his acts as “evil” or “terrorism”.
Count me as one who sees very little evidence of hatred of Christians and lots of evidence of racism. When he said that “you” are raping our women, does anyone really think the “you” refers to Christians?
He wanted to kill black people, so he went to a black church on a Wednesday night. I see no evidence of anti-religious sentiment but plenty of evidence of calculation, shrewdness, and hatred.
@marsian thanks for your kind words. It is a sad day here. Very thankful that it was handled as quickly , efficiently and compassionately as it was. I would like to feel that SC as a whole mourns the loss no matter what race or religion one practices. NC acted quickly , responsibly and because of this he was caught before any further damage occurred .
“Do we have the national resolve to pass laws to try to keep dangerous people from getting weapons that will allow them to kill people easily? How do we identify such people? Is there anything we can do to stop parents from giving their children (often adolescent and early adult males) non-hunting type guns as gifts?”
Isn’t if obvious by now we are not going to pass any laws to keep dangerous people from getting guns? “Our” answer to the problem is to put more guns into the hands of people.