# Charleston, SC church shooting **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 18, 2015, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charleston-sc-church-shooting/722823 "2015-06-18T04:15:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2015, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charleston-sc-church-shooting/722823/81 "2015-06-18T17:56:56Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Yep. This is a guy whose classmates (some of them, at least) didn’t think was racist despite openly admitting that he made frequent racist jokes. They’re products of the same environment, remember. By their standards, he may \*not \*have seemed any more racist than the rest of them. Also remember that the surest sign that somebody is racist is when they say “I’m not racist, but …” ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2015, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charleston-sc-church-shooting/722823/82 "2015-06-18T18:01:06Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally Posted by dalej42 > It might turn out that the shooter was looking for the AMC theatre rather than the AME church. > [@wevets](#): > > The shooter attended a meeting at the church for almost an hour before opening fire [http://bigstory.ap.org/article/64d056ca77824bcd9c6da1d8870ac551/police-chief-suspect-attended-church-meeting-stayed-nearly](http://bigstory.ap.org/article/64d056ca77824bcd9c6da1d8870ac551/police-chief-suspect-attended-church-meeting-stayed-nearly) Perhaps he was annoyed that he didn’t get to see _Jurassic World._ ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2015, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charleston-sc-church-shooting/722823/83 "2015-06-18T18:09:44Z")
Paraphrased----\> “I’m going to spare you, so you can tell others what happened.” Sounds like this kid watched a bit too much Natural Born Killers. Looking at pictures of this guy he strikes me as a social outcast, misanthropic-type, I mean how could you not be with that haircut. Shootings like this always strikes me as odd in the sense that how could you be so disaffected by such a young age that besides the obvious of murdering innocent people, you are also more than willing to throw away your own life or freedom. Obviously the guy was racist but at a psychological level I wonder if really that was really just an excuse to justify what he really wanted to do which was kill a lot of people. There are a lot of racists out there but most of them don’t go around killing the people that they hate. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2015, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charleston-sc-church-shooting/722823/84 "2015-06-18T18:13:16Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > See also this [photo](http://a5.img.talkingpointsmemo.com/image/upload/w_652/p9vtzvyatej11ybxux1n.jpg). Well, in that one he looks just like a common wuss who happens to drive a Hyundai with “confederate pride” plates. The one with the [Apartheid/Rhodesian flags](http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/dylann-roof-white-supremacist-patches) however would indeed concern me. It’s one thing for any Southern boy to go around acting all “Rebel” being raised in the environment. However you have to have a certain worrisome mentality to _deliberately_ seek and embrace what those two \*foreign \*flags represent. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2015, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charleston-sc-church-shooting/722823/85 "2015-06-18T18:16:57Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > Super duper more important than the thousands of other people murdered today. Let’s talk about nothing but this for 2 weeks. OK, which of the other people murdered today _should_ we talk about? Is your position that we should only talk about murders if they _didn’t_ involve a firearm? Give us some clarity here. If you’re saying we should say as little as possible about the shooter, I’m good with that. There’s little reason, AFAIAC, to discuss each particular shooter, or his motivations. The less I see of his name or face, the better. There are a plethora of reasons that some bozo decides to pick up a gun and shoot a whole slew of people - one for each bozo, I expect. But there’s only one reason why they can actually _do_ it. Would it hurt your feelings if, rather than giving the shooter his more-than-15-minutes of fame, we talked about that instead? OK, I see you attempted to answer some of this, before I even asked. > [@](#): > > We choose where we put our focus. We decide that 99.9% of thetragedies and suffering and horrible shit in the world aren’t worthy of our attention. Again, which ones should we be talking about? > [@](#): > > But we perversely choose to focus on these sorts of incidents as being worthy of our attention. We choose to spend our attention on one of the very few crimes that’s done specifically because they seek our attention. First of all, the murder of nine people at once is pretty shocking. And of course, there is the “this happened in our country, so we pay more attention than if it happened in Laos” reality of life. So a mass killing that happens in the U.S. is inherently pretty newsworthy to Americans. I don’t see how you bury a story like that. And I can’t speak for everyone, but in cases of individual murders, I’m willing to grant some weight to the argument that if the killer hadn’t used a gun, he could have used a knife or whatever. But it’s damned hard to kill nine people at once without using either explosives or a firearm. So in these cases, yes, the thing that pops into my mind isn’t “I want to see this guy strung up,” but “I sure wish we could do something to keep the next mass killing from happening.” And it’s not like there aren’t lots of things we could try. > [@](#): > > They come with a perk - you get to chastise all of those evil stupid gun owners for enabling this tragedy to happen. Why does this tragedy trump a thousand other tragedies that happened today? Because you don’t get to say “I told you so” at the end of those. I don’t want to say “I told you so.” I long to see the opportunity to say “I told you so” _simply go away._ We can’t fix everything in the whole damn world. There’s 7 billion human beings on this planet, and only 300 million Americans, and we can’t police the world. Like it or not, some people on the far side of the world are going to have to fix their own damn problems. Occasionally we can help, although IMHO we’re pretty bad at that. But this is _our_ problem, not someone else’s. Damn straight we should pay some attention to its more severe consequences. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2015, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charleston-sc-church-shooting/722823/86 "2015-06-18T18:20:07Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > The only domestic terrorist was Timothy McVeigh, and his motives were political, not religious. And the Unabomber. And the guy who killed Lincoln. And the guy who killed King. And the guy… ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2015, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charleston-sc-church-shooting/722823/87 "2015-06-18T18:21:44Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > Well, in that one he looks just like a common wuss who happens to drive a Hyundai with “confederate pride” plates. The one with the [Apartheid/Rhodesian flags](http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/dylann-roof-white-supremacist-patches) however would indeed concern me. It’s one thing for any Southern boy to go around acting all “Rebel” being raised in the environment. However you have to have a certain worrisome mentality to _deliberately_ seek and embrace what those two \*foreign \*flags represent. Some Southern boys who embrace the confederate flag are just idiots who are recklessly but not purposefully conveying a racist message. True. And choosing the flag of Rhodesia seems pretty purposeful. So that is indeed a difference. I posted the photo mostly just to point out that it’s not like it’s just outsiders drawing this connection. What’s-his-name was, at a minimum, embracing both the flag of Rhodesia and the confederate flag. > [@pool](#): > > Obviously the guy was racist but at a psychological level I wonder if really if that was really just an excuse to justify what he really wanted to do which was kill a lot of people. There are a lot of racists out there but most of them don’t go around killing the people that they hate. Not disagreeing, but curious about whether you asked the same questions about someone like Tamerlan Tsarnaev. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2015, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charleston-sc-church-shooting/722823/88 "2015-06-18T18:25:19Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > And the Unabomber. And the guy who killed Lincoln. And the guy who killed King. And the guy… … and McVeigh. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2015, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charleston-sc-church-shooting/722823/89 "2015-06-18T18:38:27Z")
Some conservative [leaders](http://www.mediaite.com/tv/lindsey-graham-charleston-shooter-may-have-been-looking-for-christians-to-kill/) [seem](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/06/18/rick-santorum-reacting-to-charleston-shooting-denounces-assaults-on-our-religious-liberty/) to [want](http://mediamatters.org/video/2015/06/18/foxs-steve-doocy-its-extraordinary-that-charles/204043) to downplay the white supremacist motivations here, suggesting this might have been as much about attacking Christians as attacking African-Americans. Curious. ---
**Author:** ![yanceylebeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yanceylebeef/32/12290_2.png) [@yanceylebeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yanceylebeef)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2015, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charleston-sc-church-shooting/722823/90 "2015-06-18T18:40:05Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > And the Unabomber. And the guy who killed Lincoln. And the guy who killed King. And the guy… Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols, Wade Michael Page, Eric Rudolph, Scott Roeder, John Allen Muhammad. Terrorists, every one of them. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2015, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charleston-sc-church-shooting/722823/91 "2015-06-18T18:42:23Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > You know, if someone shot up, say, a synagogue or a mosque, no-one here would be doubting that it was a racially or religiously motivated attack. I don’t think there is any doubt, really. Some people probably don’t like the guessing before there are any facts, but really, shooting 9 people in a church is very unlikely to have any other reason. ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2015, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charleston-sc-church-shooting/722823/92 "2015-06-18T18:47:12Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > You know, if someone shot up, say, a synagogue or a mosque, no-one here would be doubting that it was a racially or religiously motivated attack. Maybe or maybe not. Some of the “church shootings” I know of grew out of failed romances and the killer deciding to basically “murder and suicide by cop” but changing their minds about the second part after a few rounds. Three of those tickle the back of my brain somewhere as I’m typing this. My knee-jerk is any shooting is romance/domestic first, employment second - race is a fair bit further down the list. But to be honest, all I’m really feeling right now is sadness. (In case I don’t come back to debate the point) ---
**Author:** ![yanceylebeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yanceylebeef/32/12290_2.png) [@yanceylebeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yanceylebeef)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2015, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charleston-sc-church-shooting/722823/93 "2015-06-18T18:51:48Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > I don’t think there is any doubt, really. Some people probably don’t like the guessing before there are any facts, but really, shooting 9 people in a church is very unlikely to have any other reason. Bullshit. This church was targeted and burned years ago for simply being a black church. Was that an attack on religion? The fact that you can’t bring yourself to call this what it is speaks volumes. ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2015, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charleston-sc-church-shooting/722823/94 "2015-06-18T18:52:44Z")
**Richard Parker** , No I didn’t ask that question, But I’m definitely open to the possibility that more of a psychological antisocial desire to hurt people played a more important role than a purely fanatic Muslim ideology alone. I tend to feel that way a lot about young people that get busted by say the FBI for planning a terror attack. Both play a part but I feel like maybe the political/religious/racial aspect of these crimes seems somehow peripheral in a way to me a lot of the time as opposed to a case like Major Nidal Hassan, who seemed professionally successful, nonviolent, and normal but over time developed a twisted viewpoint I would wager that this recent shooter probably had antisocial or Oppositional/Defiant type problems even when he was a child. I’m not excusing or absolving him, this was a cowardly, racist, terroristic act, I just wonder what role a possible general "I hate the World type attitude/personality mental issues could have played and how large a part. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2015, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charleston-sc-church-shooting/722823/95 "2015-06-18T18:53:08Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Some conservative [leaders](http://www.mediaite.com/tv/lindsey-graham-charleston-shooter-may-have-been-looking-for-christians-to-kill/) [seem](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/06/18/rick-santorum-reacting-to-charleston-shooting-denounces-assaults-on-our-religious-liberty/) to [want](http://mediamatters.org/video/2015/06/18/foxs-steve-doocy-its-extraordinary-that-charles/204043) to downplay the white supremacist motivations here, suggesting this might have been as much about attacking Christians as attacking African-Americans. > > Curious. And I was _just_ about to post something about being surprised that no one is twisting it into an “Assault On Religion” by those that aren’t religious. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2015, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charleston-sc-church-shooting/722823/96 "2015-06-18T19:00:31Z")
He was a terrorist. How do I know? _He wanted to instill terror_. RFK summed things up pretty well, a few years back after MLK was killed: This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for politics. Whenever any American’s life is taken by another American unnecessarily - whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence - whenever we tear at the fabric of life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded. Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire weapons and ammunition they desire. Too often we honor swagger and bluster and the wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach nonviolence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them. Some looks for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear; violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleaning of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul. For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly, destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is a slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2015, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charleston-sc-church-shooting/722823/97 "2015-06-18T19:01:02Z")
> [@yanceylebeef](#): > > Bullshit. This church was targeted and burned years ago for simply being a black church. Was that an attack on religion? The fact that you can’t bring yourself to call this what it is speaks volumes. What are you blabbering about? This is the post to which I was responding: “You know, if someone shot up, say, a synagogue or a mosque, no-one here would be doubting that it was **a racially or religiously motivated attack**.” Bolding mine. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2015, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charleston-sc-church-shooting/722823/98 "2015-06-18T19:01:34Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Perhaps he was annoyed that he didn’t get to see _Jurassic World._ That’s pretty tasteless, don’t you think? ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2015, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charleston-sc-church-shooting/722823/99 "2015-06-18T19:02:21Z")
This guy is going to wish he got taken out in a gun battle after a little while in lock-up. What a tool. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2015, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charleston-sc-church-shooting/722823/100 "2015-06-18T19:02:59Z")
BREAKING NEWS: Charleston police dispatch says bomb threat called in around 1:46 p.m. at Morris Brown AME Church, 13 Morris St., site of vigil for ‪#‎CharlestonShooting‬. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charleston-sc-church-shooting/722823.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charleston-sc-church-shooting/722823.md?page=6)