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Dylann Roof is pictured in this undated photo taken from his Facebook account. Roof is suspected of fatally shooting nine people at a historically black South Carolina church in Charleston on June 18, 2015. He can be seen in his Facebook profile picture in a jacket that bears the flags of apartheid-era South Africa (top) and the former Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.

Those are the words [allegedly] spoken by the South Carolina church shooter Dylann Roof before he opened fire and killed nine church-goers, according to a witness who spoke to NBC. No surprise, then, that the Department of Justice is investigating the shooting as a hate crime. foxnews.com reports that “In addition to the Facebook picture [above which they say reveals an introvert but may well indicate prescription drug abuse], Roof was known to drive around with a Confederate flag on his license plate, which is not unusual in the south. A friend reportedly posted a picture on Facebook of Roof sitting on the hood of a black car with the plate that read, ‘Confederate States of America.'” And yet . . .

Some friends say they did not know him to be racist. One friend from White Knoll High School said Roof had black friends. The Daily Beast reported that many of his friends on Facebook are also black.

“I never heard him say anything, but just he had that kind of Southern pride, I guess some would say. Strong conservative beliefs,” John Mullins, who went to school with Roof, told The Daily Beast. “He made a lot of racist jokes, but you don’t really take them seriously like that. You don’t really think of it like that.”

Mullins, however, told the news site that Roof used drugs.

“He was like a pill popper, from what I understand. Like Xanax, and stuff like that,” he said.

Reuters reports that Roof’s uncle Carson Cowles was “concerned” about his nephew several years ago, because he “stayed in his room a lot of the time.” He tried to “mentor” his nephew, but that didn’t work out. Obviously.

Cowles also revealed that his Dylann’s father gave him a .45-caliber pistol for his 21st birthday.

“I actually talked to him on the phone briefly for just a few moments [some time before the shooting] and he was saying, ‘well I’m outside target practicing with my new gun.'”

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120 COMMENTS

  1. F@#k this little troll. I pray for the lost and their families and swift application of justice….however subjective that may be.

    • Don’t feel bad for those who lost their lives. I’m pretty sure that getting shot during a Wednesday night bible study qualifies you for the fast pass through those pearly gates. They aren’t sad right now and we shouldn’t feel sad for them either.

      Their families and loved ones, on the other hand, I do feel great compassion for. They are the ones hurting today, and i wish that wasn’t the case.

      • I understand your statements, completely and in depth. Afraid the majority hanging-out here will mis-understand and let you know about it.

  2. Let’s play a twist on Hunger Games called “Prison B!tch”. put him in the cellblock with the Homies and the Black Muslims in prison. Wonder if he makes it through the night

    • night? 15 minutes maybe until breathing stops…consciousness was over within the first 60 seconds.

    • “… put him in the cellblock with the Homies and the Black Muslims in prison.”

      He’s gonna be a *very* popular guy in the prison general population…

      I predict something like this will go down:

    • Good job playing up stereotypes. HURRRR BLACK PPL IN PRISON WILL RAEP HIM GOOD HE DESERVES IT AMIRITE WHT PPL????????

      I’d argue that you’re no better than the deranged lunatic. I’d also argue that, barring adverse reactions to whatever medication cocktail he was chugging, at least he had the courage and strength of will to act out his convictions, as opposed to lurking online comment sections waiting for a chance to spout off prison rape jokes.

      • So someone making a joke on the internet is no better than someone walking into a church and straight-up murdering people?

        Sounds like you have some issues…

      • James Sorry, “I’d also argue that, barring adverse reactions to whatever medication cocktail he was chugging, at least he had the courage and strength of will to act out his convictions”
        But he had no courage (unarmed victims) they are not convictions when you blame any group of people for a criminal element of the same group. If he wanted to go after rapist’s or some other boogeyman I am sure he would not find them in church (and he shot females? how do they rape ladies?)
        As to the drugs that is not an excuse, drunk drivers do not get to blame the substance that caused the criminal act.
        I have seen some rumor that he was conservative, What bull Conservatives believe in the RULE as well as the SPIRIT of the LAW.
        Confederate Flags are no more guilty of the crime than the gun that was used is.
        This person with his sad and twisted cause or so called beliefs IS THE GUILTY PARTY.
        SC has the death penalty so let the law take it’s course as to a insanity plea he went through to many steps to claim that.
        I grieve and pray for the families of those lost to a criminal act.
        Yours in service
        James Acerra

        • Wow, the way you capitalize random words is really convincing. I’ll TOTALLY have to START doing THAT.

  3. “Some friends say they did not know him to be racist…”

    Then either they didn’t know him that well (or knew him awhile ago) or their perception of racist is skewed. Then again if you think the confederate flag has no overtones of race…

    • …then you probably aren’t from the south. The flag stood for ‘rebelious pride’ far more often than ‘racist,’ until a concerted effort to expunge it starting in the 90’s or so conflated it solely with race, regardless of context. That’s why the Gadsen flag has become so popular, because the stars and bars have been utterly soiled (by yankees ;)). It meant a proud legacy for a lot more folks than ever saw it as a banner for racism, and I think efforts to erase and denigrate it are equally motivated by both. Lotta yankees think the south should be taken down a peg, even today.

      • And notice how the Gadsden flag is being villainized by the left since it dares to stand for something other than statist might and subservience to tyranny.

      • Oh, please, spare us your revisionism. It’s like a muslim waving an ISIS flag 200 years from now and claiming it’s about Arab pride. The confederacy only formed because of slavery. Anything else is simple revisionism. If you want to find out, just read the Cornerstone Speech. It says all you need to know about the confederacy. To claim it’s something other than that is simple ignorance, willful or otherwise.

        • I always enjoy the great skill people on this blog have for reducing complex events to cartoon simplicity.

          The great HL Meneken (a journalist with a nasty attitude toward everything) once wrote, “For every complicated question there is an answer that is elegant, attractive, simple AND WRONG.)

        • We don’t really need to argue about this because the Confederate states had written down their reasons when they seceded. Mississippi was the most blunt:

          “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.”

          But virtually every other state that seceded referenced slavery and the attitude of the free states and the federal government towards it as their primary reason for secession. I don’t see why I shouldn’t trust their confession.

        • Yes, the proximate cause was slavery and advancing slavery into new territories/states.

          A. Under the US constitution at the time, slavery WAS LEGAL. Slave states were LEGALLY exercising their God-given, natural, civil rights protected by the US constitution.

          B. There was no legislation pending that would deprive the current slave states from continuing to LAWFULLY practice slavery forever.

          C. There was legislation targeting the LIMITATION of slavery into new states and territories.

          D. Northern abolitionists (who were not integrationists) were actively trying to support legislation to end slavery in every state in the union, making post facto that which was legal, non-legal.

          E. Slave states rebelled at the idea the national government could impose limits to commerce within the individual states, essentially removing the rights of states to determine what happened within their SOVEREIGN borders. In those days, the common apprehension of the constitution was that the government, meaning legislature, could not deprive states of the right to conduct their own affairs without the passing of a constitutional amendment. Given the political climate at the time, the slave states believed that slavery would be eliminated, and therefore they undertook to remove themselves from a compact they deemed unlawful and ruinous. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court told A. Lincoln that if the slave states sued the government he (Justice) could not guarantee the outcome Lincoln wanted because the slave states were doing nothing illegal. The principle of perpetual union was a fairly new construct in 1860. So, it was the right of states to operate slavery legally under the constitution that was the issue, not the morality of slavery.

        • >> Under the US constitution at the time, slavery WAS LEGAL. Slave states were LEGALLY exercising their God-given, natural, civil rights protected by the US constitution.

          There is no natural, civil or God-given right to own slaves. Writing down such a “right” doesn’t make it natural. It is an abomination that is in obvious contradiction to the real natural individual rights (you know, that whole “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” thing).

          So you’re trying to make a purely legalistic argument on a subject of ethics and morality. Just to show you how stupid that is, consider the fact that under the German law in 1930-40s, extermination camps were legal. They were just exercising their rights, yes?

          >> Northern abolitionists (who were not integrationists) were actively trying to support legislation to end slavery in every state in the union, making post facto that which was legal, non-legal.

          This conveniently ignores the fact that it was the slave states that actively pushed enforcement of slavery on the free states by means such as the Fugitive Slave Act – and unlike the abolitionists’ attempts, it actually passed – and the free states were so affected. And when free states tried to obstruct and nullify it by refusing to assist and even actively resisting efforts to recover fugitive states from their territory, the slave states had the audacity to bring that up as the infringement on their rights in their declarations of secession, right alongside all the bitching about their states’ rights. “Sovereign borders” my ass! Confederates were quite happy to use federal power to override state sovereignty to protect their interests.

          it was the right of states to operate slavery legally under the constitution that was the issue, not the morality of slavery.

          There is no way to decouple the morality of slavery from this argument. If slavery is fundamentally immoral and harmful – and it is, if you believe in natural rights – then by all rights it should be made illegal, just as murder is illegal. When Confederates withdrew from the Union in fear of having their immoral practices declared illegal (through legitimate democratic procedures and rule of law, I must add), they were morally wrong. They were also legally wrong, because they simply didn’t have any legitimate sovereignty, seeing how they had significant minorities (and in some cases, majorities) who were not only oppressed, but had no representation in the government whatsoever. Ten white guys can’t decide to secede on behalf of twenty black guys that they own as slaves.

        • Yes, a completely legalistic argument. Else we have the bully-of-the-day dictating what is moral and what is not. The slave states were within their God-given, constitutional rights. That was the argument. The slave state solution was to say, “If ya’ll wanna go all moralistic on us, well then, goodbye. We doan wanna be associated with people like you, we want our own country and gub’ment.” At the time, secession (an idea originated by Massachusetts during the War of 1812) was not specifically prohibited, nor was it speciffically allowed by the constitution. The issue had been debated since the founding, but not resolved….and then it was resolved by force of arms (might makes right). Those in the country who wanted to abolish the immorality of slavery were welcomed to do so through changes in law, however, they couldn’t get the required votes (but times were a’changin’). Slave states simply wanted no more harassment on the issue and believed the peaceful solution was to secede. BTW, the economics of slavery were so decidedly negative, the slave-states would likely have disintegrated of their own accord. There would have been slavery for decades more, but the battle/disease deaths of 600,000 Americans might have been prevented. We can never know how any of that would have played out. Now, the fact is that if the hotheads in Charleston harbor had not determined to prove to the ‘Yankees’ that southern states were militarily superior, and had an attack not happened on a US facility (de facto attack and aggression against the US), it might have been that the Confederacy would have been established. Many in the North were just as happy to “be quit” of the slave states. In the end, we have laws here, and moral or not, they are the law until changed by different law, else we have perpetual revolution wherein one faction seeks government force to subjugate others deemed immoral.

        • Can you cite the law that enabled states to secede, for starters? Amending the Constitution, for example, is covered by the Constitution itself. But it doesn’t contain any procedure for leaving the Union.

          Consequently, secession was an inherently a-legal activity, and legalistic arguments cannot apply. It can only be judged on moral basis – whether it increased or decreased the infringement on natural rights. It’s fairly obvious, seeing how slavery is one big infringement on such rights, that it was increased by secession.

          And stop calling it their God-given constitutional rights, for Christ’s sake. Once again: just because it’s written in the Constitution, by men, doesn’t make it God-given or natural.

        • As I noted earlier, the constitution is silent on secession. The lack of an enumerated state right does not make it null. The constitution says that all, that is ALL rights not enumerated as granted to the central government remains with the states. The notation of God-given rights applied to slavery devolves from the fact that the constitution is centered on natural and God-given rights of people. 2A is not the sole, single and distinctly God-given right (self-defense).

          But let us move the conversation from slavery to gun rights.

          The constitution declares the right TKABA by the citizens of THE STATES. Comes now the fact that I find your insistence on having personal firearms to be morally objectionable (we cannot allow a “right” to continue to result in mass killings of “innocent victims”. Allowing anyone breathing to have a gun subjects everyone to the constant threat of being killed by use of a firearm. It is immoral to allow just anyone to decide to go on a killing spree that might not be possible except for firearms. Therefore, me and my political friends are going to overturn your right, and use police powers to do no-knock searches and seizures of your weapons. That is the law now (in this hypothetical). The law is changed and force-of-arms is on my side; you must comply, mustn’t you? No ? You believe the new laws are immoral as well as illegal? What are your options? (BTW, I also own the courts). The idea of what is moral is fluid in the affairs of man.

          It is a tragedy of our society that we believe or insist that law must be moral, just, fair, reasonable, objective, proper, useful and a whole host of other pipe-dream ideas. The law is the law and there are relatively few means of changing it.

          And just one more example of law trumping morality: abortion. Worse than slavery, about half the country supports and half does not. Yet, we simply allow the law to frustrate all efforts to end the murder factories because we either find abortion useful when circumstances make it so for us, or we rage into the wind to no avail. The country went to war with itself over slavery, but sanctioned infanticide has only a few adult casualties. Where is the morality?

        • The whole point of natural rights is that they are not dependent upon the public opinion. Indeed, that they are natural means that they exist even in the absence of the public! Just because a bunch of guys came together and wrote a bunch of bullshit down, and prefaced it with “here be our God-given rights”, doesn’t make them God-given.

          Obviously, RKBA is not the only natural right. Other such rights include the right to free speech, the right to own property, and, most crucially to this discussion, the right to own one’s body. The right to own other people, on the other hand, is not natural (and quite obviously contradicts all these other rights).

          Consequently, if the majority tries to take away a natural right of the minority, regardless of the means they use to do so (and ultimately all legal means boil down to violence, since violence is how the state enforces its laws), the minority is morally justified in resisting that, including violent resistance if necessary – and if the laws say otherwise, then fvck the laws, and good riddance. Warsaw ghetto uprising was illegal through and through, but any human being with a shred of decency in them would root for the Jews and not for the Nazis.

          But if the majority tries to take away something that is not a natural right – and especially if it tries, by force even, to prevent the taking of other people’s rights (e.g. in case of slavery, taking away the slaves’ right to life and liberty) – the minority, should it resist, does not have any moral high ground. The person who fights for greater individual rights and liberties is always right, period.

          Ultimately, your problem is that you cast the slavery issue in terms of abolitionists vs slavers, and utterly ignore the most affected party, namely the slaves. Once you account for that, there’s no ambiguity: everyone has natural rights, slavery is incompatible with those rights, hence, slavery is naturally immoral, and suppressing it by force is justified and moral, just as suppressing any other initiation of harm towards other people (like murder, or rape, or robbery) by force is justified and moral.

          As far as morality being fluid. It is true, but some parts of it are less fluid than the others, and when condensed to a very basic premise: “your freedom ends where mine begins, and vice versa”, hardly anyone will disagree. Slavery, in particular, is no more ambiguous than genocide or rape. It violates the freedom of the victim, and therefore it can never be right, and anyone – not just victim, but literally anyone – is justified to use lethal force to defend themselves and the others against it.

          As for abortion, it lies in the gray area of such morality because it hinges on the question of whether an embryo or a fetus has personhood and the rights associated with it. The dispute is not over the existence of these rights or their universal applicability to people, but over what makes a person. It’s not exactly surprising that a lump of cells that doesn’t even have a developed nervous system, for example, and thus doesn’t possess any consciousness or self-awareness, is not considered a person by most. And if it is not, then the natural rights and freedoms of the mother carrying said lump of cells is the only thing that matters.

        • My point in this was/is morality and law have little in common. Regardless of anyone’s sense of what is moral or not, the constitution was signed by delegates from each colony, regardless of whether anyone else at the signing liked the internal politics of the colonies. In other words the colonies were not prevented from becoming part of the union because of any particular internal principles. Indeed, there were theocracies who were included (because the constitution originally limited the central government not the states). Slavery was practiced in many colonies. The constitution did not address that fact except in limiting the ability of slave states to import more residents (slaves) and creating more congressional districts than the combined non-slave states. The morality of the founders did not count one way or the other regarding the existence of slavery. The slavery laws in the individual colonies (then states) were left untouched. Therefore, slavery was a legal enterprise. Again, morality (which depends on who has power to define and impose it) is/was not a contributing factor in deciding which colonies would be allowed into the union. My underlying point is that when a government decides to impose its morality on you/us, we have very few options (as the slave states believed in 1860. If I run the government, control the legislatures, courts and legislatures, I can declare your God-given rights null and void. Then what? You might be right, you might be morally superior. But what are your options. When government wants to force its citizens to do something, and the citizens believe they are ultimately powerless, it seems the only choices left are submission or rebellion. The slave states believed that was the situation and chose rebellion BTW, the Emancipation Proclamation applied ONLY to “the states currently in rebellion; there were slave states that did not secede. Thus, since the Confederacy considered itself a separate sovereign nation, proclamations in the US were null in the Confederacy; Lincoln accomplished nothing immediate, but did change the nature of the war from re-unification/preservation of the union to abolishing slavery, with re-unification a side-effect.

          So, if the government determines that what you are doing is no longer moral (listen carefully to the whining on the left), and they try to force you to comply (forfeit your firearms), what does screaming that the government is immoral do for anybody? People are fond of pointing out that “the pen is mightier than the sword”. The nation of Carthage had many people who could write and philosophize. And their philosophy was that Rome was an enemy to be defeated. The Romans finally answered with complete annihilation. When was the last time you saw an email from Carthage. Power makes might, might makes right. The moral high ground often makes for a convenient cemetery.

          We are truly at the point we found in 1860. One major part of the populace believes personal ownership of guns is immoral, the other disagrees. What happens when all the lawful channels are closed off for us?

        • Exactly. They rebelled because of the massive economic implications that would come from a cold-turkey ending of slavery.

        • Except nobody was trying to do that, Ben. They seceded based on the results of the election, assuming Lincoln was going to outlaw slavery. And it doesn’t matter whether it affected them or not. Waving the flag today has those implications, whether you like it or not.

          “The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions—African slavery as it exists among us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. ”

          ” It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with; but the general opinion of the men of that day was, that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away… Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of a Government built upon it—when the “storm came and the wind blew, it fell.”

          “Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition.”

          There can be no mistake about the attitude of the confederacy toward blacks, so don’t get your feelings hurt when people tell you that it’s idiotic to wave the flag that represents these statements.

        • I think all of y’all need to learn the actual history of the flag in question before arguing about it on the internet. What we consider the “confederate” flag today was never the national flag of the Confederacy. The only time it was ever used, in it’s modern form, by the Confederacy was as the 2nd Confederate Navy Jack from 1863-1865. The flag started out as the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia in 1861 and it was square, not rectangular.

        • What the flag has been historically doesn’t really matter. What matters is the symbolism that is ascribed to it today, by both users and opponents.

        • I agree. Knowing and putting things into their proper context violates my right to free speech, saying anything I want, any time, without knowing what I am talking about. Who cares what went on in 1860? All that matters is how we feel about it now.

        • This is what a Public School education gets you. Are you aware that when the war started, the Union had more Slave States than the Confederacy? NO? Didn’t think so….look it up.

          Half of the people in this discussion sound just like spoon fed Liberals. You should be ashamed of yourselves for spouting off nonsense rhetoric. I’ve never been so ashamed of TTAG commenters before.

    • I have to wonder what you would say to the black guy I knew in college who had a Confederate battle flag on his dorm room wall.

    • I watched CNN for about an hour this morning (11am MST and just to see what the left was spouting) and they were crying racism and hate crime for the first half, and then all about gun control with the Obama speech. If everything holds to be true about the .45 and all, I’m curious to see what legislation they try to pass.

      • Universal background checks for all private party transfers. After all, this gun was a gift from his father.

        Just don’t bother to ask how that would help prevent this idiot, with no criminal record or history of institutionalization, from getting a gun, because then they’ll have to pass the bill that puts anyone with antisocial beliefs on the prohibited person list. Antisocial beliefs like racism, sexism, homophobia, Christianity, individualism, conservativism, libertarianism, …

  4. Since he had been charged with a felony drug offense in March, and was awaiting trial, I wonder if his father broke the law by giving him that pistol?

    • The father should be charged as a Straw purchaser and serve the maximum jail time. I find it impossible he didn’t know about the pending felony drug case.

      • Probably not a straw purchase, Jeff. If the gun was purchased as a gift, it’s not a straw purchase and the buyer, not the person receiving the gift, is legally considered to be the “actual transferee/buyer.” It even says so on the 4473.

        • But it is still a transfer to a person he would have known is prohibited, which may or may not be illegal in that state. Here in Washington it is.

        • He bought the gun and gave it to an individual who would not have been legally allowed to possess it, because the perp had been charged with a felony for possession of coke and meth this past February.

        • Correct me if I’m wrong, but if the prosecutor cannot prove prior knowledge (by the father) of any disqualifying record his son may have, then the father cannot be prosecuted. Even if a gun is sold to a felon, if you have no reason to believe that they are prohibited, then you are clear in the eyes of the law. The felon will be charged for possession, though.

    • nope… only illegal if he was convicted.

      was it smart… hell no. but i would bet his love for his son blinded him from his condition.

      again there will be a rush to pass stupid laws that would not stop/save snyone. prices will explode again and inventories will dry up again.

      • Nope, it’s enough that he’s under indictment. Title 18 USC Section 922 (d):

        It shall be unlawful for any person to sell or otherwise dispose of any firearm or ammunition to any person knowing or having reasonable cause to believe that such person –

        (1) is under indictment for, or has been convicted in any court of, a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year;

  5. This is the most convenient, almost caricature like shooter for the leftist media to play off. After a string of 5 or 6 mass shooters who were Obama voting products of leftist families, here’s their poster child.

    So, get ready for the usual Soviet style media coverage: plastering this face everywhere and saying anyone who disagrees with Glorious Socialist Revolution is just like him.

  6. Great, another wannabe hero, cowardly murdering unarmed victims in a gun free zone. Sigh, somehow I’m sure this will be my fault, or the N.R.A.

    • Of course it is. When black people pillage and loot, they’re just oppressed youths acting out. When Muslims fly planes into buildings, kill artists, and murder Christians by the thousands, we have to bend over backwards not to offend Muslims.

      But when one white guy uses a gun to kill 9 people, you better believe it’s all our fault and we’re just as guilty.

      Left logic.

      • Wrong. This will peter out simply because there is someone to blame. The shooter’s suicide at Newtown is what made it so frustrating for the ‘feelers,’ who seek to evade the uncontrollable nature of life/man by punishing ‘somebody’ or banning courses of action. They have their whipping boy in the form of a lightbulb wearing a bowl, and when he is executed or killed in prison they will be happy. Same as how Aurora didn’t cause much by itself, because Carrot Job was still around.

        • I dunno. Colin Ferguson chose not to off himself after his shooting spree, and if I recall correctly, that certainly didn’t go out with a whimper.

  7. So the perpetrator had;
    – racial supremacist leanings
    – mental health issues
    – felony drug possession case
    – other criminal cases
    – gun looks like it was present from the father (so a possible straw purchase)

  8. This guy seems a lot like Adam Lanza as he spent a lot of time in isolation. The guy seems to be pretty doped up as well. I see that the parents got him a gun and into shooting, sort of like Lanza as well.
    I see that Obozo is already back on the gun control warpath, if he ever was off it. Never miss an opportunity. I am sure this is all my fault or the NRA”s.

    • Dunno about a warpath, he pretty much said he can’t do anything about gun control. His whole speech was just the usual blend of hitting the party points, pandering, and crocodile tears.

      Maybe it’s the leftist version of a warpath. Make wild, emotional bellows then fold, cry, and run away when confronted with any actual confrontation.

    • Death by firing squad. I’ll serve on the firing squad, but the families of the victims deserve first rights. All I ask is a fair and efficient trial first to make sure we have the right psycho.

    • George W Bush said the same thing after the dragging death in Texas of a black man by some white guys. I think his words were:

      “They’ve already been sentenced to death. What are you going to do, kill them again?”

    • Let’s see…
      They could pretend to execute him by lethal injection, but just knock him unconscious… then do it again….

      • “Hate crimes” were invented to make people believe the when “hate” is involved, the system is “really gonna do something, this time”. Most people believe that if a crime is upgraded to “hate”, the penalties are more severe. Truth is, “hate crimes” are only a means to allow the federal government to bully their way into the situation. In most violent crimes there is no federal statute. The only way the feds can gum things up is if a federal law can be invoked (civil rights violation, etc). In the case of a “hate crime” murder, the feds bring with them the promise of the death penalty when a violation of civil rights results in the death of another person. A “hate crime” investigation can be opened when state officials ask for one, but the investigation itself is not federal charge of a crime, only the opening of the investigation. If “hate” cannot be expected to survive a trial, the feds go away (after all the usual self-aggrandizing publicity…see Ferguson). If the feds believe “hate” can likely be used to ensure a guilty verdict at federal trial, the state surrenders jurisdiction in most cases, but not always.

        “Hate crimes” are a scam, but unfortunately a proven gateway drug into thought control.

  9. Well this did happen in a church, so…..it seems to me that God really does work in mysterious ways and there must have been a greater purpose that we mere mortals do not understand. Our job is to worship and praise, not to question but obey.

    Excuse me while I run and puke.

    • When the hell did this become an attack on faith? You might as well blame the gun. Maybe if this cretin had faith in his life he wouldn’t have murdered nine people studying the word.

      • Excuse me, but I attack faith, religion and the weak minded every chance I get.
        I like saying things like…if you need a helping hand, look at the end of your arm and one of my favorites, God is a Santa Clause for grownups.

        • I won’t disagree with you about religion most likely being a bunch of superstition.

          …but this isn’t a religious discussion website; it’s a gun discussion site. And this isn’t even a religiously motivated shooting; the people he wanted to shoot just happened to congregate (no pun intended–well maybe a little bit) at a church. If the shooting took place at a McDonalds, would you discuss the dangers of processed junk food? If it took place at a car dealer, would you discuss the merits of a Ford over a Chevy (or vice versa)?

          The comment is out of place and lacks respect.

        • “Excuse me, but I attack faith, religion and the weak minded every chance I get.”

          You know, you could have saved 11 words had you simply typed “I am an asshole” instead. Gets your point across even more efficiently.

        • There is nothing weak minded about Faith…

          Loyd, you’re lost but by the sound of it you would have it no other way… Free will combined with willful ignorance is a very tall wall to climb. I wish you well on that challenge (if you take it someday)… You can keep cursing the darkness if you like but a candle (and a much better path) is well within your grasp…

        • Ironic..every time someone survives a trial or tribulation it’s the almighty they thank not an empty void. I respect your agnostic view of the world as it is your right but I would ask for your respect for the fallen without condemning our faith.

        • So Stalin, that believed in no G-d, and had only faith in the might of the state with a gun, said of those “useful idiots” that believed as he did.

          No Mark Lloyd, the useful idiots have been used all through history to fulfill the mad visions of tyrants and dictators. In the past, it was many claiming a belief in a Christian G-d.

          Now. the “weak minded” being used by those tyrants and dictators to fulfill their mad visions are those professing a belief in no G-d.

          Stalin, Mao, Pol-pot and those that support the mass murder of the unborn are the ones expressing a mindless faith in the power of their version of demi-god called government to cure all ills.

          So instead of some bearded father figure on some imagined throne dispensing justice, we have some amorphous Big Brother and the Nanny State to dispense “Social Justice”.

          And we are still in the same place of having the opiate of the masses worshiping in front of reality TV, WWE and what particular scandal or perversion some sports “hero” or Kardashian plastered on the front page or talk show.

    • Mark Lloyd,

      If you had read the Bible, you would know that evil exists in the world and is guaranteed to attack God-fearing believers. Occasionally, God intervenes supernaturally to rescue someone. Quite often He does not. Either way, God in no way, shape, or form forbids believers from having the means to protect themselves and employing that means. Why all those people at that church chose not to have the means to protect themselves — we will never know. Be thankful that you know better … and act on that knowledge.

      • I think we know why they chose not to protect themselves: they live in a culture that vilifies gun ownership and makes owning a gun an onerous and expensive practice to discourage it further.

      • Especially when it’s perfectly legal in SC to carry in church. I’ve posted more than once on this issue.

        • Without express permission from the leadership, it is absolutely illegal to carry in a house of worship.

      • @ uncommon_sense
        Read the Bible? Hardly! I’ve never even read comic books!
        However, point taken. 😉

    • You won’t find me defending religion, but I do always find it amusing and somewhat scary how close blind dogmatic religious faith is to the statist faith in government.

  10. If the quote above is accurate, it is curious why he would victimize church going people rather than walk into say… the ghetto where his perception may better fit. Of course then when one things about that its clear that he would be facing numerous armed individuals in that setting…

  11. just to add, this guy is clearly a turd no doubt about that, but the way the article paints introverts as nutjobs kind of annoyed me, as a “quiet type” who also enjoys firearms dont think all introverted people are powderkegs waiting to go off.just a thought i had,Iam sure everyones gonna go off on me for bringing this up at a time like this. condolences to the victims.

    • Yeah, the author was sloppy on that point. He should have made clear that while many nut jobs turn out to be introverts, this does not at all suggest that any significant portion of introverts are nut jobs — or at least not dangerous nut jobs.

  12. I still cannot believe this large church was security free-or no one had a clue as to why this psycho white boy came in their church. Shite happens…and daddy should go to jail for giving bowl-boy a 45(anyone know what 45?)

  13. So let’s see here; we have the usual libtard/left crap on the anti side, and then we have people supposedly on our side taking a gratuitous shot at churches and religion, out of nowhere; where the eff did THAT come from?

    After a while one starts wondering what’s going on with all these young psych cases be-bopping around the landscape, on some kind of psychoactive drugs, practicaly with neon signs above them flashing: “I’m a F—ING powder keg about to blow!” and no one seems to notice. And then we have yet another poster perp for the anti’s and after that a string of weird and conflicting “facts” are spewed from the media.

    So what’s the latest, for example, on the Joker bastard out at the movie theater in Colorado? How about the Lanza shooting in CT? And the biker incident in TX? Right off the media screen within weeks.

    What are the rulers up to while we’re all focused on this latest incident?

  14. Quite the title you chose to go with there. Seems like this one is going to be a pretty epic session of fecal vs oscillator. I do not foresee this one to run out of gas for a while.

  15. above which they say reveals an introvert but may well indicate prescription drug abuse

    I guess you’re SOL if you’re an introvert now.

  16. “…the Facebook picture [above which they say reveals an introvert but may well indicate prescription drug abuse]”

    Damn, that’s an awful lot of information to glean from a single photo of a guy staring at the camera.

  17. May all the families find peace and comfort with the Lord in this horrific event!
    Most Churches are gun free Zones dictated by the Pastors or other church leaders! and or peer pressure from other members!
    on a simplex level this was an Evil deed perpetrated by an Evil person which no amount of government control would change!
    On another note, the Race Baiter’s, Obama and most all Democrat’s will be dancing in the blood of these victims pushing an Anti American Agenda for gun control!
    Unfortunately I cannot find any research on how the Government protects us by taking away the very implements that can protect us!
    We are born into this world with no guarantees of anything! least of all another breath!
    Pray for the Victims and families that they may find Peace in this their time of Trouble!

  18. Another nail for firearm confiscation advocates to pound. I am sorry the church did not have a designated shooter/shooters on hand. An evil man walked into that church pretending to join them. There was nothing or nobody to stop him when he stood and began firing. Call it what you will for political purposes, what it is, is cold blooded murder.

  19. Please do not publish his name. Like the Colorado movie theater and Newton, there is no reason to provide them the notoriety they crave. Some no-name piece of shit just killed nine decent folk.

  20. Suboxone (a controlled substance) contains buprenorphine as well as the opioid antagonist naloxone to deter the use of tablets by intravenous injection

    “Suboxone is a habit-forming drug that has been connected with sudden outbursts of aggression.”

    What we have here is another Adam Lanza. So let’s cut all the racist crap! OK?

    • Does it make you sit in a room quietly engaging your would be victims for an hour before you mercilessly gun them down and rant about black people raping “our women” and how they “have to go”?
      My guess is no, and frankly I can’t wrap my mind around the impulse to defend this monster from the accusation that he is a racist.

    • Buprenorphine (Suboxone) isn’t a drug that lends itself to being abused, its not even close to “opioid lite” like many would probably be inclined to think. You can also decipher why this is from how it is classified, an opioid antagonist binds to opioid receptors but does not activate them – it blocks it and shields it from being bound to by anything else. An opioid agonist…like a real opioid…binds to opioid receptors and triggers them.

  21. Cuff him by the leg to a stop sign in the inner city, give him a hacksaw and a 60 second head start before the start of a 24 hour amnesty for anyone hurting him and any winnesses.

  22. What’s up with the bowl cut, no job, and stays in bedroom in moms house – just like that Newtown ct freak Lanza

  23. I do not care if anyone wears a confederate flag. It is a free speech issue. Is does not make you a racist. A rainbow flag could be called racist.
    I want to know why black people of all people think they have to follow the American government laws regarding their self defense.

    I will not comply with Jim crow Era gun control laws that all still on the books in South and North Carolina and elsewhere.

    If you say the police are racist then why do you support gun control? Why would you call and then wait for them?

  24. The “you rape our women” bit just tells me he snapped because his aspie bowl-cut-havin-ass couldn’t get laid.

  25. The headline is a quote of the shooter and the photo is of him as well, on the largest and most read gun blog in the world.

    TTAG, don’t contribute to making this ass an anti-hero. A little blood is on the hands of every media outlet every time there is another mass shooting. Criminal psychologists have come out and said it, time and time again, don’t make the guy the center of your coverage for days afterwards.

  26. I am very thankful that free speech is honored here on TTAG. The trolls make themselves quite visible. and Those with strong feelings get to express them. Discussion is not muted or banned but encouraged. The chance that someone you disagree with may be able to show you some other aspect of an issue is here. We can’t know it all. We can always learn something.

    Contrary to the post above to me life is quite gray. If you doubt it just take that speeding ticket because you were speeding…..or where you actually trying to get to the hospital because your child just got hurt? See that’s gray. Go to jail for murder, you shot someone, or was some perp breaking into your house? That’s gray.

    I’m pro gun because I was willing to listen to well meaning folks. I was shocked how much the left lies. Decades ago the left had clear complaints. If you said blacks had to get their food from the back of a restaurant it wasn’t a conspiracy theory.

  27. Bloomberg wants to disarm 18-25 year old black males.
    He should call for making it illegal to be an 18-25 year old white male. 🙂 🙂 🙂
    I don’t hear him.

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