I was sorta expecting the gunman to be just a nut, the way most of these guys are just crazy, not political.

But basically, he’s a terrorist. And he’s probably the first in what’s going to be a long, long stream of domestic terrorists. We already know that Bush and McCain have no plans to deal with domestic terror, because that would involve putting white Repubs in prison, but someone really needs to ask Obama what his plans are for cracking down on domestic terrorists, terror-supporting organizations, and terror-supporting media.

Don’t be silly. They won’t ignore it; they’ll just blame it on Teh Gay.

Jesse, what are talking about Anti-Gay, Anti-Liberal terrorist? did you even read the article you linked?? where does it say the lead investigator said, he was lashing out against gays and liberals??? It does however say clearly there has been no motivation determined yet.  Why does it not suprise me that you chose that banner to head your post.

Alright, if that is the reason he was shooting people why a CHURCH of all places?

Oh nevermind, I should have read the post below.

His manifesto apparently says he hates liberals and unemployment.

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/jul/28/church-shooting-police-find-manifesto-suspects-car/

There is something really wrong when a man despondent over his food stamp allotment being reduced decides to respond by shooting some liberals.

A sad, sad day.

Looking around at major conservative blogs, I’m just amazed at how utterly silent they are concerning a church being assaulted by a domestic terrorist during a children’s play.

It’s simple:

1. The shooter was not a Muslim. Therefore, he’s not a terrorist; and

2. The victims were UUers, which makes them Not Real Christians and therefore second-class (at best) citizens.

Therefore, ipso facto, who the hell cares, right?

Speak up, cookie. Tell us how he couldn’t be a conservative or a homophobe because you conservative homophobes would never murder anyone.

Grammar, I will speak up, I challenge anyone to find where any of the articles says this was motivated by hatred of gays.  Just isn’t there, so you can make up the headlines and say this was a crime against gays and homophobes, no wait, that’s what you guys do all the time.  My bad! I don’t know what his political party was, other than being a nutjob who has some serious mental issues.

Cookie, sounds like you’re a freeper. The AP is reporting on the press conference, which an investigator stated that the hatred of gays/liberals motivated this planned attack. Troll elsewhere.

Of all our regular trolls, cookie, you are by far the dumbest motherfucker among them.

You just said that he wasn’t lashing out at liberals, and watercat proved you wrong.

Now you say he wasn’t lashing out at gays? Within the day, dumbfuck, you will be proven wrong.

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/jul/28/church-shooting-police-find-manifesto-suspects-car/

First two grafs (emphasis added):

The shotgun-wielding suspect in Sunday’s mass shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church was motivated by a hatred of “the liberal movement,” and he planned to shoot until police shot him, Knoxville Police Chief Sterling P. Owen IV said this morning.

Jim D. Adkisson, 58, of Powell wrote a four-page letter in which he stated his “hatred of the liberal movement,” Owen said. “Liberals in general, as well as gays.”

OK?

Conservatives have spent so much time making sure liberals are hated that the only thing that surprises me is that this didn’t happen earlier. But the failing economy might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back in regards to domestic Christian terrorism. The mixture of hopeless, abject poverty and nutball ideology has always been a toxic combination.

Cue rightwing pundits and MRAs moaning about how Liberalism demeans men’s Manhood and Agency, and inevitably leads to violent outbursts by the angry, frustrated men whose bootstraps have been confiscated by the Big, Bad, Welfare State.

The CNN article seems to bury the lede.  Upset over job situation doesn’t exactly explain why he shoots a bunch of Unitarians.  The missing link is his hatred of gays and warm fuzzy liberal churches.

cookie: Grammar, I will speak up, I challenge anyone to find where any of the articles says this was motivated by hatred of gays.

I accept your challenge.  Look at the link that watercat posted:

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/jul/28/church-shooting-police-find-manifesto-suspects-car/

I tend to agree with you, Pesto @ 11:26. I read the article on Free Republic - seems like conservatives are more concerned with “If only they’d had guns” and “The liberal media just wants to make us look bad” than the fact that people were murdered. Contrast to the Colorado Springs shootings. Very sad.

Hey cookie, I know you’re still reading this.

How does it feel to be wrong?

You know, as tempting as it is to wave this in the face of conservatives, I think we should refrain from using this tragedy to score political points. This is clearly an isolated incident.

There have been isolated cases where angry, disgruntled liberals/Muslims/blacks have went postal on people. I think that we should consider how we would feel if the right used those tragedies against us to claim that we’re deranged or promote hateful rhetoric.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/conservative_confederate_kille.php

PZ reports that Adkisson is a self-identified Confederate.

Yup. Anti-liberal anti-gay terrorism.

Actually, it’s pretty common for a lot of right-wingers to blame everything that’s bad on the “liberals” or the “gay” or whatever. And yes, this stuff takes root, and taken to such a degree where it can lead to violence.

Here are some examples:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/07/national/main3805672.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Illinois_University_shooting#Perpetrator
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_Square_shooting#The_shooter

I think an analysis of this as the first of the long-predicted attacks on liberals is actually a more interesting one that it being explicitly an attack on gay people (especially because there is so far no evidence publicly put forward that this gay people were targeted, and lots of evidence that liberals and LGBT allies were targeted.)

I think we should refrain from using this tragedy to score political points.

You can take whatever stance you want to- I don’t particularly care.

One thing that I think we all should start examining over the next couple years, is how do we deal with an expansion of anti-liberal violence. Especially is Obama wins the presidentcy, I believe that conservatives will start using more and more of this kind of domestic terrorism against whoever they associate with ‘liberalism’, as they define it.

Should we start getting closer to the law enforcement agencies in our areas? Or should we arm ourselves? Should we take no action? Should we focus media attention to this issue?

I think we should start considering our strategy.

I challenge anyone to find where any of the articles says this was motivated by hatred of gays.

Cookie, the link as labeled is for an article on “yesterday’s church shooting.”  The link label doesn’t claim that the article linked will tell you about that quote, just about yesterday’s church shooting.  The preceding phrase, however, does mention that the quote was mentioned during a press conference airing currently on CNN, which would obviously not be on the website or anywhere else, considering it was information being revealed at the press conference.

Reading comprehension.  It’s fun!

You know, as tempting as it is to wave this in the face of conservatives, I think we should refrain from using this tragedy to score political points.

(A) If the situation were reversed, you can be damn sure that McCain would claim that Obama himself pulled the trigger.

(B) This situation needs to be talked about a LOT. Because Repubs responded to the last Democratic presidency by ramping up the domestic terrorism, and I expect they’ll start it all up again when Obama is elected. Domestic terrorism has been completely ignored for the last eight years because the domestic terrorists were members of the ruling party, but it’s time for people to start talking about how we’re going to work to shut down domestic terrorists and terror networks.

Or should we arm ourselves?

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/12/10/colorado.shootings/index.html

It’s helped before.

Looking around at major conservative blogs, I’m just amazed at how utterly silent they are concerning a church being assaulted by a domestic terrorist during a children’s play

.

You keep using that word, “amazed.” I do not think it means what you think it means.

You know, as tempting as it is to wave this in the face of conservatives, I think we should refrain from using this tragedy to score political points. This is clearly an isolated incident.

I agree that this horrible incident shouldn’t be used to score political points against McCain. But that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be placed in the context of modern American paranoid conservatism. As the economy sinks further into stagflation, expect to see more acts like this from deranged and ignorant “heartland” yahoos looking to blame gays, women, minorities and liberals for their own bad decisions and bad luck.

Well, at least the private security industry will now be able to expand its religious clientelle beyond Jewish temples.

Apparently, people at the church acted quickly to subdue the shooter.  Who says liberals aren’t courageous?  Oh yeah, we know who says that.

Anyway, if the congregants had had guns, the likely outcome would have been more people dead in the crossfire.

Sorry for the delay, I have read every news clip for the chief of police and not in one of them does he say this guy was motivated by hatred of gays.  They all say liberal agenda and not being able to get a job.  It’s just not there guys, sorry to disappoint you.  Keep up the fight though!

The shooter said that he fully expected to be killed by the police.  This confirms, for me, the hypothesis that a lot of these shootings are best understood as extroverted suicides.  He wanted to kill himself, but couldn’t quite do it alone, so hey - why not take out a few of the people his diseased mind blamed for its unhappiness?

“Of all our regular trolls, cookie, you are by far the dumbest motherfucker among them.”

Yeah, shocking that anyone would want to shoot the nice liberals.

Yeah, shocking that anyone would want to shoot the nice liberals.

That’s right, because if a random liberal on a blog calls you stupid, the best response is to go out and shoot some liberal Unitarians. Makes perfect sense to me.

I think, to be fair, what we have here is a misunderstanding of what it means to “read.”  For most of us, reading is the act of looking at text (the arrangement of letters into words, words into sentences, sentences into paragraphs, etc.) and decoding the meaning of this text, contextualizing it with other things we have seen or “read.”  Therefore, when a man who says he hated “liberals in general, as well as gays” says that a hatred of “the liberal movement” led him to shoot up a church that was very publicly liberal and accepting of the group of people he despised, we’re able to make the logical inference that the church’s liberalism—as exemplified by its very public support of homosexuals—was what motivated him to commit this act of violence.

If, on the other hand, your understanding of “reading” is to simply sit on the couch with your laptop open to CNN.com, marveling at the colors and the occasional flickering images, then yeah—your understanding of this tragedy is probably going to be different from mine.

Jeff, you gerbil loving ass clown, the quote does not match the actual news conference.  Owen does not say the second part of the quote, just the first part.  Watch for yourself, everyone I have watched he does not say it was about hating gays.  The bottom line is people should be able to go to church whatever denomination and worship in peace without nuts like this guy coming in and shooting people.

you gerbil loving ass clown

The conservative commitment to civil languange shines through in every sentence.

If I were in a band, I would want it to be called The Gerbil Loving Ass Clowns.  It’s a clever band name, because it juxtaposes the cute (gerbils) with the terrifying (clowns).  We’d be like Marilyn Manson, only with more grindcore covers of Dave Clark Five songs.

The above paragraph is stupid, and I apologize.  But it’s more useful than a certain someone’s “reading” of the situation under discussion.

the quote does not match the actual news conference.

I know that if it doesn’t happen on da telebision, it doesn’t exist for you. But there are such things as a newspaper reporter taking an off-camera quote from a law enforcement official.

Or is the Knoxville News in on that thar homo-lovin’ librul media conspiracy you rubes are always yammering about?

I think it’s fair to say that the blame for this falls squarely at the feet of Limbaugh, O’Reillly, Coulter, Hannity, Carlson, et al.  They’ve been effectively calling for this sort of thing for years.

Apart from that, this hater of all things left (or maybe I should say “left”) will now spend a bunch of years (maybe the rest of his life) living under a system of full employment, free meals, highly regulated labor, state-controlled housing, and a command economy.  Maybe there is some justice in this world.

Yeah, shocking that anyone would want to shoot the nice liberals.

Yes, somebody used a bad word to him on the internet, so he went out to shoot a bunch of children while they were performing “Annie.”

I guess that’ll show those damn kids that no one should never use bad words or else a stranger will try to kill them.

Yeah, shocking that anyone would want to shoot the nice liberals.

Pretty much says it all, doesn’t it?  Dr. T is all for terrorism, as long as the terrorists are on his side.

</i>seems like conservatives are more concerned with “If only they’d had guns” and “The liberal media just wants to make us look bad” than the fact that people were murdered

Yes, Freeper dears, if only they’d thought to bring guns to their <i>children’s musical performance.

Seriously? Does that argument bear any tangential relationship to what happened?

So I fail at using tags correctly. Sorry.

So I fail at using tags correctly. Sorry.

If only you had brought your gun to the discussion thread, you could have shot those unclosed tags before they killed the formatting.

cookie…are you actually illiterate or just a dirty, dirty liar? because i honestly wonder. go READ, moron. my god, you’re worse than a ten year old whining about reading a fucking paragraph. you are too stupid for words. i’m starting to think you actually CAN’T read and comprehend, given the number of people who even bolded the text for your lazy ass.

also, Dr. T…you sound like a terrorist.

“also, Dr. T…you sound like a terrorist”

I’m not advocating shooting anyone chibi, although shooting this guy when he walked into the church would have been great if there had been a security guard like in that church shooting a few years ago.  I am saying aggressive personal attacks like the one I had in quotation marks + unstable gun guys turn into shooters on a liberal hating rampage.  Why doesn’t everyone just dial it back a little.

Jesus was a liberal

I am saying aggressive personal attacks like the one I had in quotation marks + unstable gun guys turn into shooters on a liberal hating rampage.

Again, if an anonymous person on the internet sends you into such a rage that you feel compelled to fire shotgun blasts at small children who are putting on a play, you have bigger problems than someone else’s bad language.

What sent this guy into a rage was knowing that gay people were welcome at that church.  Again, if the very idea of gay people in church is enough to send you on a murderous shooting rampage, the problem is not located with the gay people.

Funny how people on the right insist that the Danish publishers had every right to publish their anti-Muslim cartoons without violence occurring, but let a few people inside a liberal church get murdered and suddenly it’s all “Well, you should have known better than to do something that would provoke the crazy people!”

I am saying aggressive personal attacks like the one I had in quotation marks + unstable gun guys turn into shooters on a liberal hating rampage.  Why doesn’t everyone just dial it back a little.

Right.  Everybody better just settle right down, or something bad just might happen to you, and you’ll have brought it on yourself.

Is there any reason this terrorist sympathizer isn’t banned yet?

I’m not advocating shooting anyone chibi, although shooting this guy when he walked into the church would have been great if there had been a security guard like in that church shooting a few years ago.

The guy walked in with the gun inside a guitar case, claiming to be one of the musicians in the play.  The reports I read said he got off 3 shots, and still had 70 some odd shells in his possession.  Even with a security guard on the premises, there’s almost no way someone could have stopped him any more quickly than he was stopped.  The people in the church acted quickly and courageously and a much bigger tragedy was averted by their courage. 

Frankly, rushing the guy from short range and tackling him is going to be faster than finding your CCW weapon, unbuckling your holster, drawing it, releasing the safety and taking aim.  By that time the gunman has already put two shots into your face.

I am saying aggressive personal attacks like the one I had in quotation marks + unstable gun guys turn into shooters on a liberal hating rampage.

And that’s why some of us favor more comprehensive gun control laws.  Thanks, doctor.

“Dr T”

The T stands for Troll.

Or Terrorist.

Speaking as someone who was there, and whose daughter was in the play, I’m kind of thankful that there wasn’t a crossfire hail of bullets.  The shooter was a bit surprised, I think, that the cowardly, latte-sipping liberals fought back.  Turns out we’ve got a couple of war veterans in our congregation, and some pissed-off pacifists.  I think it was handled about as well as it could’ve been, given the circumstances.

We sure as hell aren’t going to put in metal detectors and hire security guards.  As one person said in a debriefing meeting tonight, “Sure, we’re a welcoming congregation!  You’re welcome to be frisked!”

Salvador Dalai Llama, you and your fellow church members are inspiring.

And I was going to write something really snarky to cookie (who should learn that interviews get edited, because TV has time constraints) and Dr. T (if we let our behavior be dictated by fear of terrorists, the terrorists win). But thinking about the many more good people who *are* showing the kind of courage that not only let them deal with the attack, but keep their church the lovely, welcoming place it is meant to be, defused my anger and let me make my point nicely.

SDL, wanted to say I was inspired by how well your congregation handled this. My Mom was a UU for a while. This feels kinda personal to me.

Best to you and yours, SDL.  Take care.

Thanks for the kind wishes.  The service last night had about 1000 people, and our church ain’t that big.  There were a lot of people from the synagogue next door, as well as other churches, and a fair number of community members that didn’t identify with a church, all showing support and solidarity.  It was a good step towards healing, and it closed with the cast of the play singing “Tomorrow.”  Cheesy as it is, that song will always break me down from here on out.