Latest 15 of 19 Total Comments Show All

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  Zen_Builder at 02:34 PM JST - 28th July

  I feel sorry for the victims, their families and the by-standers.

  Glad only 2 died.

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  cleo at 03:37 PM JST - 28th July

  Hey, how about some anger management lessons, or easily accessable therapists. People have pent up rage and can`t control themselves.

  Or maybe things are different across the water and we're not supposed to suggest that the killer was a looney.

  The FBI are involved 'in case it turns out be a hate crime'. Is that different from an anger crime?

  As with all senseless crimes where lives are lost, thoughts are with the deceased and their families, and with those who were injured.

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  sdmsec at 03:40 PM JST - 28th July

  Thank goodness he didn't wait until everyone was exiting and plow into them with a large truck. It would have been much more devistating and harder to stop.

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  JoeBigs at 09:09 PM JST - 28th July

  Sad but an every day part of living in Gun happy America....

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  SezWho2 at 11:01 PM JST - 28th July

  So far no one seems to have mentioned that this wouldn't have happened if everyone at church had been carrying guns.

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  adaydream at 12:08 AM JST - 29th July

  So he has a 4 page letter and he's blaming the Liberals for not getting a job.

  Blaming the Liberals and then killing innocent people.

  This is a real pity. < :-)

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  Betzee at 10:24 AM JST - 29th July

  The FBI are involved 'in case it turns out be a hate crime'. Is that different from an anger crime?

  Cleo,

  A hate crime is one in which the perpetrator targets a particular group, say gays or some ethnic minority. Here the man identified himself as "hating liberals" so he sought out his victims in a church identified with liberal causes. Had his anger motivated him to go into the nearest fast food restaurant and open fire it wouldn't be classified as a "hate crime."

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  cleo at 10:34 AM JST - 29th July

  Betzee -

  OK, I see. It doesn't change the fact that he's a looney killing innocent people for no sane reason....right?

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  Betzee at 10:39 AM JST - 29th July

  That's right, the perpetrator's mental state of mind is not an issue; it's simply a question of whether his victims were selected intentionally or were people going about their business who happened to in the wrong place at the wrong time, in other words they were random victims of deadly violence.

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  Betzee at 11:04 AM JST - 29th July

  Cleo,

  I don't know when this distinction entered into law, but it's relatively recent. It could be groups who felt they had been historically victimized pressed to have harsher penalties imposed on those who were found to have been motivated by prejudice. For example, the two guys who murdered Matthew Shepard, a gay young man in Wyoming whom they met in a bar, were covicted of a "hate crime."

  Usually victims are selected based on their "ascriptive characteristics, i.e., their appearance, be it skin pigmentation or male effeteness. I haven't heard of many victims targeted for their freely chosen political beliefs, but I'm not surprised to learn that was the motivation either.

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  SezWho2 at 11:27 AM JST - 29th July

  The ACLU, incidentally, takes no position on gun control although it does believe that the Supreme Court erred in its recent decision which held that the 2nd amendment was an individual right instead of a collective one.

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  JoeBigs at 11:34 AM JST - 29th July

  Gee wiz SezWho2 if everyone in church had a gun then there would have been a lot more dead. Everyone would have opened up on each other!LOL Instead of 2 there would have been 20!!! LOL

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  SezWho2 at 04:01 PM JST - 29th July

  JoeBigs,

  Yes, that's my point. When you consider the argument that if every student at Virginia Tech had had a gun there would have been fewer people killed and then apply that to a church, it sounds quite different, don't you think?

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  Sarge at 10:48 PM JST - 29th July

  SezWho2 - "So far no one seems to have mentioned that this wouldn't have happened if everyone at the church was carrying guns."

  That's because no one is that stupid.

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  SezWho2 at 11:53 PM JST - 29th July

  Sarge,

  Yes, that's right. It's entirely different when it's a church, isn't it?

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