Eight People Shot in Black Church in Charleston, South Carolina

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think we can agree that anyone who kills multiple innocent people with no provocation has some kind of mental problem. The issue is whether we impute his acts to his race or "culture" or to his mental problems. In this case, I think we can do both. I will point out that the recourse to "mental illness" is not unique to white shooters - the DC Sniper was tagged as mentally ill by most, not a thug.

DC Sniper was not tagged as mentally ill. The child was tagged as being brain washed by the elder. The elder was tagged as a man who hated his wife for divorcing him and taking his children. I believe the prosecution argued that she was they eventual intended victim, but he wanted an alibi. So, he killed the other people so,people would believe the wife was killed by a serial killer. No mental illness was alleged.

[Anonymous]

That kid looks like the poster child for psychiatric drugs and video games. I bet there was a divorce and an agnostic background .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That kid looks like the poster child for psychiatric drugs and video games. I bet there was a divorce and an agnostic background .

I'll take that bet. No way this guy wasn't raised "Christian."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That kid looks like the poster child for psychiatric drugs and video games. I bet there was a divorce and an agnostic background .

I'll take that bet. No way this guy wasn't raised "Christian."

+1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the real comparison here is ideology mixed with mental instability. The proper comparison is not to Wint or so-called "thugs," but rather to the Oklahoma City Bomber and 9-11 terrorists. They should all be in the same class: terrorists.

Has any reputable source stated this man has been diagnosed with a mental illness. And I don't agree that only mentally ill people kill in mass order. Some people are just evil. The history books are full of such men who were quite sane while engaging in their butchery.

[Anonymous]

If he's a nutjob wouldn't matter how he was raised - he's friggin looney

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well in any case I'm eagerly awaiting my other $5 cause I KNOW this dude ain't gonna be called out as a thug or a criminal (despite being recently arrested on drug charges) and there's a 99.999999% probability that the meat of the discussion around this dude will be his psyche - not his race.

Will you settle for racist pig who should be handed over to the families of those he killed? And I'd give the families immunity to do what they please.

You are talking about families of faith, I have a feeling that they would not do to the killer what you think they would.

Not only that, the proposed solution to "hand him over" is emotionally based; it appeals only to the most base, vile, uncivilized part of our animalistic past.

We are not animals. We better than that. We have evolved from "an eye for an eye." People of reason - civilized people - developed beyond mob justice; we use our reason and laws to deal with people like this murderer.

I hope that the trial is fair and open; then if he's fairly found guilty, I hope he gets the maximum. That is what our country is and what we must all demand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That kid looks like the poster child for psychiatric drugs and video games. I bet there was a divorce and an agnostic background .

I'll take that bet. No way this guy wasn't raised "Christian."

+1.

Then why attack a church?

More importantly PP - why do you so hate the Christian church? Would you openly express that hate to the victims families right now? (Maybe they will read your post sometime).

[Anonymous]

If these type of killings can only be the result of mental illness, were KKK members in general mentally ill then?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

I think conflating mass murders and serial killers is a category error. Dahmer was obviously loopy; people who kill abortion providers are rational given their premises. I think this gets at the crazy vs. evil distinction, which in real life is, of course, to some extent muddled in all cases.

I agree with this. I have a very hard time handing mental illness as an excuse to mass murders. Do you need to have some crazy in you to do that, sure. Should that be an excuse for your crime, in my opinion, no.

Serial Killers, different story. Should be locked up forever, but no doubt that they have a compulsion and they cannot be anything but a predator.

For me the question is, if we could address the mental illness... can we prevent mass murders? In this sense, we need to see how mental illness plays in these sort of situations, as a prevention, not an excuse.

While I strongly disagree with those who are arguing that whites in general use "mental illness" as an excuse for murders committed by other whites as compared to how they discuss black murderers, it is fair to say that there is no reason yet to assume this guy was mentally ill. He did something evil, for reasons he apparently stated while doing so, and there is no evidence of meaningful delusions, etc. Some seems to believe that a person "has to be" crazy to do something like this; I disagree entirely. Consciously-chosen evil is relatively uncommon, but it does exist, and it exists here I believe.

I agree. Depends on your definition of "crazy" though. People are calling this man a sociopath. Sociopaths do not fit my definition of "crazy" because they know exactly what they are doing. But that is an unlikely diagnosis because sociopaths do not tend to care very much about a "cause" like killing people for racist reasons and they do not tend to commit crimes for which they will definitely get caught. This man left a witness. He did this for a reason which made sense to him and he wanted notoriety for it. This is clearly a hate crime.

Now... whether or not he was having a psychotic break and operating under a set of delusions remains to be seen and we should not make those assumptions. Plenty of so-called "sane" people have committed hate crimes who believed they were doing the right thing.

The bolded is untrue. Sociopaths often get away with a lot of crimes at first, but eventually deteriorate and slip up. As a side note, lots seem to get caught in death penalty states. They kill due to a compulsion. - Bundy, for instance, was a necrophiliac.

I did not say that sociopaths never get caught. I said that they do not choose to commit crimes for which they will definitely get caught. This guy left a witness ON PURPOSE. That is not something that a sociopath would do.

Depends on the sociopath, actually. Sure he would, if it was part of his particular M.O.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well in any case I'm eagerly awaiting my other $5 cause I KNOW this dude ain't gonna be called out as a thug or a criminal (despite being recently arrested on drug charges) and there's a 99.999999% probability that the meat of the discussion around this dude will be his psyche - not his race.

Will you settle for racist pig who should be handed over to the families of those he killed? And I'd give the families immunity to do what they please.

You are talking about families of faith, I have a feeling that they would not do to the killer what you think they would.

God bless them, then. Hand him to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That kid looks like the poster child for psychiatric drugs and video games. I bet there was a divorce and an agnostic background .

I'll take that bet. No way this guy wasn't raised "Christian."

+1.

Then why attack a church?

More importantly PP - why do you so hate the Christian church? Would you openly express that hate to the victims families right now? (Maybe they will read your post sometime).

He didn't attack a church. The people were attacked; the church was just a site. Do you think he meant that Christians were the ones raping "their women"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If these type of killings can only be the result of mental illness, were KKK members in general mentally ill then?

That is too easy. The new black panthers are filled with racial hate. Farrakhan preaches hate (read his newspaper sometime). The Saudis ran a local school with hate-filled textbooks (can only imagine what they taught).

There are too many extreme racists out there to simply write them all off as "crazy."

There are some good articles on the SPLC talking about hate groups in the USA. Scary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That kid looks like the poster child for psychiatric drugs and video games. I bet there was a divorce and an agnostic background .

I'll take that bet. No way this guy wasn't raised "Christian."

+1.

Then why attack a church?

More importantly PP - why do you so hate the Christian church? Would you openly express that hate to the victims families right now? (Maybe they will read your post sometime).

Not pp, but I interpreted this as an observation that confederate flag/guns/white supremacy often are found within the Bible Belt.

[Anonymous]

SUBOXONE:

"Charleston shooter Dylann Storm Roof was reportedly taking a drug that has been linked with sudden outbursts of violence, fitting the pattern of innumerable other mass shooters who were on or had recently come off pharmaceutical drugs linked to aggression.

According to a CBS News report, earlier this year when cops searched Roof after he was acting suspiciously inside a Bath and Body Works store, they found “orange strips” that Roof told officers was suboxone, a narcotic that is used to treat opiate addiction.

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

A user on the MD Junction website relates how her husband “became violent, smashing things and threatening me,” after just a few days of coming off suboxone.

Another poster on the Drugs.com website tells the story of how his personality completely changed as a result of taking suboxone."