Nine people were shot to death by a white man at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, on Wednesday night -- rocking a nation already grappling with institutional racism and race-related violence.
The gunman entered the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church during a weekly Bible study meeting and opened fire around 9 p.m. Eight people were found dead at the scene, police said. Two others were transported to a hospital, where one later died.
Federal, state and city authorities are now all searching for the gunman. The FBI on Thursday morning named the shooter as 21-year-old Dylann Roof, according to the Post and Courier, a Charleston-area paper.
Carson Cowles, Roof's uncle, told Reuters he recognized his nephew in the photograph released by police, and that Roof had received a gun from his father as a 21st birthday gift in April.
Six women and three men were killed; none of the victims has yet been named by police, but State House Minority leader Todd Rutherford told The Associated Press that the church's pastor, state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, was among the dead.
According to Mullen, the suspect sat in the church with other attendees for about an hour before he began firing. In an interview with NBC, a cousin of Clementa Pickney, who was killed at the church, said she spoke with a survivor, who reported that the suspect had reloaded his gun five times. When the survivor's son tried to talk him out of shooting more, he replied, "'I have to do it. You rape our women and you're taking over our country. And you have to go.'"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/17/charleston-shooting-churc_n_7608738.html
The gunman told one of the black parishioners whom he spared, "I have to do it. You rape our women and you're taking over our country. And you have to go."
Well -- so much for the search for a motive.
Hmm ... it appears to The Gadfly that this young fellow is of the belief that there is an epidemic of black folk running wild in the streets and raping his white brethren women and taking over "our" (his?) country. Which begs the first question re: the rape - why were 6 of his 9 victims women? Is there an underground problem in this country that The Gadfly is unaware of with black women raping white women? Odd. And what is this business with black people taking over the country .... oh wait .... he is right about that one ...
So once again ... a young white guy, hopped up on right-wing, conservative inspired hatred and xenophobia - and a culture of death where the gun is integral part of a given culture's life cycle - decides to exercise his 2nd amendment rights and honor his twisted vision of freedom by snuffing out the lives of those who his instigators and enablers (The Gadfly is looking at you Fox "News" and AM hate radio) have convinced him are his enemies.
South Carolina's Tea Party Governor Nikki Haley weighed in:
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) urged people to pray for the victims and their families. “While we do not yet know all of the details, we do know that we’ll never understand what motivates anyone to enter one of our places of worship and take the life of another,” she said. “Please join us in lifting up the victims and their families with our love and prayers.”
Fucking spare us please. The Gadfly is not moved by Nikki Haley's crocodile tears. The statement, "...we do know that we'll never understand what motivates anyone to enter one of our places of worship and take the life of another" is one of the biggest lines of unmitigated horseshit The Gadfly has ever heard. The Tea Party rose out of the cauldron of hatred over the election of the country's first African American president in it's history. They have incessantly portrayed Obama as foreign, and a Muslim, and an appeaser of Islamist terrorists. They tell their followers that Obama is coming for their guns, and is going to round up conservatives, put them in FEMA re-education camps, and indoctrinate them in to Sharia law.
And if anyone believes that the visceral hatred of Obama from the right is not at all about racism -- well let's just say that you may want to seek professional psychiatric help, for you are obviously quite delusional. The Gadfly pays a whole lot of attention to the Tea Party movement, and has been doing so since their genesis, which came about within mere weeks of Obama's first inauguration. The Gadfly has reams of material archived about just how these right wingers view America's first African American president through the lens of race - and the evidence is nothing short of damning.
So for phonies like Nikki Haley, the Governor btw of a state which still proudly flies the seditionist and racism tainted Confederate flag on it's capitol's grounds, to run to the press, wringing their hands and wondering what in the world ever could have motivated this guy to do what he did --- is utterly laughable and embarrassing, not to mention hypocritical considering the role Haley's own political movement has played in the sordid event. Lastly it goes without saying that the one thing that it most definitely is not - is exceptional.
Wake up America. This violence and xenophobic hatred fueled culture is not the path to true freedom and liberty - in fact The Gadfly would suggest that it is the path to our nation's doom should we decide to continue following it.
----TFG
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