Aftermath of the Knoxville Unitarian Church Shooting

[DavidMS]

Sara at Orcinus wrote about the Knoxville Church Shooter.

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2009/02/know-this-if-nothing-else-this-was-hate.html

On the upside this one particular loon is off the street for the rest of his natural life. On the downside, like Sara, I think there will be plenty more like him. Disaffected conservatives who want to go out trying to kill us.

One: we are no longer safe, not even in our own houses of worship. It's ironic that progressives -- the subgroup of Americans who were most determined not to abandon reason and succumb to overblown fears of Islamic terrorism in the wake of 9/11 -- now have good, serious reasons to fear real domestic terrorism against themselves.

Adkisson's "manifesto" should end any doubts we ever had about how virulent and dangerous hate talk is, or whether or not that talk will eventually translate into action.

These are two quotes from the article that essentially sum it up. I know its strange to say this, but I do miss the old Birchers, they never would have done anything like this.

What are reasonable steps to both individually and collectively protect against domestic terrorism?

[rwheeler31]

1. Republicans will never reign in their cooks.

The base, is mad.

[ZombieHorde]

4. Both sides have plenty of violent minded cooks. nt

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4991472">Violent minded cooks

[Hoopla Phil]

5. Just. . . . . .Damn.

[Downtown Hound]

2. There are lots more like him, unfortunately

And as they see their world view crumble more and more, there will be more incidents like this. I think Obama is going to be a hugely successful president, maybe even going down as one of history's greatest. If I'm right (and hopefully, I am) then the Republicans as we know them will cease to exist. The Republican Party will survive, but it will have to change it's ways for it to do so.

And all those angry, psychotic, very fearful cowards out there will have no place to go. Most of them will probably adapt and die off quietly. Some of them will decide they want to go out with a bang.

[iverglas]

3. the mental illness is the underlying problem

The ideology is just skin deep, generally. It's part of a psychotic delusion.

Marc Lépine hated feminists and blamed them for his inability to gain entrance to engineering school. So he prepared a hit list of prominent women, and took his gun and killed 14 women engineering students.

The basic fact is that he was disturbed and unsuccessful, and he fixated on an identifiable group as the source of his woes. Sadly, our societies offer lots of despised and scapegoated groups to fixate on.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_L%C3%A9pine

translation of his suicide note:

Forgive the mistakes, I had 15 minutes to write this. See also Annex.

Would you note that if I commit suicide today 89-12-06 it is not for economic reasons (for I have waited until I exhausted all my financial means, even refusing jobs) but for political reasons. Because I have decided to send the feminists, who have always ruined my life, to their Maker. For seven years life has brought me no joy and being totally blasé, I have decided to put an end to those viragos.

I tried in my youth to enter the Forces as an officer cadet, which would have allowed me possibly to get into the arsenal and precede Lortie in a raid. They refused me because antisocial (sic). I therefore had to wait until this day to execute my plans. In between, I continued my studies in a haphazard way for they never really interested me, knowing in advance my fate. Which did not prevent me from obtaining very good marks despite my theory of not handing in work and the lack of studying before exams.

Even if the Mad Killer epithet will be attributed to me by the media, I consider myself a rational erudite that only the arrival of the Grim Reaper has forced to take extreme acts. For why persevere to exist if it is only to please the government. Being rather backward-looking by nature (except for science), the feminists have always enraged me. They want to keep the advantages of women (e.g. cheaper insurance, extended maternity leave preceded by a preventative leave, etc.) while seizing for themselves those of men.

Thus it is an obvious truth that if the Olympic Games removed the Men-Women distinction, there would be Women only in the graceful events. So the feminists are not fighting to remove that barrier. They are so opportunistic they neglect to profit from the knowledge accumulated by men through the ages. They always try to misrepresent them every time they can. Thus, the other day, I heard they were honoring the Canadian men and women who fought at the frontline during the world wars. How can you explain then that women were not authorized to go to the frontline??? Will we hear of Caesar's female legions and female galley slaves who of course took up 50% of the ranks of history, though they never existed. A real Casus Belli.

Sorry for this too brief letter.

Marc Lépine

The letter is followed by the list of nineteen names, with a note at the bottom:

"Nearly died today. The lack of time (because I started too late) has allowed these radical feminists to survive.
Alea Jacta Est."

I started out wanting to say that the nature of the fixation should not be overstated. Disturbed people who kill other people because they are <insert name of group> are generally driven by delusions, not ideology.

But if the ideology -- and the promoters of the very real ideology-driven hatred who are not delusional and are responsible for their actions -- weren't there ...

[X_Digger]

6. I used to live in Knoxville

Doesn't surprise me that the response to violence was to overcome the shooter. Those are some of the most level headed, fearless, and pragmatic people I know.

If I were omnipotent and could choose anywhere to retire, I'd move the population of east Tennessee to Florida and settle smack dab in the middle of them.