Tom Toles for June 23, 2015

The local right wing “entertainer” on the radio was wondering how what Dylann Roof did was any different from black gang bangers killing one another. Anything to avoid asking the question of where Roof learned his hatred.

Fixed News was trying to pretend it was about their ginned-up “war on Christianity.” In a state, and a city, with more churches per capita than anywhere else in the country, Mr. Roof drove past countless houses of worship to specifically target this church and this pastor. Dollars to donuts Roof considers himself a Christian.I oppose the death penalty, not because there aren’t offenders who deserve it (John Wayne Gacy is the poster child), but because of the possibility of executing an innocent person. However, this crime and this defendant make it difficult to maintain that opposition.

You all are missing the true problem here. Instead of focusing on why people kill, what group killed another group, or where they learn it from, killing is wrong. This young man did wrong and should be punished for it. People need to understand that they are responsible for their own actions. Saying someone told you to do it or that you learned it by watching so and so is a load of bs. And for the people that are trying to blame anyones actions on someone or something else, then you’re and idiot. If you’re too much of an idiot to focus on reason for killing rather just the killing, then you probably shouldn’t be posting to websites in the first place.

Is this really how you want to label the guy. Remember one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. Nelson Mandela and Menachem Begin were both terrorist that later received a Nobel Peace Prize. I don’t want to put him in that group or any group except “Hate Monger”

Root is dangerous and needs to be removed from society. The punishment mentality solves nothing. We have more people locked up than N. Korea and China. I guess our focus on punishment allow us to ignore the root causes of all the violence. That way we don’t have to do the hard, expensive work of really trying to solve the problem.

I’m not sure it was “terrorism”. Terrorism makes everyone afraid, not just one segment of the population. Much of the white commentary I see is more afraid of losing their White Privilege than anything else. Most of the black commentary I see is afraid it will happen again and afraid that people won’t see it for what it is: the result of the regular devaluation of black people in the media and society.

Agreed that it’s racial terrorism. Also, the disparity of how law enforcement treats different people is a travesty. https://www.facebook.com/bravenewfilms/videos/10152837180812016/?pnref=story

kilrwat said: " Agreed that it’s racial terrorism." What precisely is “racial terrorism”? Why does it have to be qualified with a word like “racial” before it can be called “terrorism”?

I put this guy in the same category as Timothy McVeigh.

Nah, Rick Perry has it absolutely right, it was just ‘an accident’.

He’s waaay smarter now that he’s wearing those glasses.

Conservative pundit David Brooks has it right, pointing out that in this country we have both a racial problem and an angry young men problem. Personally, I would call them “angry young losers” because they sure as hell don’t deserve to be called men. ISIS is recruiting among a completely different set of angry young losers, of course.

We can’t call it Terrorism because we would then have to commit ourselves to DO something about it! The Democrats are afraid they would offend someone and the Republicans would be attacking their political base! So no – by political convenience, we cannot call what happened in Charleston, Terrorism.

But we’re fighting the terrorists over there so we don’t have to here, which would be messier, in our own yard, & they have lawyers.

While we’re on the subject of terrorism…and what constitutes terrorism.

If the average person and children in a country or particular region are all afraid to venture outside, is it because of terrorism? They feel terror. So why accept droning over other parts of the world?

Pardon the digression, you may return to your regular programing

Why do we continue to waste our time, and the resources of our legal system on obviously guilty garbage like this? Just shoot or hang the jerk!