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zBrown
Ice climber
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Jun 20, 2015 - 07:25am PT
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I hate to get drawn further into this crossfire, but one thing always bothered me about that explanation, and I have yet to hear a coherent explanation. How could someone in a strangling choke hold say "I can't breathe?"
Perhaps his notice was not properly served since he did not say, "my ability to breathe is becoming rapidly diminished"?
I would suggest having someone with very strong hands put a hold on you and see if you can get three words out. I'm pretty sure you'll be able to.
In the immortal words of Toby Keith (I am wondering whether tody was asked (and if so why) or whether he just decided the U.S. needed his opinion. He'll probably just say, why does the U.S need yours or the other 100 or so writing about this on the ST).
"If it can happen in church, it can happen anywhere, so there's no answer to it," Keith said.
"Countries all over the world that have really strict gun polices, like Oslo, Norway. It happens there."
Begs the question of the frequency with which it happens.
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Dick_Lugar_II
Trad climber
Center of My Universe...
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Jun 20, 2015 - 07:42am PT
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Bring back medieval torture for crimes like this...quartering comes to mind...or tar and feather...or the rack...and see how many psychos step up to the plate for their day in the media and quest for infamy??!
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crankster
Trad climber
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Jun 20, 2015 - 07:55am PT
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With all respect, we are lot going to have much luck changing things if people stubbornly stick to their views about guns. Why not be open to the idea that some changes might be helpful and still allow people to keep the millions and millions of firearms already in private hands?
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Jun 20, 2015 - 08:02am PT
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good parenting is a lost art...
Nonsense. Why do people keep saying stuff like this?
I know thousands and thousands of parents, and good parenting is quite the norm among all of them.
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EdwardT
Trad climber
Retired
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Jun 20, 2015 - 08:10am PT
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A Northerner bows, deeply, to the South:
I have never seen anything like what I saw on television this afternoon. Did you hear the statements made at the bond hearing of the alleged Charleston, S.C., shooter?
Nine beautiful people slaughtered Wednesday night during Bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, and their relatives were invited to make a statement today in court. Did you hear what they said?
They spoke of mercy. They offered forgiveness. They invited the suspect, who was linked in by video from jail, to please look for God.
There was no rage, no accusation—just broken hearts undefended and presented for the world to see. They sobbed as they spoke.
“I just wanted everybody to know, to you, I forgive you,” said the daughter of Ethel Lance, killed in the shooting. “You took something very precious away from me. I will never talk to her ever again. I will never be able to hold her again. But I forgive you.” She asked that God have mercy on the shooter’s soul. “You hurt me. You hurt a lot of people. May God forgive you. And I forgive you.”
A family member of Anthony Thompson said he forgave the shooter. “I forgive you and my family forgives you, but we would like you to take this opportunity to repent . . . confess, give your life to the one who matters the most, Christ, so that He can change it—can change your ways no matter what happens to you, and you will be OK. Do that and you will be better.”
The mother of Tywanza Sanders, also killed, told the shooter: “We welcomed you Wednesday night in our Bible study with open arms,” she said. “Every fiber in my body hurts, and I will never be the same. . . . Tywanza was my hero. But as we said in Bible study, we enjoyed you, but may God have mercy on you.”
The granddaughter of Daniel Simmons Sr., also killed Wednesday, said, “Although my grandfather and the other victims died at the hands of hate, this is proof—everyone’s plea for your soul is proof that they lived in love and their legacies will live in love. So, hate won’t win. . . . I just want to thank the courts for making sure that hate doesn’t win.”
As I watched I felt I was witnessing something miraculous. I think I did. It was people looking into the eyes of evil, into the eyes of the sick and ignorant shooter who’d blasted a hole in their families, and explaining to him with the utmost forbearance that there is a better way.
What a country that makes such people. Do you ever despair about America? If they are America we are going to be just fine.
Afterward, outside the courtroom, people gathered and sang gospel hymns.
* * *
I just have to say what a people the people of Charleston are. They are doing something right, something beautiful, to be who they’ve been the past few days.
From the beginning they handled the tragedy with such heart and love. They handled it like a community, a real, alive one that people live within connected to each other.
From Thursday morning when news first spread everyone I saw on TV, from the mayor, Joseph Riley, to those who spoke for the church, to the police spokesmen, to the governor, Nikki Haley—they were all so dignified and genuinely grieving, and not the pseudo-grief we always see when something bad happens and the leader says our prayers are with the victims. Haley had to stop speaking for a few moments, so moved was she when she made her first statement. Riley said today, of the shooter, “This hateful person came to this community with this crazy idea that he would be able to divide us, but all he did was make us more united and love each other even more.” I read that quote Friday afternoon in the Journal, in Valerie Bauerlein’s story, and I thought: Riley isn’t just talking, he is telling the truth.
Charleston deserves something, a bow. So too do the beautiful people who go to Wednesday night Bible study in America in 2015. They are the people who are saving America every day, completely unheralded, and we can hardly afford to lose them.
There’s only one thing Charleston doesn’t deserve. People apart from the trauma, far away, have already begun to bring their political agenda items to the tragedy and make sure they are debated. Because this is the right time for a political debate, right?
Here’s an idea: Why don’t you leave the grieving alone right now? Why don’t you not impose your agenda items on them? Why don’t you not force them to debate while they have tears in their throats?
Don’t politicize their pain. Don’t turn this into a debate on a flag or guns. Don’t use it to make your points and wave your finger from your high horse.
These people are doing it right without you.
They are loving each other and helping each other. Let them grieve in peace. And respect them as what they are, heroic.
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jstan
climber
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Jun 20, 2015 - 08:17am PT
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Possibly we are being rendered helpless by our idea that we need a perfect solution. All we can really do is make many small changes that add up to a shift in the trends. On the heels of so many shootings of unarmed blacks by officers, this new tragedy seems to be hitting deeply. Just as occurred in 1954. One can hope.
People who are pissed off rely on emotions alone and they never forget. This is probably a survival strategy. You see this everywhere even today. Do you suppose we will ever learn from the past?
The Civil War was not necessary. If the North had merely passed a law empowering expenditure of three or four billion dollars to compensate slave owners for their investment in slaves the owners might have lined up for the deal. The following 100 years of Jim Crow shows it would have been a financial positive and the basic transaction would have had "give" welded to "take". Wars attempt to decouple this transaction and everyone loses ten fold. Think how much oil we could have purchased without even a ripple in Iraq for two trillion dollars.
We will be paying the costs of these two mistakes on into the indefinite future.
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Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
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Jun 20, 2015 - 08:36am PT
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you can try it on yourself JE
Put your hands around your own throat, and see how easy it is to say those three words
"I can't Breath"
and yet, you still can't Breath!
This was proven scientifically the day after the execution, but the Right Wing fake media keeps perpetuating the lie
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son of stan
Boulder climber
San Jose CA
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Jun 20, 2015 - 08:45am PT
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I respectfully disagree. People like to fight. People also are expected to say they don't and want peace but the record says fighting is the preferred choice if the odds seem good.
Civil War was bloody slaughter because people showed up and fought.
And fought enthusiastically!
In those times nothing special in the horror of 22,000 dead and wounded soldiers at the battle of Sharpsburg MD in just ONE day. September 17 1862.
White people hardly ever kill black people anymore in the US.
So don't fall for the propaganda.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Jun 20, 2015 - 10:40am PT
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From his facebook page
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johnboy
Trad climber
Can't get here from there
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Jun 20, 2015 - 10:41am PT
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The current speculation is that guns are an inalienable right.
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Tobia
Social climber
Denial
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Jun 20, 2015 - 10:46am PT
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I don't own a firearm, and never have, so I don't think I qualify as a "gun nut."
I've owned a gun or guns since I was 8 or 9 years old. I don't consider myself a "gun nut" either.
But that has little to do with the tragedy being discussed. The whole thing is bizarre. The father's gift of a .45 pistol to a convicted felon was certainly not indicative of good parenting. I would assume, he thought the boy needed it for personal protection. No matter, obviously it was not a good idea.
Whether or not his father had any of the warped philosophies of his son is not known. I doubt that he would admit to any at this juncture.
Sitting in a church for an hour and then slowly and methodically killing these people is shocking; yet I believe that most of these types of killings all involve a period of indecisiveness; perhaps not immediately prior to their acts, nor in their immediate audience. It seems to me it would have made him decide not to follow through with it, that is to say that he would realize that these are real people and not some innate makings of his twisted mind.
The forgiving nature of the friends and family of the victims is the only part of the event that makes sense to me. Forgiveness is a major act that the Christian Faith is based on, forgiveness of self as well as others. Admittedly, being a Christian myself, I believe I would struggle with being asked to forgive so much, so suddenly. I pray I never have to.
I can't think of any alternative that would be more productive to counter the actions of this killer than forgiveness. Legislation only works for those who obey laws, revenge or rioting will not produce positive change. The perpetrator will certainly end up in a prison cell for the rest of his life and that is where he belongs; but that will not stop another lunatic from committing a similar act.
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Crimpergirl
Sport climber
Boulder, Colorado!
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Jun 20, 2015 - 10:55am PT
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Not everybody runs or hits the ground in the face of gun fire. I won't doubt the actions of anyone in that situation.
"Sanders could have sought to flee. He instead placed himself between the gun and his aunt. He was killed and now his mother stood in the courtroom, addressing the killer."
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HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
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Jun 20, 2015 - 01:31pm PT
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No good gun owner there obviously and no one with the fortitude to jump him as he reloaded. That is a shame. Evidently the massacre was much more complicated than assumed. It was not a spur of the moment thing, he had planned it carefully. He was in the basement room with his victims for over an hour.There were people of all ages from a 5 year old girl who survived by playing dead to women of "advanced age". He had plenty of time to work out his plan of who to shoot first.
If you had been there looking all tough and shitttt, he'd likely have shot you first. And the cops would have pried your unfired gun from your cold dead hand.
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HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
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Jun 20, 2015 - 01:48pm PT
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I've owned a gun or guns since I was 8 or 9 years old. I don't consider myself a "gun nut" either.
But that has little to do with the tragedy being discussed. The whole thing is bizarre. The father's gift of a .45 revolver to a convicted felon was certainly not indicative of good parenting. You are proud of owning a gun since you were 8 or 9.
This monster was given a gun for his (20th I think) birthday. By his dad.
His dad is guilty of bad parenting and yours wasn't?
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Tobia
Social climber
Denial
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Jun 20, 2015 - 01:50pm PT
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But I don't buy it...
and you never will, for it ain't for sale.
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HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
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Jun 20, 2015 - 02:02pm PT
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Now it's reported that he bought his own gun.
One key part of this horrific scheme — the weapon — came in April, when Roof bought a .45-caliber handgun at a Charleston gun store, the two law enforcement officials told Perez and Bruer from CNN. His grandfather said he gave him birthday money and had no idea how he had spent it.
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10b4me
Social climber
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Jun 20, 2015 - 02:03pm PT
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Where was "GOD" during the shooting???...
Isn't it HIS house where this took place???...
Real progress would be if everyone entered the 21st century...
good questions.
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Tobia
Social climber
Denial
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Jun 20, 2015 - 02:21pm PT
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high traverse,
I am neither proud nor ashamed of gun ownership, it is just a fact. I made the statement to contrast the concept of "gun nuts", expressed earlier in the thread. Gun ownership does not equate with fanaticism.
A convicted felon has no right to gun ownership; which would indicate a poor decision by his parent.
I learned gun safety before I was given a gun. I went hunting with my father many times before he ever let me shoot. I am still learning gun safety. I teach gun safety or better said, constantly point it out. Most of my guns are shotguns, the first being a single shot .410 gauge. Our guns were for small game hunting. I have a rifle for deer hunting and a few pesky critters that are not indigenous to this area. I have a pistol that was passed down from my late uncle. I don't think I have ever fired it more than twice.
So no, my father is not guilty of bad parenting; at least in terms of the firearms. What do you think?
edit:
If he bought it himself and from a licensed firearm dealer, the gun dealer is officially out of business and guilty of a crime.
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