One dead, eight wounded by gunfire in church

[SwizzleStick]

msnbc.msn.com/id/25872864

Please pray for all involved in this horrific event.

Dona Nobis Pacem

 

[pathia]

msnbc.msn.com/id/25872864

Please pray for all involved in this horrific event.

Dona Nobis Pacem

There’s been an update. Two are dead. The gunman appears to have targeted it because it was a liberal church.

 

[Dale_M]

He described his violent plans in a four-page letter found at his home, which also explained that his age and “liberals and gays” taking jobs had worked against him.

Another recent setback was that Adkisson’s allotment of government-issued food stamps had been reduced, Owen said.

iht.com/articles/reuters/2008/07/28/america/OUKWD-UK-TENNESSEE-SHOOTING.php

Investigators described Adkisson as a former member of an Army airborne unit who trained as a mechanical engineer and had held jobs across the country. He had apparently been out of work since 2006, and believed liberals were taking jobs he should have, Owen said. Investigators are not aware of any affiliation with a church or with any known hate groups. Adkisson had no next of kin or family, police said.

According to a four-page manifesto police found in his SUV in the church parking lot, Adkisson believed the church to be a bastion of liberalism in an otherwise socially conservative area of eastern Tennessee.

guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/28/usa

There seems some disagreement over the details, but he seems to be a very troubled man who vented his frustration with violence.

 

[Cuddy_Duck]

There’s been an update. Two are dead. The gunman appears to have targeted it because it was a liberal church.

knoxnews.com/news/2008/jul/28/church-shooting-police-find-manifesto-suspects-car/

Jim D. Adkisson, 58, of Powell wrote a four-page letter in which he stated his “hatred of the liberal movement,” Owen said. “Liberals in general, as well as gays.”
Adkisson said he also was frustrated about not being able to obtain a job, Owen said.

The letter, recovered from Adkisson’s black 2004 Ford Escape, which was parked in the church’s parking lot at 2931 Kingston Pike, indicates he had been planning the shooting for about a week.

“He fully expected to be killed by the responding police,” the police chief said.

“It appears that church had received some publicity regarding its liberal stance,” the chief said. The church has a “gays welcome” sign and regularly runs announcements in the News Sentinel about meetings of the Parents, Friends and Family of Lesbians and Gays meetings at the church.

The church’s Web site states that it has worked for “desegregation, racial harmony, fair wages, women’s rights and gay rights” since the 1950s. Current ministries involve emergency aid for the needy, school tutoring and support for the homeless, as well as a cafe that provides a gathering place for gay and lesbian high-schoolers.

Does anybody feel that there is a chance that the more extreme right-wing talk radio shows might have played a part in inciting this guy?

It’s one thing to disagree with liberals, but some stuff I have heard is very hateful and resembles the message Fred Phelps is giving.

 

[Publisher]

So many “religious people” will speak with “authority” concerning how God feels about gay and lesbian people. They will quote verses in scripture and claim God’s punishment for homosexuality is death…and when someone takes them serious those who spouted such venom that incited the violence…they are mystified…“We don’t want gay people hurt”…“We abhor any violence toward gays and lesbians”…responsibility for one’s words would be a good place to start…but “OH NO, we’re Christians…we love the sinner and hate the sin…”…yet very few think of the ramifications of the things they say about gay and lesbians…everntually someone will take them seriously…but of course, that’s not really the original speakers problem…is it?

 

[Cuddy_Duck]

I wonder these people had any influence?

WARNING: very shocking.

Pat Robertson

The termites are in charge now, and that is not the way it ought to be, and the time has arrived for a godly fumigation.-- Pat Robertson, New York Magazine, August 18, 1986

Many of those people involved with Adolph Hitler were Satanists, many of them were homosexuals – the two things seem to go together

– Pat Robertson, The 700 Club television program, January 21, 1993, ignoring the facts that the Nazis killed homosexuals as ruthlessly as they did Jews and that Satanim emerged with Anton Szandor LaVey

**I read your book. When you get through, you [a reader] say, “If I could just get a nuclear device inside Foggy Bottom, I think that’s the answer.” I mean, you get through this, and you say, “We’ve got to blow that thing up.” **I mean, is it as bad as you say?-- Pat Robertson, to syndicated columnist Joel Mowbray, author of Dangerous Diplomacy: How the State Department Endangers National Security; the US Department of State is located in Foggy Bottom, a Washington, DC, neighborhood; “Foggy Bottom” is sometimes used as a synonym for Washington, DC, quoted from AANEWS (October, 2003)

Glenn Beck

**
Hang on, let me just tell you what I’m thinking. I’m thinking about killing Michael Moore**, and I’m wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it.

Michael Savage

** Oh, you’re one of the sodomites. You should only get AIDS and die**, you pig.Savage Nation.

Rush Limbaugh

**“I am not inspiring or inciting riots, I am dreaming of riots **in Denver.”

Dinesh D’Souza

**The cultural left **in this country is responsible for causing 9/11…In order to defeat the Islamic radicals abroad,we must defeat the enemy at home.

from THE ENEMY AT HOME

Anne Coulter

“When contemplating college liberals, you really regret once again that John Walker is not getting the death penalty. We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors.”

"My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building." in a New York Observer interview, 8/20/2002

ETA:
knoxnews.com/news/2008/jul/28/church-shooting-police-find-manifesto-suspects-car/

Inside the house, officers found “Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder” by radio talk show host Michael Savage, “Let Freedom Ring” by talk show host Sean Hannity, and “The O’Reilly Factor,” by television talk show host Bill O’Reilly.

That would be a yes, then.

 

[Cuddy_Duck]

Considering this attack was on unarmed cilvilians, indiscriminate and for polititical motives, this surely falls under the term “terrorism”.

I think the US will face more of this fundamentalist right-wing terrorism in the future. Especially if they feel they are not represented in the Whitehouse.

 

[Dale_M]

I wonder these people had any influence?

Cuddy Duck, I am not a fan of any of those people you cited, but I do believe that he was acting under his own influence. Too many men grow up in this country feeling they have a right to be violent when they are offended or upset. He apparently felt cheated out of jobs by liberals and gays so he decided to take revenge with a gun.

 

[Cuddy_Duck]

Cuddy Duck, I am not a fan of any of those people you cited, but I do believe that he was acting under his own influence.

In that case, the same could be said of Imams preaching violent Jihad in Mosques around the world. They spout hate speech and lo and behold sucide bombers blow people up. And themselves.

(interesting that this guy was on a sucide mission- he said so)

Hate speech either has influence or it does not.

Similar arguments exist about violence in videogames and movies or Death Metal linked to High School shootings (remember Marylin Manson and Columbine?)

I’d like to paraphrase what a Christian opponent of Mariyln Manson once said:

Not everyone watching adds go out and buys the product. But some do.

Not everyone who reads or listens to these people are gonna go want to carry out violence against liberals and homosexuals. But some do.

One just did.

 

[Christophorus72]

Does anybody feel that there is a chance that the more extreme right-wing talk radio shows might have played a part in inciting this guy?

It’s one thing to disagree with liberals, but some stuff I have heard is very hateful and resembles the message Fred Phelps is giving.

judging by his neighbor’s comments below, I’d say no in regard to “more extreme right-wing radio talk shows” (I’m assuming you are referring to the likes of Hannity, Rush, etc., otherwise I have no idea who you are talking about).

*Karen Massey, a neighbor to Adkisson, told the Knoxville News Sentinel about a lengthy conversation she had with Adkisson a few years back in which she told him her daughter had just graduated from a bible college. She said she was surprised by his reaction when she told him she was a Christian.

“He almost turned angry,” she told the newspaper. “He seemed to get angry at that. He said that everything in the Bible contradicts itself if you read it.” She also said Adkisson spoke frequently about his parents, who “made him go to church all his life. … He acted like he was forced to do that.”*

the guy had previously threatened to blow his wife’s brains out and then blow his brains out a few years ago. I’m not sure how that correlates to any political agenda either.

just a hateful and angry man in my opinion. see PZ Myers.

and as Proverbs 29:22 so eloquently puts, “An angry man stirs up strife, And a hot-tempered man abounds in transgression.”.

I don’t agree with their theology, but I do pray for the victims of this tragedy.

 

[Steeltemplar]

Cuddy Duck, anyone who thinks that conservative radio is in any way at fault in this must not be really listening to it. Opposing liberalism, opposing homosexual practice, etc, does not equate to promoting violence.

Three of the quotes you gave above, allegedly showing conservatives advocating violence, are taken so extremely out of context that it is absurd. Both Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh use humor on their shows. Thus they say things in that context which are purely facetious and obviously so to anyone actually listening instead of quote mining to prove something. The D’Souza quote is not blaming liberals directly for 9/11, but is blaming the liberal attitude of being soft on the enemies of the US. And defeating liberalism in that case means politically. So, yet again, we have dishonest proof-texting.

Also, interesting that you mention Phelps. I have heard Sean Hannity on the radio denouncing Phelps and having heated arguments with a woman from his organization. So, no, the conservative media is AGAINST Phelps.

Honestly, I have heard more hateful things come from liberals than I ever have from conservatives. But apparently it’s ok then?

 

[MakeUpArtist]

In that case, the same could be said of Imams preaching violent Jihad in Mosques around the world. They spout hate speech and lo and behold sucide bombers blow people up. And themselves.

The difference is that Muslim extremist actually tell their followers to commit acts of violence! This man acted on his on accord! I don’t always agree with the talk show hosts you mention, but they are merely expressing their opinions as all of us as Americans are allowed to do. I’ve never heard one actively encourage their listeners to commit acts like this.

 

[Dale_M]

Since this man intended to die, gun blazing, as tried to kill as many people as he could, and since he seems motivated by an ideology (hatred of gays and liberals)… is he a terrorist? How does he differ from, say, a suicide bomber?

 

[Publisher]

Yes indeed, we say the words and when we’re finally taken serious by “someone” we “clarify” that we really didn’t mean they use violence…it’s not our fault some “nut job” took us literally…we don’t want to take responsibility for our own words. “Sure, I yelled “FIRE” in a crowded theater…but I didn’t mean it!!!”

 

[MakeUpArtist]

Yes indeed, we say the words and when we’re finally taken serious by “someone” we “clarify” that we really didn’t mean they use violence…it’s not our fault some “nut job” took us literally…we don’t want to take responsibility for our own words. “Sure, I yelled “FIRE” in a crowded theater…but I didn’t mean it!!!”

Who is the “we” who told this man to shoot people in a church?

 

[Christophorus72]

Who is the “we” who told this man to shoot people in a church?

I’m was wondering that as well.

 

[Publisher]

Who is the “we” who told this man to shoot people in a church?

I think when “we” use language that we don’t take responsibility for…language that “we” believe “we” are divorced from the consequences of such language being take “too seriously”, “we” err against our neighbor.

If you do not feel responsiblility for your words and the consequences those words may have to incite violence, promote discrimination, cause harm to others, I don’t know how to explain that WE all hold a responsibility and are accountable for the language “we” use.

It may be a difficult concept for many to believe that they are responsible in part for the violence others engage in IF the words they used promote that violence, even indirectly. I believe my words hold me accountable to the God who spoke the Word and he became flesh.

Sometimes we “speak” without realizing the consequences…and we speak “violence” to come into being. IMO, “we” are those who claim to follow the one who calls us to be “Light to the world” in which we live and to “seek the welfare of others above ourselves.”…this is a Quaker perspective…nothing more.

 

[Christophorus72]

I think when “we” use language that we don’t take responsibility for…language that “we” believe “we” are divorced from the consequences of such language being take “too seriously”, “we” err against our neighbor.

If you do not feel responsiblility for your words and the consequences those words may have to incite violence, promote discrimination, cause harm to others, I don’t know how to explain that WE all hold a responsibility and are accountable for the language “we” use.

It may be a difficult concept for many to believe that they are responsible in part for the violence others engage in IF the words they used promote that violence, even indirectly. I believe my words hold me accountable to the God who spoke the Word and he became flesh.

Sometimes we “speak” without realizing the consequences…and we speak “violence” to come into being. IMO, “we” are those who claim to follow the one who calls us to be “Light to the world” in which we live and to “seek the welfare of others above ourselves.”…this is a Quaker perspective…nothing more.

Again, who is the “we” who told this person to shoot the people in the church?

 

[MakeUpArtist]

I think when “we” use language that we don’t take responsibility for…language that “we” believe “we” are divorced from the consequences of such language being take “too seriously”, “we” err against our neighbor.

If you do not feel responsiblility for your words and the consequences those words may have to incite violence, promote discrimination, cause harm to others, I don’t know how to explain that WE all hold a responsibility and are accountable for the language “we” use.

It may be a difficult concept for many to believe that they are responsible in part for the violence others engage in IF the words they used promote that violence, even indirectly. I believe my words hold me accountable to the God who spoke the Word and he became flesh.

Sometimes we “speak” without realizing the consequences…and we speak “violence” to come into being. IMO, “we” are those who claim to follow the one who calls us to be “Light to the world” in which we live and to “seek the welfare of others above ourselves.”…this is a Quaker perspective…nothing more.

I believe people are responsible for their own actions and people have the right to speak their opinions. For example, I don’t believe those who speak out against abortion should be held responsible for someone else blowing up an abortion clinic.

 

[Publisher]

Again, who is the “we” who told this person to shoot the people in the church?

If you do not find yourself among the “we”…you’re “good”, I’m sure.