The shooters in the Buffalo and Uvalde massacres were both 18, and legally purchased assault rifles. This is fueling calls to raise the age when someone can purchase this weapon from 18 to 21.
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You could reasonably ask if ‘Are 18-year-olds mature enough to buy AR-15s’, but are even 21-year-olds, un fact anyone who isn’t under the arm of the military.
For does an individual really need a machine gun of any nature.
Yet another shooting and loss of life in America, when will it stop?
The gun lobby feel it will when everyone carries a gun, but was that not the case before ‘so called’ Law and Order was established in America. This was referred to the ‘Wild West‘, when virtually everyone carried a gun.
WShen it did not stop gun killings then and it will not know. Since then the range of firearms has increased considerably, as had the fire power of these weapons, for now instead of the six shot gun, the weapon of favour is the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, a weapon with so much more fire power as the old six shot guns, a weapon of ultimate destruction, which is put forward as a weapon of defence. With a weapon of that nature there is no defence, just killings.
The only sure way of bringing the killings down is for very tight gun control, a ban on personal use of semiautomatic rifles and a removal of ‘open carry’ for the general population, this is what we do in the UK and our gun killings are no where the numbers of in America.
The referred defence is the, The Second Amendment, one of the ten amendments to the Constitution comprising the Bill of Rights, states: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”.
Which means ‘The right to keep and bear arms (often referred to as the right to bear arms) is a right for people to possess weapons (arms) for their own defense.’.
It was adopted on 15 December 1791, this is well before the development of semiautomatic rifles and should therefore only relate to the firearms of that time and not of the current time.
For today , in certain areas, is back to pre 1791, they have learnt nothing over the years, so the killings go and on.
Where is the Human right to Life in America, for it appears to not exist.
The shootings this week are a terrible blow to the mutual trust both sides need.
Source: Is the police-community relationship in America beyond repair? – The Washington Post
On November 13 2015, a series of coordinated attacks in Paris left 130 people dead. A week later, armed gunmen stormed a hotel in Mali, seizing hostages wh
Source: When Fear Is a Weapon: How Terror Attacks Influence Mental Health
Well said, thank you for posting
In recent news, where the unfortunate happened at an Oregon College in US, where gunman Chris Harper took the lives of 9 people, shooting and killing them when after the suspect was also killed. So many senseless and inhumane acts of violence, and gun violence. When is it going to stop? Does the unimaginable have to happen, so that we can see change, take preventative safety and security measures? So many shootings and killings have happened in the last little while.
Columbine, Sandy Hook, African American Church in Charleston S.C, Aurora Colo Movie theatre, TV news Reporter Alison Parker and her partner Adam ward and Alison who was interviewing Vicki Gardner in August, 2015 who survived at Lake Moneta, Malls, Shopping Plaza’s, on the streets, and anywhere else. You are really not safe anywhere in this world anymore.
Not only in US, but around the world. I can’t even imagine…
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Original post from Washington Post
‘……………………..By Jeremy Borden, Sari Horwitz and Jerry Markon
http://www.washingtonpost.com/posttv/c/embed/e37a3cf0-16b8-11e5-8457-4b431bf7ed4c
A 21-year-old white man accused of murdering nine people in a historic black South Carolina church makes his first court appearance. (Reuters)
CHARLESTON, S.C. — The gunman charged with killing nine people in an African American church was unrepentant during a confession to police, even after almost backing out of what he called his “mission” because church members were so nice to him, according to law enforcement officials and others briefed on the investigation.
Dylann Roof not only confessed to causing the Wednesday night carnage in Charleston, but said he wanted his actions known, said the law enforcement officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is unfolding. They said Roof espoused strong anti-black views when questioned by officers.
But the 21-year-old also told police he had briefly reconsidered his plan during the time he spent quietly watching a Bible study group before opening fire, two people briefed on the investigation said. Roof “said he “almost didn’t go through with it because they were so nice to him” one of the people said, before concluding: “I had to complete my mission.”
As he methodically fired and reloaded several times, the person said, Roof called out: “You all are taking over our country. Y’all want something to pray about? I’ll give you something to pray about.”
Roof’s words added to an emerging portrait that suggests the 21-year-old was driven by runaway racial hatred in the attacks — unleashed after Roof spent nearly an hour watching the group before opening fire, authorities said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/posttv/c/embed/42de81c2-15e4-11e5-8457-4b431bf7ed4c
Dylann Roof is in custody after police say he opened fire at a historic African American church in Charleston, SC. Here’s a look at the 21-year-old’s background, including recent arrests, and what authorities say happened inside the church. (Alice Li/The Washington Post)
Left dead were the church’s prominent pastor and eight other worshippers.
[For suspect, A life that drifted off track ]
Authorities on Friday announced that Roof has been charged with nine counts of murder and possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime. He then appeared in court for an extraordinary bond hearing in which relatives of the dead, given the chance to confront him, instead offered him forgiveness and said they were praying for him.
Judge James B. Gosnell Jr. ordered Roof held without bond on the murder charges but set a $1 million bond on the firearm charge. It was unclear if prosecutors would seek the death penalty and if Roof had an attorney.
Meanwhile, a federal civil rights investigation into the attacks was underway, which authorities said will be conducted along with the state probe. Federal officials have described it as a hate crime investigation.
South Carolina’s governor urged her state’s prosecutors to seek the death penalty for the shootings inside Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, the South’s oldest African American church. “We will absolutely will want him to have the death penalty,” Gov. Nikki Haley told NBC’s “Today” show.
Outpourings of sorrow and expressions of anger and disbelief have spilled from Charleston and across the country. In Charleston, a major prayer vigil was scheduled for later Friday as the city’s mayor, Joseph P. Riley Jr., called the slayings an act of “pure, pure concentrated evil.”
In Washington, a solemn President Obama voiced “sadness and anger” on Thursday and wondered what it would take to push lawmakers to tighten the nation’s gun laws. On a visit Friday to a U.S. military base in northern Italy, first lady Michelle Obama said she prays “for a community that I know is in pain.”
About the same time in front of the AME church in Charleston, three nuns in blue habits read a Bible passage amid a sidewalk piled high with flowers, wreaths and balloons.
That message of peace contrasted with what friends and law enforcement officials said was the profile of Roof coming to light piece by piece. It suggested a downward trajectory of racial suspicions, misguided rage andunsettling plots — which were expressed to others, but apparently never passed to authorities as warnings.
A one-time acquaintance of Roof’s recalled that the suspect would rant that “blacks were taking over the world” as the pair got drunk on vodka.
Roof railed that “someone needed to do something about it for the white race,” said the former friend, Joseph Meek Jr., the Associated Press reported.
Roof’s former roommate, Dalton Tyler, told ABC News that Roof seemed to have been plotting some kind of violence “for six months.”
“He said he wanted to start a civil war,” Tyler said. “He said he was going to do something like that and then kill himself.”
After a nearly 15-hour manhunt that ended when Roof’s car was spotted in North Carolina, the case now turns to questions that include how he obtained the weapon and why no one alerted authorities as Roof apparently sharpened his racial diatribes and threats.
[The victims: A pastor, coach, therapist]
A Snapchat video taken shortly before the shooting and obtained by Mashable.com appears to show a white man sitting with the black parishioners around a table in a church meeting room at Emanuel AME, one of the oldest black churches in the nation.
The man was offered a chance to join the discussion on the Scriptures, but declined. Shortly after, he opened fire.
Witnesses told authorities they never saw the man pull out the gun. Instead, they saw him start shooting, up close, targeting each victim with precision. The man took the time to reload the handgun “several times,” officials said.
Afterward, eight people lay dead and a ninth lay dying. Among the victims was the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, 41, Emanuel AME’s charismatic pastor, who also served in the South Carolina Senate and once sponsored a resolution praising a high school senior for an award-winning speech in favor of tighter gun laws.
Authorities identified the other victims as the Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, 45, who is the mother of a Charleston Southern University student; Cynthia Hurd, 47, the manager of the St. Andrews Regional Library in Charleston; Susie Jackson, 87; Ethel Lance, 70; DePayne Middleton; Tywanza Sanders, 26; and Myra Thompson, 59. Daniel Simmons, 74, died at the hospital
Roof allegedly spared one woman, one law enforcement official said, so she could tell others what had happened.
When Roof was arrested — about 250 miles from Charleston — he had a Glock .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun that law enforcement officials said he had obtained in April, either receiving it as a birthday gift or buying it himself with birthday money. The gun was purchased legally, officials said.
A troubled loner who dropped out of school in ninth grade and had a history of small-time arrests, Roof maintained a Facebook page that seems to reflect his worldview. The profile picture shows him scowling in a wooded swamp, wearing a jacket with at least two conspicuous patches: the flags of apartheid-era South Africa and the former white-ruled Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).
[In photo, suspect wears flags of racists regimes]
Charleston Police Chief Gregory Mullen said Roof “was cooperative with the officer who stopped him” near Shelby, N.C. He waived extradition to South Carolina and was flown back to Charleston late Thursday.
It was unclear why Roof fled to Shelby. His home in Eastover is near Columbia, South Carolina’s state capital, about 130 miles to the south, but his sister’s fiance, Michael Tyo, lives in Shelby.
The shooting was the deadliest attack on a place of worship in the United States since 1991, when nine people were killed at the Wat Promkunaram temple near Phoenix. Johnathan Doody, tried three times for the execution-style murders at the Buddhist temple, was sentenced in 2014 to 249 years in prison.
For some, the shooting evoked memories of the 1963 Birmingham bombing, in which Ku Klux Klan member planted dynamite on the steps of the 16th Street Baptist Church, killing four African American girls.
“For such a heinous act to be perpetrated in a house of God more than a half a century after the 16th Street tragedy is a reminder to us all that we must be ever vigilant and work as one community to call out and eliminate racial hatred,” said Doug Jones, the former U.S. attorney who prosecuted some of the Klan members.
Pictures from the South Carolina State House showed a black cloth draped at the desk where Pinckney sat in the Senate. The Confederate flag continued to wave outside.
Vice President Biden, who had seen Pinckney last year at a prayer breakfast in Columbia, S.C., called the shooting an “act of pure evil and hatred.”
“Hate has once again been let loose in an American community,” Biden and his wife, Jill, said in a statement. “And the senseless actions of a coward have once again cut short so many lives with so much promise.”
Horwitz and Markon reported from Washington. Jeremy Borden in Columbia, SC; Anne Gearan in Charleston; Ken Otterbourg in Shelby and Brian Murphy, J. Freedom du Lac, Mark Berman, Lindsey Bever, Sarah Larimer, Elahe Izadi, Jose A. DelReal, Thad Moore, Ishaan Tharoor, Sarah Pulliam Bailey and Julie Tate in Washington contributed to this report.
Read more:
The ugly truth about hate crimes
● 11 essential facts about guns and mass shootings in the United States
Piers was right the gun lobby progressed by the NRA is too powerful in the USA.
Re 2nd Amendment, this does give a right to bear arms, but only to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home, not to go to schools, etc to kill innocent people. Also it was created in the 18th century, when guns were not as fast loading as they are now. Although there have been some amendments. The first was the National Firearms Act of 1934, then the Gun Control Act of 1968, and finally the Hughes Amendment in 1986. In essence, what these three laws have done is to say respectfully that fully automatic firearms must be taxed and regulated, cannot be imported from outside the United States, and can no longer manufacture and/or register new/existing full auto weapons with the federal government (BATFE).
No one is advocating the withdrawal of the right to bear arms, just restrict it so the modern fast loading weapons are not included.
Who needs an automatic gun that has a magazine of many rounds to protect your own home?
Piers is chairing an entertainment show and whether you like him or not he is certainly great at PR, look at all the free publicity he is having.
How many are now watching his show, just to find out what outlandish comments he will make next.
He is certainly pushing the 1st Amendment to its core.
Which Amendment will he go far next? Is he working is way through the American Constitution and the Bill of Rights?
Will he last the pace?
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