Missing the mark (Or not)

[pyat]

There was a shooting at a Unitarian Universalist church in Knoxville on the weekend. Two people died. The suspected attacker was, apparently, frustrated by Christianity. He was normal fairly peaceful, but sometimes had religious disagreements with his neighbors, one of whom is a King James literalist. If his attack was inspired by his frustration with Fundamentalist Christianity, then he picked a really bad target. Not that any target would have been a good one.

Edit: Though, apparently he was mostly mad at those darn liberals...

Comments

[paka.livejournal.com]

Are we talking about this shooting, during a musical (http://news.aol.com/article/police-say-church-gunman-hated-liberals/102408)? Because the AOL article - and AOL's usually right-leaning in my experience - suggests that this guy got all hopped up on how Unitarians were evil left-wingers.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

That's the one. His neighbours said, in another news article, that he used to rant about Christians. Hmm. Sounds like a really messed up guy all round.

[mrs-dm.livejournal.com]

The CNN website states that he left a four-page letter describing his motives, including that he was upset with the "liberal" movement. As such, the shooting is being investigated as a hate crime as it was a liberal church.

I'm not sure how I feel about that. I mean, isn't any murder a hate crime? This guy clearly was disturbed, but I don't think that his thoughts and actions were on the same continuum as the average American "conservative".

[archai.livejournal.com]

That was my first thought, too.

[bodhifox.livejournal.com]

The news I read was that he was violently opposed to Liberals, and the pro-gay, pro-feminist stance of the church upset him.

[relee.livejournal.com]

Sometimes you murder people to take their stuff, despite having no ill will against the person themselves.


Anyways that's a real shame, people shouldn't go shooting up churches, unless it's a rescue operation during a ritual sacrifice.

Well...

[pxtl.livejournal.com]

The term "hate" crime is kinda vague, but my understanding is that it refers to a crime where the motive is simply hatred for a race or class or religion or affiliation or whatever, not a specific person or act. That is, he didn't kill so-and-so because he hated them, but that he hated liberals, and so-and-so happened to be liberal.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

I mean, isn't any murder a hate crime?

I've often thought that. I can see "hate crimes" being a separate category when dealing with things like vandalism - painting a swastika on a synagogue is worse, in most senses, than painting your name. But, to me, killing a person without hate (as in a robbery) is actually a sign of greater instability than someone who kills with a reason.

[melstra.livejournal.com]

*Nod* I tend to agree with that.
I think in the US, hate crime legislation is aimed more at the rest of society than at the criminals themselves--some sort of weak political way of saying "hey, we REALLY disagree with racisim/homophobia/etc. and we're doing something about it, aren't we great". I'm not sure it really makes any difference, crime-wise.

That said, whether consequences are different or not, I think keeping statistics on the motivation behind the crime is important, just like we note if something is domestic violence.

[dagoski.livejournal.com]

Well, most murders in the US arise out of arguments. That certainly indicates anger, but hate is a different thing entirely. Specifically, most murders occur as a result of feuds over money. At least that's what the Uniform Crime Reporting figures listed last time I looked at the tail end of the 1990s.

Motivation is important in these kind of crimes. Most murderers are angry at a specific person for a specific reason and are looking to settle things in a permanent manner. When a killing is designed to intimidate an entire class of people, the scope of the killing is larger than the immediate victims.

[used_songs]

That's terrible. I just don't understand how someone could do something like that, regardless of who they are targeting.

[paka.livejournal.com]

I don't think that his thoughts and actions were on the same continuum as the average American "conservative".

Maybe not average, but the extreme edge does seem... pretty murderous. I'm from Georgia, I used to work for a defense contractor, so I've seen how right-wingers work. I kinda feel like when you plug normal ranting, hate-filled conservative rhetoric into sane people, you get sane people who just aren't pleasant, fair-minded, or truly community-oriented. You plug the same rhetoric into people who aren't entirely sane, and you get stuff like this or the anti-abortion whackos who murder doctors.

Re: Well...

[kianir.livejournal.com]

Correct. A hate crime is effectively a second crime -- you have done something (assault, murder, whatever) which is already against the law, AND you have done so in a way intended to terrorize a part of society.

So, you might kill somebody because they owe you money, or they had sex with your pig (Tennessee, after all!), or because they put their seed in your daughter's bellah. And that is obviously a crime, murder. However, if you kill somebody because they're a UU congregant, and do so specifically because they're liberals, that is not just murder, but also a crime against society's fabric by terrorizing UU members and liberals in general.

Confer: http://kianir.livejournal.com/155099.html

[undeadmuse.livejournal.com]

Does sacrificing your intellect and logic count?

[relee.livejournal.com]

Only if it's invoulentary.