Are We Giving Up On Gun Laws?
Witnesses say that the white gunman who killed nine people at Charleston's historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church was quite vocal about his motives: He wanted to kill black people.
Quoting a survivor of the horror, Sylvia Johnson, whose cousin Rev. Clementa Pinckney was one of three ministers killed in the church, said the shooter muttered, "I have to do it. You rape our women and you're taking over our country. And you have to go."
Facebook photos and other evidence suggests that Dylann Roof, 21, who has confessed to the killings, has a keen interest in white supremacy organizations and "Southern heritage" movements.
As a history buff, I hate to see haters give "Southern heritage" a bad name. Trouble is, some Southern heritage fans don't want to accept that the "War of Northern Aggression," as some call it, ended 150 years ago.
Yet even before Roof's name was announced to the world, the tragedy at Emanuel AME church immediately raised three disturbing questions in my head. They were the same three questions that came to my mind after similar tragedies at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, at the movie theater in Aurora, Colo., and at Columbine High School in Colorado.
Who let this gunman get his hands on a deadly weapon?
How did he slip through our mental health services net?
Is he part of a larger terror conspiracy or is he a lone wolf?
All of which leads to the larger question for our political leaders: What are you going to do about it?
President Barack Obama looked uncommonly and wearily depressed by this tragedy. That was partly because he and first lady Michelle Obama were personally acquainted with the church and its pastor. So were Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Dr. Jill Biden. The young baritone-voiced Rev. Pinckney, 41, who also was a Democratic state senator, had made "Mother Emanuel" a go-to landmark for political visitors seeking to connect with Charleston's black communities.
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