Are We Giving Up On Gun Laws?
Did the accused shooter know the historical importance of this church? Mother Emanuel is the oldest black congregation south of Baltimore and a major symbol of black resistance. It also has been an important platform for the Rev. Martin Luther King and other leaders, even in the slavery era.
One of its earliest members was Denmark Vesey, a free black carpenter who plotted an uprising that could have involved thousands in 1822, had it not been compromised by two slave informants. Almost two centuries later, a statue commemorates Vesey in a park in Charleston.
Was it only coincidental that the attack on the church came on June 17, one day after the date in 1822 that Vesey planned for his uprising? Was the gunman aware of that history?
Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center -- which tracks racial hate crimes -- described the attack to the Los Angeles Times as a "hate crime by someone who feels threatened by our country's changing demographics and the increasing prominence of African Americans in public life." Indeed some people hate you when you don't do well enough -- and they hate you even more when they think you're doing too well.
You could hear the weariness in President Obama's voice as he lamented how, "once again innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun."
But, alas, unlike those earlier mass killings, he stopped short of calling for action. "At some point," he suggested, we as a country will have to reckon with our grim reality.
But for now, this president seemed to be throwing in the towel. Sensible and popular reforms such as expanding background checks and crackdowns on unscrupulous gun dealers would not stop every crime but they're still worth a try. I wonder how many more needless deaths it will take before the rest of us say, "Enough!"
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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.)
(c) 2015 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
