Well it's either a hate crime or it's an act of terror. You don't get charged with both. But I'm with Bobby, it's minutia (a point I've made repeatedly) as he will be charged with a crime that will carry the ultimate penalty if found guilty. It's not a slight to the victims on either charge. The state will seek the ultimate price for this crime, no matter what you call it.
I had a judge tell me that you should never give or receive a gun as a gift. You should always pay something for it because a gun given or received as a gift will always cause trouble.
??????? I don't understand your point at all. How will a hate crime or a terrorist act change how you look by association? And who is associated with him? Maybe I'm just slow today Carl, but can you walk me through your logic?
I wasn't serious. I am not sure what there is to debate. A young white male went into a predominantly black church and committed a premeditated spree killing. I am comfortable saying he targeted the group he did based on their race. I don't like the distinction of "hate crime" as a crime is a crime.... but this clearly was a hate crime. Events like this are tragic and need to be discussed, but on the issue of whether this was racially motivated? There is no real debate... it was racially motivated. We can discuss mental illness, as we did with the Fort Hood masacre or the DC Sniper, but it doesn't change the fact that these folks are dead because of the color of there skin. Too many black Americans die a violent death .... and this is another example.
Because the terms have relevance and are important to our cultural context. For example Dhozar Tsarnaev is getting the death penalty for killing 4 people so then should we just not bother calling him a "terrorist"? I agree with Justxyank that terrorists are about people who are advancing an agenda, I don't agree with how he parses the agenda. So to understand the motivations for these killers and to possibly prevent future one's the terminology matters. Adam Lanza and James Holmes are not considered terrorists because their motivations didn't seem to have any agenda other than to cause mayhem for the sake of mayhem so they aren't considered terrorists. Dylann Roof does seem to have an agenda so I would clearly call him a terrorists.
I agree with your post except obviously I'm calling him a racist POS instead of a terrorist right now, but if there was some agenda here beyond just hating black people then I'd move to 100% agreement with you.
Unless the uncle was also a racist, someone who encouraged the guy in his actions, and/or if the murderer was given the weapon after he got into trouble with the law prior to this horrible act, what the uncle did may have been entirely innocent. I'm sure that will come out, eventually. I have firearms myself that I inherited. My father and grandfather taught me how to shoot. The uncle may be as astonished as everyone else about this. We'll find that out. Still very early in the investigations that will follow this act of racist terrorism that resulted in mass murder.
Okay, so culturally how does it change anything if we call the act terrorism vs a hate crime? We called the shooting on Fort Hood "workplace violence" instead of terrorism and it changed nothing. Major Hasan is still on death row one way or the other.
Here's what Gospel singer Marcus Stanley commented on Dylann Roofs Facebook page today. Good stuff from Marcus Stanley, a man who was shot 8 times before he turned his life around and became a Gospel Singer.
I can't speak for the victims but let's say that he went into a predominately Asian Church and instead of blacks he expressed hatred of Asians. As an Asian I would be very concerned about his motivation and would want to see it classified as "terrorism". While he might end up paying the ultimate price either way why he did it is important. He's expressed hatred for blacks and specifically left someone alive so they could spread the word of his hatred and blacks and presumably spread fear to other blacks. That is clearly using terror as a weapon and we follow his twisted logic it is so they won't rape his (white) women and take over the country. I don't see how that is much different than anyone else who is using terror for an agenda. I will repeat what I said earlier if all of this is minutia and what matters is the penalty then why is it important to call Tsarnaev a terrorist when he is also facing the death penalty?
The difference is intent. Terrorism is done for political reasons, hate crimes are done for racist reasons. If the guy was trying to make a political statement, he's a terrorist, if he just wanted to kill black people, it's a hate crime. One way or the other he's a mass murderer and his intentions won't make the act any better or worse.
