South Carolina AME Terrorism

[puckalish]

I was hanging out with the lady when the shooting happened at the African Methodist Episcopal church in Charleston... we happened to be looking at Twitter and, of all things, watching a documentary about the Reconstruction in which her friend relays some historical info... when all these first-hand reports started flooding in. Soon, more keyed-in journalists started covering the story, but no major media outlet had live coverage for hours... still, from that first moment... Going from watching a documentary about a brief moment during which a great deal of equity was rapidly achieved in US governance to snapping back to 2015 with the same kind of horrendous act that brought an end to that positive change.

Some of y'all have seen me in-game since then and I'm trying to be my usual cheerful self, but I just don't know how to talk about this stuff in certain spaces. I just... dunno... I have so many thoughts and game chat is maybe not the place, but... Among other things, I'm not so much shocked as heart broken again and again by how slowly we, as humans, get any better... if we do at all.

Then, I watch footage of the families and community members affected by this brutality all confronting and praying for and forgiving this man (who sat next to their loved ones and then murdered them for the color of their skin)... and I just don't know what to think.

We are capable of that much love, too? We need to do better and we're so clearly able to.

I know it's about workers' rights and pollution, but the feeling... (and the state)

[GThibaudeau]

Yeah, I wish this was shocking to me still, but considering the last few years it isn't really. It's heartbreaking, troubling, disturbing, and depressing, but not surprising in the least. It sometimes seems that though we're capable of both great love and hate that people are almost exclusively moved to action by hate rather than love. I'm so tired of seeing these stories, emotionally exhausted, and thats exacerbated by the endless prattle of media personalities and politicians trying to blame these events on the other team, but never ever trying to solve the underlying issues that provoke them.
When events like this happen it's so easy to slip into despair, to lose hope in humanity, but then you see the love and forgiveness and fundamental decency and goodness of the community most effected by this tragedy and maybe just maybe theres still hope for us after all.

[aaaict]

First of all my condolences to the people who were shot at the AME church. 

Its rather sad that I used to live in the two most recent volitile areas in the USA due to racial tensions. 
When Baltimore descended into chaos I was rather disappointed and sad, although I only lived there for the first 5 years of my life.

When Charleston massacre appeared on BBC news the other morning I was shocked and at a loss for words. 
When I later found out the exact location of the shooting, I was even more shocked- it was 5 minutes away down the street from my last school. 

Over across the pond, here there is comparatively negligible gun crime. All guns are officially banned in the UK, and even normal police (apart from SO17 by Parliament) do not carry guns, just buttons and handcuffs. You hardly ever hear any stories of mass shootings here. In comparison it seems that every month we get another story of a US mass shooting or some racial hate crime ( back to back weeks of that with the Texas police officer last week).

The question is why do we Americans need to carry guns. I realize that it is a huge part of are national history and in the US constitution. However that law was used when the USA was heading into the unknown wilderness towards the west. In the 21st Century that law is being abused. At least ban the automatic and semi-automatic rifles and guns, no one can justify the need for one's defense with weapons of potential mass shootings, just a handgun would suffice for the poor and outdated argument of the need for guns for one's defence. In the UK it has become a constant question to ask Americans about- why don't you ban guns. If only we had done so sooner. 

AAAICT