Dylann Roof
Most of us never heard of Dylann Roof prior to the shooting on June 17, 2015 at the AME church in Charleston, South Carolina. There was no reason why we would have been made aware of this young man. He apparently attended a local high school from the 8th through the 10th grade. His history included a couple of arrests, one of which might have been for a minor drug related offense. One of his classmates says of him:
From demorcraticunderground.com
The classmate, John Mullins, tells the website Roof was “kind of wild” but not an outcast at the school.
“He used drugs heavily a lot,” Mullins said. “It obviously harder than marijuana. He was like a pill popper, from what I understood. Like Xanax, and stuff like that.”
Mr. Roof was also alleged to have said at the church, “You rape our women and are taking over our country.” The victims were six women and three men, ages 25 to 87. Three of theses were ministers.
President Obama expressed sympathy for the families of those killed. He also used the occasion to decry the fact that it is so easy to obtain a gun in this country. The president stated that these sorts of incidences do not happen in other “advanced” countries with the same frequency.
It is interesting to me that Mr. Roof, in his mind, perceived the people he shot as enemies of “our” country. Was he simply doing what we as a nation do all the times to those we label as enemies? We go after our designated enemies with economic sanctions, but also very frequently with weapons with are intended to kill. We not only engage in that activity as a nation but we sell billions of dollars worth of arms so that others can also use violence to deal with those they label as enemies.
What is the difference between the alleged actions of Mr. Roof and the intended action of the U.S. when we bomb from planes, or use drones with bombs which possibly kill more civilians than so called enemies or kill others with ground forces? We also know that today we might decide someone is a friend and tomorrow an enemy. We could and sometimes do decide the opposite.
Of course, we would like to think that we can stop the behavior of such individuals as Mr. Roof, the young man who opened fire in a theater in Colorado, of the young man who shot the kids in the Sandy Hook school or any of the other individuals who have opened fire on “innocent” people in a public setting in the United States. We certainly want to believe that as long as we act like intelligent human beings we can tell the difference between the 52 listed on Bush’s card list (The cards were officially named the "personality identification playing cards". Wikipedia) of Iraq enemies and the naming of an enemy by an individual?) and the so-called innocent victims such as were killed in the church in Charleston.
Do we, in this country, really think that there is a qualitative difference between an individual in power such as a president, a CIA agent, or someone else who represents our government labeling someone an enemy and an individual doing so? Even if we truly believe that there is a huge difference in a nation and an individual declaring someone is an enemy and worthy of death by violent means what about the number of individuals in this country that we labels as criminals, incarcerate for long periods of time, and treat as bad people – as enemies of the state? We even execute or sentence many “criminals” to die by execution in this country. I am well aware that in 2010 only 46 were executed while just over 3000 were on death row (bjs.gov)
The president has some support for making it more difficult for individual in this country to buy guns. Yet, at the very same time, the manufacture and sales of guns in this country and to others countries are big business.
Statisticbrain.com verifies the following figures regarding sales of guns in the United States (Research date February 15, 2015):
Guns and ammunition manufacturing annual revenue, $11,000,000,000 ... Annual Federal tax dollars collected on firearm sales, $123,000,000. Of the guns produced annually a little over 889,000 are handguns. 645,000 guns are used for protection. 49% Percent felt laws limiting gun ownership infringe on the public’s right to bear arms
If we look at the sales of weapons to those exported by the United States the figures reported by the New York ‘times on August 27, 2012 were:
The American weapons sales total was an “extraordinary increase” over the $21.4 billion in deals for 2010, the study found, and was the largest single-year sales total in the history of United States arms exports. The previous high was in fiscal year 2009, when American weapons sales overseas totaled nearly $31 billion.
I am not sure that this counts the number of military weapons that the United States government gives to other countries or the U. S. Military takes and leaves in other countries.
We are a nation in which nearly 50% of people admit to thinking that it is important to be able to manufacture and own guns. We also seem to give our tacit approval to joining others such as the Russia in arming the rest of the world.
The language of profit speak loudly. The possibly that we will see a decrease in gun sales or new limitations on the “right” to bear arms is very slim no matter what I or such leaders as our President advocate. After all, as a nation, we have a very strong and persistent belief that we have a right to determine someone is an enemy who present a near or distant danger. This then gives us the right to kills or attempt to kill those individuals even if the attempt to do so involves “collateral damage” meaning “innocent civilian deaths. We also seem to have a very strong belief in the right to make a profit even if that profit is from the manufacture and sale of weapons.
Just as interesting, it seems we humans in this and other countries are very skilled at finding ways to dehumanize the enemy so that killing or hurting them is acceptable. We label them by such terms as:
· Enemy
· Insurgents
· Gooks
· Japs
· Kooks
· Japs
· Terrorists
· Evil
· Deranged
· Infidels
If one reads news stories over the years or has been a member of the military when the United States has been involved in a war, one knows that there are many more terms to help one train to think of other humans beings as essentially different than us and, thus, fair game for killing. In basic training, while marching or being marched to the chow hall, one can often hear troops chanting slogans such as, “I want to kill …….” By the time one goes into combat it is much easier to dissociate and kill the non-human, evil ones.
The individual killer who does not have the benefit of the support of a nation puts himself or herself through a similar process of training themselves to think of certain others as non-human. Whether the term is the N word, the C word, the M word or some other word, if one tells oneself the same story over and over again one begins to believe it at a very deep level and, thus, will find it easy to hit, shoot, or otherwise harm the individual(s).
I was sadly not surprised by the comment of one of the classmates of Mr. Roof, Mr. Mullens (quoted on democrativeunderground.com)
“I never heard him say anything, but just he had that kind of Southern pride, I guess some would say. Strong conservative beliefs,” he said. “He made a lot of racist jokes, but you don’t really take them seriously like that. You don’t really think of it like that.”
The governor of South Carolina is quoted in the Boston Globe as saying:
In the interview on Friday, Haley, a strong proponent of gun rights, deflected a question about whether the shooting would change her position on the issue.
“Anytime there is traumatic situation, people want something to blame. They always want something to go after,” she said. “There is one person to blame here. We are going to focus on that one person,” she added, referring to Roof.”
Certainly it is true that most people who owns a gun or who make racist statements or otherwise is convinced that some person or persons are enemies do not pick up a gun and kill individuals. I would like to believe that most of us have the ability to make a less violent decision even if we do think of someone or some group as an enemy. Yet, I believe that we systematically and consistently set the stage for individuals and groups in this country to justify the hatred of others and the killing of others. No matter how we “dress it up” and no matter how much evidence we can produce that the other person(s) is an justified target of our violence, every person or group which kills is convinced that their cause is right and just.
Nothing happens in a vacuum. If we truly want to decreases the number of such violent actions as was alleged to have been committed by Mr. Root we are going to have to do some soul searching regarding our relationship with such issues as:
· The right and need to own guns.
· The economics of the weapons industry.
· The process of dehumanizing others.
· The use of euphemisms such as “strong conservative beliefs” to describe racism.
· The need to believe that violence happens in a vacuum.
· The belief that we, in the United States, by convicting, locking up and more often than other countries, utilizing the death penalty are creating the conditions for a safe environment for our all of our citizens.
· Our attitude and treatment of the mentally ill.
The purpose of this blog is solely to attempt to continue to challenge myself and others to have serious, non-judgmental, non-emotional discussions about the role of the above issues in creating a more just and safe community and world.
Most of us never heard of Dylann Roof prior to the shooting on June 17, 2015 at the AME church in Charleston, South Carolina. There was no reason why we would have been made aware of this young man. He apparently attended a local high school from the 8th through the 10th grade. His history included a couple of arrests, one of which might have been for a minor drug related offense. One of his classmates says of him:
From demorcraticunderground.com
The classmate, John Mullins, tells the website Roof was “kind of wild” but not an outcast at the school.
“He used drugs heavily a lot,” Mullins said. “It obviously harder than marijuana. He was like a pill popper, from what I understood. Like Xanax, and stuff like that.”
Mr. Roof was also alleged to have said at the church, “You rape our women and are taking over our country.” The victims were six women and three men, ages 25 to 87. Three of theses were ministers.
President Obama expressed sympathy for the families of those killed. He also used the occasion to decry the fact that it is so easy to obtain a gun in this country. The president stated that these sorts of incidences do not happen in other “advanced” countries with the same frequency.
It is interesting to me that Mr. Roof, in his mind, perceived the people he shot as enemies of “our” country. Was he simply doing what we as a nation do all the times to those we label as enemies? We go after our designated enemies with economic sanctions, but also very frequently with weapons with are intended to kill. We not only engage in that activity as a nation but we sell billions of dollars worth of arms so that others can also use violence to deal with those they label as enemies.
What is the difference between the alleged actions of Mr. Roof and the intended action of the U.S. when we bomb from planes, or use drones with bombs which possibly kill more civilians than so called enemies or kill others with ground forces? We also know that today we might decide someone is a friend and tomorrow an enemy. We could and sometimes do decide the opposite.
Of course, we would like to think that we can stop the behavior of such individuals as Mr. Roof, the young man who opened fire in a theater in Colorado, of the young man who shot the kids in the Sandy Hook school or any of the other individuals who have opened fire on “innocent” people in a public setting in the United States. We certainly want to believe that as long as we act like intelligent human beings we can tell the difference between the 52 listed on Bush’s card list (The cards were officially named the "personality identification playing cards". Wikipedia) of Iraq enemies and the naming of an enemy by an individual?) and the so-called innocent victims such as were killed in the church in Charleston.
Do we, in this country, really think that there is a qualitative difference between an individual in power such as a president, a CIA agent, or someone else who represents our government labeling someone an enemy and an individual doing so? Even if we truly believe that there is a huge difference in a nation and an individual declaring someone is an enemy and worthy of death by violent means what about the number of individuals in this country that we labels as criminals, incarcerate for long periods of time, and treat as bad people – as enemies of the state? We even execute or sentence many “criminals” to die by execution in this country. I am well aware that in 2010 only 46 were executed while just over 3000 were on death row (bjs.gov)
The president has some support for making it more difficult for individual in this country to buy guns. Yet, at the very same time, the manufacture and sales of guns in this country and to others countries are big business.
Statisticbrain.com verifies the following figures regarding sales of guns in the United States (Research date February 15, 2015):
Guns and ammunition manufacturing annual revenue, $11,000,000,000 ... Annual Federal tax dollars collected on firearm sales, $123,000,000. Of the guns produced annually a little over 889,000 are handguns. 645,000 guns are used for protection. 49% Percent felt laws limiting gun ownership infringe on the public’s right to bear arms
If we look at the sales of weapons to those exported by the United States the figures reported by the New York ‘times on August 27, 2012 were:
The American weapons sales total was an “extraordinary increase” over the $21.4 billion in deals for 2010, the study found, and was the largest single-year sales total in the history of United States arms exports. The previous high was in fiscal year 2009, when American weapons sales overseas totaled nearly $31 billion.
I am not sure that this counts the number of military weapons that the United States government gives to other countries or the U. S. Military takes and leaves in other countries.
We are a nation in which nearly 50% of people admit to thinking that it is important to be able to manufacture and own guns. We also seem to give our tacit approval to joining others such as the Russia in arming the rest of the world.
The language of profit speak loudly. The possibly that we will see a decrease in gun sales or new limitations on the “right” to bear arms is very slim no matter what I or such leaders as our President advocate. After all, as a nation, we have a very strong and persistent belief that we have a right to determine someone is an enemy who present a near or distant danger. This then gives us the right to kills or attempt to kill those individuals even if the attempt to do so involves “collateral damage” meaning “innocent civilian deaths. We also seem to have a very strong belief in the right to make a profit even if that profit is from the manufacture and sale of weapons.
Just as interesting, it seems we humans in this and other countries are very skilled at finding ways to dehumanize the enemy so that killing or hurting them is acceptable. We label them by such terms as:
· Enemy
· Insurgents
· Gooks
· Japs
· Kooks
· Japs
· Terrorists
· Evil
· Deranged
· Infidels
If one reads news stories over the years or has been a member of the military when the United States has been involved in a war, one knows that there are many more terms to help one train to think of other humans beings as essentially different than us and, thus, fair game for killing. In basic training, while marching or being marched to the chow hall, one can often hear troops chanting slogans such as, “I want to kill …….” By the time one goes into combat it is much easier to dissociate and kill the non-human, evil ones.
The individual killer who does not have the benefit of the support of a nation puts himself or herself through a similar process of training themselves to think of certain others as non-human. Whether the term is the N word, the C word, the M word or some other word, if one tells oneself the same story over and over again one begins to believe it at a very deep level and, thus, will find it easy to hit, shoot, or otherwise harm the individual(s).
I was sadly not surprised by the comment of one of the classmates of Mr. Roof, Mr. Mullens (quoted on democrativeunderground.com)
“I never heard him say anything, but just he had that kind of Southern pride, I guess some would say. Strong conservative beliefs,” he said. “He made a lot of racist jokes, but you don’t really take them seriously like that. You don’t really think of it like that.”
The governor of South Carolina is quoted in the Boston Globe as saying:
In the interview on Friday, Haley, a strong proponent of gun rights, deflected a question about whether the shooting would change her position on the issue.
“Anytime there is traumatic situation, people want something to blame. They always want something to go after,” she said. “There is one person to blame here. We are going to focus on that one person,” she added, referring to Roof.”
Certainly it is true that most people who owns a gun or who make racist statements or otherwise is convinced that some person or persons are enemies do not pick up a gun and kill individuals. I would like to believe that most of us have the ability to make a less violent decision even if we do think of someone or some group as an enemy. Yet, I believe that we systematically and consistently set the stage for individuals and groups in this country to justify the hatred of others and the killing of others. No matter how we “dress it up” and no matter how much evidence we can produce that the other person(s) is an justified target of our violence, every person or group which kills is convinced that their cause is right and just.
Nothing happens in a vacuum. If we truly want to decreases the number of such violent actions as was alleged to have been committed by Mr. Root we are going to have to do some soul searching regarding our relationship with such issues as:
· The right and need to own guns.
· The economics of the weapons industry.
· The process of dehumanizing others.
· The use of euphemisms such as “strong conservative beliefs” to describe racism.
· The need to believe that violence happens in a vacuum.
· The belief that we, in the United States, by convicting, locking up and more often than other countries, utilizing the death penalty are creating the conditions for a safe environment for our all of our citizens.
· Our attitude and treatment of the mentally ill.
The purpose of this blog is solely to attempt to continue to challenge myself and others to have serious, non-judgmental, non-emotional discussions about the role of the above issues in creating a more just and safe community and world.
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