Tennessee (slightly off-topic)

[4sarge]

Originally Posted by Crystalship1

Yeah... the news says he was there to "kill Liberals".

I wonder if he was a member of that nut-case church behind all the protests at fallen soldier's funerals??? :rolleyesedit:

Some of the media are calling it a "Hate Crime" since Liberals were targeted. I didn't know that Liberals had become a protected legal class :rolleyesedit:

[AFA1CY]

Originally Posted by 4sarge

Some of the media are calling it a "Hate Crime" since Liberals were targeted. I didn't know that Liberals had become a protected legal class :rolleyesedit:

Everybody, and everything is a protected class now.


Hate crime aganst a shaved head, blue eyed, German decent, Glock carrying Hoosier.

[Crystalship1]

Originally Posted by 4sarge

I didn't know that Liberals had become a protected legal class :rolleyesedit:

Maybe it falls under the same protection as the mentally challenged?!?!?

[indyjoe]

Sounds like someone braved a hit to save others. The one killed stepped directly in front of the shotgun to save others. I'd prefer to save others via taking down the shot gunner.

[paddling_man]

I don't know - maybe I'm too close to this since I knew folks years ago who attended that church. For that matter, I'm still a member on record for a UU church in St. Louis - along with several shooting & hunting buddies, folks one would never class as "liberal."

"Hate Crime" for liberals or as a protected class - nah. Hate Crime for anyone for bursts into a church and starts shooting based on what the shooter perceives the congregation believe? Yeah, I think so. Religious persecution was a major player in the history of our country's colonization.

This is not a political sub-forum but a Carry sub, so I guess I'll say this... I wish someone had been carrying that day. If not, I guess I understand. There are other places where tradition has it that no weapons should be brought in order to preserve the peace of the gathering. Of course, most of those places had armed guards stationed at the perimeters.

Either way, I have great admiration to the member of the congregation who took a shot to save others.

[hoosiertriangle]

This is truly a sad incident, but there should be hate crimes, just crimes. The concept of a "hate" crime is horrible. No class of person should be protected because they belong to a class other than that of being a human.

[paddling_man]

I think I see what you are trying to say and I don't disagree. A crime against another human is, in my eyes, a crime. No other status, class or protection need be attached.

However, as defined by Federal Public Law 101-275 Hate Crimes are "crimes that manifest evidence of prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity, including where appropriate the crimes of murder, non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, aggravated assault, simple assault, intimidation, arson, and destruction, damage or vandalism of property." It means they can attach an extra measure of penalty under that classification.

If this piece of crap can get extra time in prison, or consideration for the death penalty, as a result of it also technically being a "Hate Crime" since he shot up a church, I'm all for it in this case. Use the existing law to remove as much possibility for parole as possible.

[Bill of Rights]

Originally Posted by paddling_man

I think I see what you are trying to say and I don't disagree. A crime against another human is, in my eyes, a crime. No other status, class or protection need be attached.

However, as defined by Federal Public Law 101-275 Hate Crimes are "crimes that manifest evidence of prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity, including where appropriate the crimes of murder, non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, aggravated assault, simple assault, intimidation, arson, and destruction, damage or vandalism of property." It means they can attach an extra measure of penalty under that classification.

If this piece of crap can get extra time in prison, or consideration for the death penalty, as a result of it also technically being a "Hate Crime" since he shot up a church, I'm all for it in this case. Use the existing law to remove as much possibility for parole as possible.

As much as the criminal deserves the utmost punishment, it won't bring the dead back, and it won't erase what anyone there saw that day. As long as he's prevented from ever doing anything remotely similar to this ever again, I'm satisfied. I really worry when people want to make exceptions that this crime is so horrific, or that person was whatever, so therefore we need to abandon the principle that we are a nation of law, not of men. The law must apply equally to all or it actually applies to none, and I don't think any of us want that.



Blessings,
B

[techres]

Let me weigh in here and say I am on shaky terms with the classification of hate crimes. The reason why is not because some crimes do not deserve extra punishment, because we actually already do that. The reason is the focus of victimhood is misplaced and thereby creates a potential status where one victim is different than another.

Let me explain.

We already to have greater punishments and classifications of crimes by intent. Rico, terrorism, etc are all crimes that are considered greater than the individual acts themselves. I.E. killing someone vs. killing someone in a terrorist attack. The latter gains higher level of crime and punishment due to the intent which is to make victims of more than those being killed. It takes an individual crime against one person and adds to it a crime against the State itself by attempting to terrorize the body politic.

The idea behind hate crimes was similar. That is, these are crimes that are done with the intent of victimizing both the victim and the greater public/State. So they deserve greater punishments as such.

The problem is with any crime of intent. How do you prove what Mr. Wacko was intending in the attack. If he acted alone and did nothing more, what does it mean? If guy A attacks a mall and is a murderer, and guy B does the same yelling "allah akbar" are the crimes different since the latter might be a terrorist attack?

Add to this a grave mistake which was making the potential victims of a hate crime specific to certain groups. Now members outside those groups are going to feel like B class citizens and they have some right to feel that way.

A better route would have been to keep the idea of terrorist attack but allow that to be for any attack which has the intent of targeting groups via violence against their members with the intent of changing the body politic. That is to say, blowing up a gay bar with the intent of chasing all gays out of town is a terrorist attack. Burning down a Baptist Church in order to chase off the evangelicals would be the same.

But you would have to prove the intent. However if you could, then burn them extra crispy. And there is a need for that. The State needs protection of it's members when they are under attack even if the only direct victim is one or two people.

Sadly, we have this well emoted but poorly thought out system that exists now which could have been better, but is not.

Like I said, on shaky terms.

[paddling_man]

Bill of Rights-

Aw, man. Ya gotta get all logical and dispassionate on me.

Personally, I agree that the Hate Crime Law is a bit... well, not what I would have advocated be codified into law. It does provide certain preferential punishment. Not feeling for the criminal when I say that, but it almost could make it appear that the same crime (say, rape) is less of a crime when applied to this one victim than the other. If one could prove a propensity for the criminal to commit the crime again, based on an additional motivation, then... I don't know. Couldn't that be addressed in the Early Parole phase rather than punishment?

I guess what it comes down to is this:

• I hope the murdering piece of garbage gets the greatest penalty allowed under law. (You'll find I feel that way about most crimes!)
• From the view of Federal Law, whether we like it or not, this mass murder in a church from a non-congregational person, if we can believe the haze of truth from reports, motivated by his disagreeing with what he perceived the beliefs of the congregation might have been... Well, the wording of Federal Law would define it as a Hate Crime. At least the way I would read it.
• I think the whole idea of a codifed "Hate Crime" shows preferential treatment to some and not to others. I don't like it. I like 0/1s, black/white, logic.