Joining today's show are Eugene Robinson, Jeremy Peters, Walter Isaacson, April Ryan, Tamron Hall, Bakari Sellers, Bob Woodward, Jonathan Capehart, Roland Martin, Rep. Jim Clyburn, Rev. John Paul Brown, Rep. Mark Sanford, Chuck Todd, Stephanie Cutter, Martin O'Malley, Sen. Bob Corker, Elise Viebeck, Sara Eisen, Ed Randall and more.
I wrote the following blurb last night but before that is I cannot believe the kid sat in that church for a full hour and directly next to that Pastor is beyond me. It is incredible to hear that part of the story because he then got up to start to shoot up the room. I have since found out that the kid was given a gun as a birthday gift. Someone posted that on one of my forums and I thought he was kidding until I just read about it today and before posting the following ups but maybe it was me but I did not hear about people talking about the gun safety issue until last night and until now:
(Barack) Obama touched it in today sort of without mentioning it but he no doubt made comments about how we (USA) are the most violent country in the world.
Actually, my man Chris Hayes just started to do a segment about gun violence in this country.
Steven D at the Daily Kos did happen to write today that Guns Do Kill - Charleston, SC is just the latest example. The latest massacre in Charleston is but the tip of the iceberg. And yet, despite another horrific mass murder, this one very likely a hate crime, coming on the heels of so many over the course of our nation's history, nothing will be done. But the truth is ever more apparent no matter how loudly the supporters of gun rights and the NRA lobbyists proclaim that guns do not kill people, people kill people.
America is not a safe county, as so may shooting victims, many of them shot with weapons owned by their family members can tell you. Just review the many Gun Fail diaries by David Waldman. And every few months we are reminded by another mass killing in which firearms were the weapons used by the killers. Newtown and Aurora and Tuscon are just three of the most well known, but there have been many, many others.
According to our statistical analysis of more than three decades of data, in 2011 the United States entered a new period in which mass shootings are occurring more frequently. In late September, the FBI released a study showing an increase in the frequency of "active shooter" cases between 2000 and 2013. The FBI analyzed 160 cases, which it defined as any incident in which shooters are "actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people" in a public place, regardless of the number of casualties. Our analysis of the FBI's data using the SPC method corroborates the FBI's findings that "active shooter" incidents have become more frequent.
Our analysis further reveals that the FBI data overlaps closely with the Mother Jones data. The FBI's data set contains 44 cases in which four or more people were murdered; as the chart below shows, the process underlying this set of events shifted between late 2011 and early 2012, with mass shootings occurring more frequently since.
It is an undeniable fact that we are a gun obsessed nation. There are so many guns in circulation that it is relatively easy for anyone to acquire a gun, even violent criminals, even those with a history of suicide, even those with a history of domestic violence and threats against their partners. It's estimated that up to 500,000 guns are stolen every year. Again, no one knows the true figure because of poor record keeping and no federal requirement to report all such crimes.
What we do know is that civilians make up 60% of the US market for small arms, a market that generated $11.7 Billion in revenue for gun manufacturers.
We do not know if the Charleston shooter who murdered 9 people bought his guns on the legal market, or through a private sale on the secondary market, but it doesn't really matter. Restrictions on the ability to obtain firearms in the United States is de minimis. If anything, since Newtown, many more states have relaxed the their gun lawsunderfunded agencies tasked with enforcing federal gun laws, including the Brady law requiring background checks.
Our poor, urban neighborhoods are awash in guns, contributing to the high murder rates, shootings and gang violence in those communities.
"There are certain pockets of the city where there was some pretty severe gang conflicts that are still brewing. We haven't changed the gang culture. And the reason why shootings are up in those neighborhoods is because there's so many guns," McCarthy said. "If these guys are throwing rocks at each other we wouldn't have this problem."
Cops are armed to the teeth, and have demonstrated a propensity to shoot first whenever they confront African Americans and other minorities. To say that the immense number of guns in our society has nothing to do with that fact would be misleading at best. Cops claim to see guns everywhere whenever they confront minorities, even for minor offenses or no offense at all.
But truth be told, it is our fellow gun loving citizens who contribute most to this climate of fear which has led to more gun purchases, and increasing rates of gun violence. The 2014 documentary, Requiem for the Dead, is a horrifying look at the damage our national craze for ever more firearms has caused.
Approximately 88 people in America die every day from gun violence. These deaths are the result of accidents, murders, and tragic cases of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Requiem for the Dead tells the stories of the lives lost between March and June 2014, when 8,000 people in America died from gunshot wounds. The documentary is composed solely from found footage, social media posts, police files, and, most chillingly, recorded 911 calls.
We pay a high cost for our seemingly unfettered "right to bear arms, not only in lives lost but in lives ruined, in people terrorized by fear, and in the economic burden placed on our state and local governments.
A couple of days into what would become her five-month hospital stay, Longdon was lying with her back to the door when a doctor came in. She didn't see his face when he calmly told her the news: She was a T-4 paraplegic, no longer able to move her body from the middle of her chest down. Rueckert had also survived, but a bullet through his brain left him profoundly cognitively impaired and in need of permanent round-the-clock care.
Longdon didn't know it yet, but she was also facing financial ruin. Shortly after the shooting, her health insurance provider found a way to drop her coverage based on a preexisting condition. She would be hospitalized three more times in quick succession, twice for infections and once for a broken bone; all told, the bills would approach $1 million in the first year alone. Longdon was forced to file for personal bankruptcy—a stinging humiliation for someone who had earned about $80,000 a year working in the software industry and building a massage therapy practice on the side.
This is a profound public health crisis. And one that each of us is paying the price.
To begin to get a grasp on the economic toll, Mother Jones turned to Ted Miller at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, an independent nonprofit that studies public health, education, and safety issues. In collaboration with Miller, Mother Jones crunched data from 2012 and found that the annual cost of gun violence in America exceeds $229 billion. Direct costs account for $8.6 billion—including long-term prison costs for people who commit assault and homicide using guns, which at $5.2 billion a year is the largest direct expense. Even before accounting for the more intangible costs of the violence, in other words, the average cost to taxpayers for a single gun homicide in America is nearly $400,000. And we pay for 32 of them every single day.
Indirect costs amount to at least $221 billion, about $169 billion of which comes from what researchers consider to be the impact on victims' quality of life. Victims' lost wages, which account for $49 billion annually, are the other major factor. Miller's calculation for indirect costs, based on jury awards, values the average "statistical life" harmed by gun violence at about $6.2 million.
The real question is what are we going to do about this crisis, one that in one way or another threatens each and every person living in this country. For anyone could be the next victim, and any family could be the next one to mourn the loss of a father, mother, sibling or child. Yet, does anyone expect the candidates in the 2016 campaign for the Presidency to focus even a small amount of their time on this plague of guns and what to do about it? Well, they certainly will not if those of us who are fed up with gun violence do nothing, if we cede the field to the gun apologists and organizations such as the NRA, which has become in essence the lobbying arm for the firearms industry and its billions of revenues, both from gun sales but also ammunition sales for these hundreds of millions of guns.
Since when did the right to own a gun override every other right, but most importantly our right to life free, one from the threat of massive hoards of guns in present day America, a danger that our founders could never have imagined? I used to take the middle road (though many will beg to differ) but at this point I can no longer in good faith support a right to ownership by anyone of every kind of firearm imaginable, guns with far more accuracy and firepower than have ever before existed in history. Guns not for hunting or sports such as skeet, trap or target shooting, but for the sole purpose of killing other human beings or threatening them with bodily harm and death. Guns that contribute to the coarsening of our society.
Other nations have found the courage and the good sense to limit gun ownership. We should as well.
Thanks to all who read this post for your consideration.
Obama did speak for an unprecedented 14th time about a mass gun shooting since he was voted in as POTUS. Obama on Charleston: It’s too easy to get guns in America. President Barack Obama on Thursday expressed profound “sadness and anger” at the Charleston church shooting as well as deeply personal frustration that America’s political climate makes it virtually impossible for now to tighten restrictions on who can buy firearms.
“We don’t have all the facts, but we do know that once again, innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun,” Obama said in the White House briefing room, Vice President Joe Biden standing at his side.
“It is in our power to do something about it. I say that recognizing the politics in this town foreclose a lot of those avenues right now,” the president said. “But it’d be wrong for us not to acknowledge it, and at some point, it’s going to be important for the American people to come to grips with it and for us to be able to shift how we think about the issue of gun violence collectively.”
Throughout Obama’s remarks, Biden stood grim-faced, his hands clasped in front of him, fingers laced, with an a expression of grief on his face. The vice president, whose elder son died of cancer earlier this month, looked worn.
It was Obama’s 14th statement on a mass shooting since taking office, according to CBS News’s Mark Knoller, the closest thing to a presidential records keeper in the White House press corps.
“I’ve had to make statements like this too many times. Communities like this have had to endure tragedies like this too many times,” Obama said Thursday.
President Barack Obama says the Charleston church mass shooting could happen because the alleged killer “had no trouble” getting a gun. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
“Now is the time for mourning and for healing. But let’s be clear. At some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries. It doesn’t happen in other places with this kind of frequency,” he said.
The president had previously called the massacre of schoolchildren in Newtown, Connecticut “the worst day of my presidency” and the failure of lawmakers in the aftermath to adopt a modest package of restrictions on guns “probably the most disappointing moment I’ve had with Congress.”
But his remarks on Thursday suggested that he has become resigned to the political reality that legislative action is not possible, for now, in the face of opposition from Republicans who hold both houses of Congress as well as from some Democrats.
A young white man suspected of shooting nine black people dead after spending an hour with them in Bible study at a historic African-American church in South Carolina was arrested on Thursday, a day after a massacre authorities say was motivated by racial hatred.
The mass shooting set off an intense 14-hour manhunt that ended with 21-year-old Dylann Roof arrested in a traffic stop in a small North Carolina town, 220 miles (350 km) north of Charleston, where the church rampage occurred, officials said.
Roof, who an uncle said received a gun as a 21st birthday present in April and whose social media profile suggests a fascination with white supremacy, waived his right to extradition and was flown back to South Carolina hours after his arrest.
He is due for a bail hearing on Friday but will appear by video link from the Charleston-area detention center where he was jailed, said Major Eric Watson, a Charleston County Sheriff's Office spokesman.
Wednesday's gun violence at the nearly 200-year-old Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church follows a year of turmoil and protests over race relations, law enforcement and criminal justice in the United States, stemming from a string of police slayings of unarmed black men.
Four pastors, including Democratic state Senator Clementa Pinckney, 41, were among the six women and three men shot dead at the church nicknamed "Mother Emanuel."
The church was burned to the ground in the late 1820s, after plans of a slave revolt drafted by one of its founders were discovered. It was later rebuilt.
The gunshot victims ranged in age from 26 to 87. Three who were present survived the rampage unscathed, including a 5-year-old who, according to CNN, avoided being shot by playing dead.
CNN also broadcast a Snapchat video taken from inside the church during the study session, which appeared to show Roof before the massacre.
"The fact that this took place in a black church obviously raises questions about a dark part of our history," said U.S. President Barack Obama. "Once again, innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun."
The United States has been shaken by a string of shootings in recent years, including the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, where a gunman killed 20 children and six adults. But Democratic-led efforts to tighten the nation's gun laws failed after that incident.
GIFT OF A GUN
Little was immediately known about Roof following his arrest. A man who identified himself as Carson Cowles, Roof's uncle, told Reuters that Roof's father had recently given him a .45-caliber handgun as a birthday present and that Roof had seemed adrift.
"I don't have any words for it," Cowles, 56, said in a telephone interview. "Nobody in my family had seen anything like this coming."
In a Facebook profile apparently belonging to Roof, a portrait showed him wearing a jacket emblazoned with the flags of apartheid-era South Africa and of the former Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, both formerly ruled by white minorities. Many of his Facebook friends were black.
Court documents show Roof was arrested on two separate occasions at a shopping mall this year for a drug offense and trespassing. And two school districts where he attended high school have no records of him ever graduating.
His mother, Amy, declined to comment when reached by phone.
"We will be doing no interviews, ever," she said before hanging up.
The suspect was carrying a handgun when confronted by police who pulled him over in North Carolina after a report that he had been sighted there, but Roof surrendered and was taken into custody without incident, said Charleston Police Chief Greg Mullen.
Police said Wednesday night's shooting unfolded about an hour after Roof joined a small Bible-study group in the church, welcomed apparently as the only white participant, and suddenly opened fire on the victims as they sat together.
Sylvia Johnson, a cousin of Pinckney, told MSNBC that a survivor told her the gunman reloaded five times during the attack despite pleas for him to stop.
"He just said, 'I have to do it. You rape our women and you're taking over our country'," Johnson said.
U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said her office was investigating whether to charge Roof with a hate crime motivated by racial or other prejudice.
Under federal and some state laws, such crimes typically carry harsher penalties. But South Carolina, which has the death penalty, is one of just five U.S. states lacking hate crime laws.
RISING RACIAL TENSIONS
The shooting marks one of the most notorious attacks on a black church in the South since the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, which killed four girls and helped galvanize the U.S. civil rights movement. The bombing was tied to the Ku Klux Klan.
The bloodshed in Charleston follows a wave of racial tension and protests stirred by recent police killings of unarmed black men in cities across the country, that have sparked a renewed civil rights movement under the banner of "Black Lives Matter."
In one such case in neighboring North Charleston, a white police officer was charged with murder after he shot Walter Scott, an unarmed black man, in the back.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which researches U.S. hate groups, said the latest church attack illustrates the dangers that home-grown extremists still pose.
"Since 9/11, our country has been fixated on the threat of Jihadi terrorism. But the horrific tragedy at the Emanuel AME reminds us that the threat of homegrown domestic terrorism is very real," the group said in a statement, referring to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. There have been 4,120 reported hate crimes across the United States, including 56 murders, since 2003, the center said.
In addition to the church's leader, Pinckney, other victims included three pastors - DePayne Middleton Doctor, 49; Sharonda Coleman Singleton, 45; and Reverend Daniel Simmons, 74. Also killed were Cynthia Hurd, 54, a public library employee; Susie Jackson, 87; Ethel Lance, 70; Tywanza Sanders, 26; and Myra Thompson 59, an associate pastor at the church, according to the county coroner.
As night fell on Thursday, mourners returned to the church for a vigil, placing candles outside the building next to a growing memorial of flowers, plush toys, balloons and placards. A woman played "Amazing Grace" on the bagpipes across the street.
U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican of South Carolina, joined the subdued crowd of blacks and whites paying respects. He laid a bunch of flowers, then stood and prayed for a few moments.
"It is very hard to understand this. To go into God's space and do this - I just do not understand," Graham told reporters. "This is going to rock this state."
Earlier, Governor Nikki Haley, a Republican, said in a tearful statement: "It is a very, very sad day in South Carolina."
That grief rang hollow for some civil-rights activists, who noted that the state capital in Columbia still flies the Confederate flag, the rallying symbol of the pro-slavery South during the Civil War.
(Additional reporting by David Bailey in Minneapolis; Brian Snyder in Charleston; Julia Edwards in Washington; Emily Flitter and Alana Wise in New York; David Adams in Miami; Letitia Stein in Tampa, Florida; Randall Hill in Charleston, South Carolina; Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles and Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Writing by Scott Malone and Steve Gorman; Editing by James Dalgleish and Lisa Shumaker)
Dylann Roof's Uncle Would 'Push Button' Himself If Nephew Receives Death Penalty.
The uncle of a 21-year-old man accused of opening fire inside a Charleston church -- killing nine people -- says he will "push the button myself" if his nephew receives the death penalty, which is legal in South Carolina.
Carson Cowles said he can't forgive Dylann Roof, who was arrested Thursday after he allegedly opened fire on a Bible study group at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. He was taken into custody by authorities in Shelby, North Carolina, about 250 miles away, but has since been extradited to South Carolina.
"I'll be the one to push the button. If he's found guilty, I'll be the one to push the button myself," Cowles said. "If what I am hearing is true, he needs to pay for it." Roof was expected to be charged initially with one count of murder to start the legal process, though more charges are expected to be added later, the local prosecutor's office told ABC affiliate WCIV.
He was set to be placed in protective custody ahead of a Friday bail hearing at the Al Cannon Detention Center in North Charleston, said Maj. Eric Watson, the spokesman for the Charleston County Sheriff's office. The jail's protocol dictates that he would be placed on suicide watch immediately, Watson said.
Given the high-profile nature of the crime, and sensitivity about the crime itself, Watson also said that Roof will not have contact with the general jail population for his own safety.
Roof's first hearing is expected to be done via CCTV link Friday afternoon. Another hearing is expected in several weeks, Watson said.
South Carolina law dictates that he would not be allowed out on bond.
Experts say that the case could last between six months if he were to plead guilty or up to three years if the death penalty -- which is legal in South Carolina -- is pursued.
It was unclear if Roof had a lawyer and attempts to reach him were unsuccessful.
Here's What We Know About the People Who Lost Their Lives in Charleston. All nine victims in the shooting have now been identified.
Nine people were killed in the shooting at the historic Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, on Wednesday night. On Thursday afternoon, Charleston County Coroner Rae Wooten officially identified all of the victims, some of whose names had leaked out over the course of the day. Here are brief sketches of their lives.
STATE SEN. CLEMENTA PINCKNEY
Pinckney, 41, was a pastor at Emanuel AME and a widely respected state senator. "Sen. Pinckney was a legend," said fellow state Sen. Marlon Kimpton on CNN. "He was the moral compass of the state Senate." Pinckney's desk in the statehouse was covered with a black cloth after news broke of his death:
During his remarks on Thursday afternoon, President Obama said he knew Pinckney personally, along with other members of the church. "To say our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families and their community doesn't say enough to convey the heartache and the sadness and the anger that we feel," he said.
SHARONDA COLEMAN-SINGLETON
Coleman-Singleton, also a pastor at the church, was a coach at Goose Creek High School near Charleston. South Carolina's high school sports governing body mourned her death on Twitter after it was announced on Thursday morning:
She was a celebrated track and field coach for Goose Creek High School and revered as a "positive light" to all who knew her.
"I saw her at work everyday and she always had a smile on her face," Chris Pond, the baseball coach at Goose Creek, said to the Berkeley Independent.
CYNTHIA HURD
Hurd, the manager of the St. Andrews branch of the Charleston County Public Library, was identified by her employer as one of the victims. "Cynthia was a tireless servant of the community who spent her life helping residents, making sure they had every opportunity for an education and personal growth," the library said in a statement on Facebook. The library announced it would shut all of its branches on Thursday to honor Hurd.
County library system identifies St. Andrews branch manager Cynthia Hurd as slaying victim in #CharlestonShooting
TYWANZA SANDERS
Lady June Cole, the interim president of Allen University, said on Thursday that Tywanza Sanders, a 2014 graduate of the small historically black university in Columbia, S.C., was killed in the shooting. Cole called Sanders a "quiet, well-known student who was committed to his education" and who "presented a warm and helpful spirit."
MYRA THOMPSON
Archbishop Foley Beach of the Anglican Church of North America wrote in a Facebook post on Thursday that Myra Thompson, the wife of the Rev. Anthony Thompson of Charleston's Holy Trinity REC Church, was killed in the attack.
ETHEL LEE LANCE
The 70-year-old grandmother had worked at Emanuel AME for more than three decades. Her grandson Jon Quil Lance told the Post and Courier newspaper in Charleston that Lance was a hardworking Christian and "the heart of the family."
SUSIE JACKSON
The 87-year-old was a longtime church patron and Ethel Lance's cousin, according to the Post and Courier.
DANIEL L. SIMMONS SR.
The 74-year-old was a ministry staff member at Emanuel AME and the former pastor of Greater Zion AME Church in the nearby town of Awendaw. His daughter-in-law, Arcelia Simmons, told ABC News that Simmons attended services at Emanuel on Sundays as well as weekly Bible study. Simmons died in the hospital after the attack.*
DEPAYNE MIDDLETON
The 49-year-old mother of four sang in the church choir.
I can't believe that Rev. Dan Simmons is gone. This man baptized me, married my parents, and eulogized my granny
Tip from Kings Mountain florists led to Charleston shooting suspect's arrest.
Debbie Dills was running behind Thursday on her way into work at Frady’s Florist in Kings Mountain.
It was God’s way of putting her in the right place at the right time, the Gastonia woman said.
Dills and her boss, Todd Frady, made the initial calls around 10:35 a.m. that led to the arrest of suspected Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof in Shelby.
Click here to watch the route Dills took in pursuit of the suspected shooter
Roof is suspected of killing nine people, including pastor and S.C. State Sen. Clementa Pinckney, during a prayer meeting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston on Wednesday night.
Dills, driving from her home in south Gastonia into work, first spotted Roof on U.S. 74 near Sparrow Springs Road in Gastonia.
She wasn’t sure at first why she recognized the car.
“I saw the pictures of him with the bowl cut. I said, 'I've seen that car for some reason.’ I look over, and it's got a South Carolina tag on it,” Dills said Thursday afternoon. “I thought, 'Nah, that's not his car.' Then, I got closer and saw that haircut. I was nervous. I had the worst feeling. Is that him or not him?”
She called Frady to ask his advice.
Frady said he made a call to officer Shane Davis of the Kings Mountain Police Department, who relayed to Shelby Police that the suspect’s black Hyundai Elantra was traveling west on the highway.
“I had been praying for those people on my way to work,” Dills said. “I was in the right place at the right time that the Lord puts you.”
Frady, who had Dills and Davis on two separate phones, acted as the intermediary.
“She called me when she was at the exit for Kings Mountain on Highway 74,” Frady said. “I called Shane Davis, then he called Shelby PD.”
According to Frady, the Shelby Police Department had officers near the Shelby Ingles on westbound U.S. 74, or West Dixon Boulevard and Polkville Road. Twenty short minutes after Dills’ initial call to her boss, Shelby officers pulled Roof over near Plato Lee Road.
After first spotting Roof's car in south Gastonia, Dills said, she followed him to the Kings Mountain exit on the U.S. 74 bypass, then exited to head to work at the florist shop in downtown Kings Mountain. Something didn’t feel right to her, so she headed back to the bypass and drove west to attempt to catch up to Roof to provide more details.
“What if that really was him?” she thought. “I have friends going to the mountains this weekend, so if it that was him and something would happen again, what would I do? It kept eating at me, and something told me to keep following him."
She caught up to Roof’s Hyundai again near East Dixon Boulevard in Shelby and continued to follow him. She stayed on the phone with Frady. Dills saw Shelby Police officers begin to follow Roof at the Ingles on 74 and Polkville Road and at first stayed behind, knowing the situation was under control.
But Dills wanted to see things through.
When she caught back up with police, Roof was pulled over and apprehended. She had followed the wanted man for approximately 25 miles.
Dills said Roof never increased his speed as he drove down the highway.
"He wasn’t doing anything abnormal," she said. "He wasn't driving slow. He was just driving. He just kept going."
Dills, the minister of music at West Cramerton Baptist Church, said she had been praying for the victims in Charleston since the news broke last night.
“I was in church last night myself. I had seen the news coverage before I went to bed and started praying for those families down there," she said. "Those people were in their church just trying to learn the word of God and trying to serve. When I saw a picture of that pastor this morning, my heart just sank."
By Thursday afternoon, some of her tears were mixed with smiles. She was especially proud of the job done by local officers involved in Roof's arrest.
"Them boys knocked it down. They were on it," Dills said. "Just after the arrest, three of them from Kings Mountain were standing right over there. Thanking me and shaking my hand."
Regardless of it all this week, please stay in touch!
