Posted on 06/20/2015 9:41:46 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
While it may be weeks or months before we know the full details of Dylann Storm Roofs alleged attack on Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., the early reports are both heartbreaking and infuriating. Roof allegedly entered the church, attended a Bible study, sat next to its pastor state senator Clementa Pinckney and then opened fire. Its hard to imagine a more callous and profane act.
It appears that the shooting was quite deliberate. Hes said to have reloaded five times during the course of the attack, allegedly even taking the time to talk to his victims. According to the New York Times, he said: I have to do it. You rape our women and youre taking over our country. And you have to go. If these reports are true (again, its early), Charleston, S.C., has just suffered a race-motivated terror attack.
As I read the news and watched the coverage, I felt stricken for the victims, fury at the attacker, and more than a little personal conviction. Not because of any silly notions of collective white guilt or other nonsense peddled by the radical Left and certainly not because Ive long opposed the Lefts gun-control efforts and supported the individual, inherent right of self-defense, including the right to keep and bear arms. No, I felt conviction because of the numerous times that Ive walked out of my house unarmed and thus largely incapable of defending myself and, more important, others from violent acts.
Perhaps I chose not to wear the right kind of clothing pants that allow me to conceal my carry pistol, for example. Perhaps it crossed my mind to carry, but I thought, Im not going anywhere dangerous. The men and women at the Emanuel Bible study probably didnt think they were in any danger, either. When we go to the movies, or a political rally, or show up for work or go to any of the sites of recent mass shootings or other acts of violence danger is generally the last thought on our minds.
Yes, I know the chances of violence on any given day or at any given location are vanishingly small. Yes, I know that even if Im traveling in higher-crime sections of my community, the odds are overwhelmingly good that Ill be fine. But I know this: If the unthinkable happens, and I watch as my family, my friends, or even members of my community Ive never met are hurt or killed when I could have prevented it by carrying the weapon Ive trained myself to use, I could never forgive myself.
Dont just carry. Dont just go to the state-mandated training, buy a weapon, and then forget about it. Unless you train yourself to use it, that weapon would probably be less useful to you in an emergency than a similarly weighted rock. At least youd instinctively know to throw the rock. Practice with a handgun until you can take it from a position of safe carry to active engagement within seconds. Then practice that again until youve beaten your best time. Then practice again. And realize that practice isnt a burden but a joy. Most people who go to shooting ranges enjoy the experience. Even gun-control activists often grudgingly admit how much they like the simple act of taking shots at paper targets.
None of this, of course, guarantees your personal safety. None of this guarantees that in a moment of maximum stress that youll make the right decision. There may come a day when an active shooter immediately guns down a concealed-carry permit holder and then continues with his rampage. Even though as an Iraq vet Ive had far more training than the average American, I still dont know how Id respond to any given crisis until that crisis is upon me. Fight or flight is a call that has to be made in the moment, based on the totality of the circumstances. But a gun does give you options, and those options could well mean the difference between life and death, between one reload and five reloads, and between a clean conscience and a lifetime of guilt and pain.
I'm sorry, my obligation is to my family. It is up to the other people to make the decision to spend $500+, get instruction, fingerprinted, mug shots and pass a criminal background check at state and federal levels, in order to defend themselves.
I do little for my family by getting killed defending someone who had the same chance as I did to arm himself and didn't. If they survive because I took out the bad guy who was trying to kill me, that is their good luck - and a warning sign from God to get thee a CCW.
I'm a little puzzled about this "loaded repeatedly" quote, but I'm not interested enough in the minutia of crazy to chase it very far.
I suspect that he was simply a very poor shot, like all leftists and a lot of conservatives. (Experience shows that watching movies is no substitute for range time.)
...yes, someone would have stopped him - maybe after he warned them with his rant about blacks, and about the time he showed his glock, before he fired his first shot... maybe.
The guy whose sermons I listen to, for one. And I've not fallen asleep during one yet. O Lord our God, God of Power and Might, powerful in strength, strong in battle, You once gave miraculous strength to Your child David granting him victory over his opponent the blasphemer Goliath. Mercifully accept our humble prayer. Send Your heavenly blessing upon these weapons. Give to them power and strength that they may protect Your holy Church, the poor and the widows, and Your holy inheritance on earth, and make them horrible and terrible to any enemy army, and grant victory to Your people for your glory, for You are our strength and protection and unto You do we send up praise and glory, to the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and to the ages of ages. Amen.
A prayer from a service for the Blessing of Weapons, Trebnik of the Serbian Orthodox Church (1993).
[An Orthodox priest blesses rifles during a ceremony where new recruits receive their weapons at a military base of the Belarusian Interior Ministry in Minsk. The traditional ceremony was attended by 325 Belarusian recruits, and it is held a month after the recruits take their military oath.) (Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters)
From CNN story *here*:
On Thursday, investigators did a trace of the handgun used in Wednesday's shooting and determined that it was a .45-caliber handgun Roof purchased from a Charleston gun store in April, two law enforcement officials told CNN's Perez and Bruer. Roof purchased a Glock .45-caliber model 41, which holds 13 rounds, a federal law enforcement source with knowledge of the investigation said. Witnesses have reported that Roof reloaded a number of times
From Affidavits spell out chilling case against Dylann Roof:
CHARLESTON As a subdued Dylann Roof made his first official appearance Friday on charges of killing nine people at a historic black church, police affidavits offered grim details of the murder case, including an allegation that the gunman fired multiple shots into each victim and stood over them to issue "a racially inflammatory statement."
The documents also said that Roof's father and uncle contacted police to positively identify the 21-year-old as the suspect after authorities issued photos of the gunman within hours of the attack at the Emanuel AME Church in downtown Charleston Wednesday evening.
The father, according to the documents, also told investigators that his son owned a .45 caliber handgun. The documents note that .45 caliber casings were found at the scene of the shootings. ... .
...A federal law enforcement official who is not authorized to speak publicly confirmed that Roof's father had given him a .45-caliber handgun for his 21st birthday in April. Police are analyzing the weapon recovered from Roof's car after his arrest to see whether it matches the firearm used in the attack and whether it is the same gun he received as a birthday gift. ... .
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