Tennessee Church Shooting
Posted on: July 27, 2008 - 3:17pm
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Tennessee Church Shooting
1 dead and 6 injured in a shooting at a UU church. It was an apparently deranged man who shot them. He could have killed many more with the ammo he was carrying. The police have him now. It was reported that he came in "shouting hateful things." I think he is likely a fundie who went over the top - as they tend to hate the Unitarian Universalists. Still a breaking story, so we will hear more.
[Edited slightly for clarity by Entomophila. Matt, please add more as the news comes in!]
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Update: Now it's 2 dead 7 injured (8 were shot - 1 was trampled.) 5 are in critical condition. Still no word on a motive.
One thing that gets me is all the talk of "being in our prayers" when you know a good proportion of members (and even clergy) of the UU church are actually atheists (openly- obviously, there are plenty of atheist church members and clergy who won't admit it). Though I never understood why you would want to belong to a church if you openly don't believe.
Edit 2: Now they say the 2nd fatality may not be true. They also mentioned this church is a major supporter of gay rights in the area.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
not just gay rights, they are against torture, which the average redneck lives to do, they are for serving the community, which the average jeboid freak considers a handout to lazy folk.
Vote for McCain... www.therealmccain.com ...and he'll bring Jesus back
So it could have been a right wing extremist too - of course most fundies ARE right wing extremists anyway. Apparently there is only one fatality and they released the name of the killer- 58 year old Jim Adkisson.
Kay, are you from that area originally?
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
no, I have a sister that's in the area northwest of Knoxville, and it's filled with shitloads of homeschooled jeeboid freaks with more guns than i.q. points.
Vote for McCain... www.therealmccain.com ...and he'll bring Jesus back
I can almost guarantee it's someone like that - ultra right wing fundie. Why do theists try so hard to make atheism look so good? I'm sure now that his name was released we'll learn more about him.
Update: A second victim - a 61 year old woman - has died. Note that the man who died immediately had tried to stop him and it was other members who tackled him. See - actually doing something was more effective than praying would have been. If everyone had simply prayed for god's help, there would have been many more victims most likely and the shooter may have gotten away.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
These stories always make me very sad.
Nothing really new so far - they were searching his house. This is on the mainstream news by now obviously.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
they would do better to look into his affiliations. There are scores of revolving home based "churches" in that state. Most don't keep minutes let alone records of their beliefs.
edit
oh, and yeah, that does fit the terrorist cell concept.
Vote for McCain... www.therealmccain.com ...and he'll bring Jesus back
Of course no way would this administration consider it so - why hasn't Operation Rescue been ever labelled a terrorist organization? Actually are they even around anymore?
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
yeah, they are, same with Army of God, their spiritual brothers in arms. /me rolls her eyes at that particular phrase
Vote for McCain... www.therealmccain.com ...and he'll bring Jesus back
i for one applaud this type of behavior. clearly, the hour is at hand. arm yourselves heavily and storm the nearest church! these people need to learn that their nonsense will not be tolerated! a death toll of 2 is unacceptably low! huzzah!
Fear is the mindkiller.
What?
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
Books about atheism
what what? let the kids have fun with it.
(edit)oh i can't believe you actually got that 'houseflies with a bazooka' badge....sheesh....kudos
Fear is the mindkiller.
Bad news. Sounds like he may have been an atheist. Latest shows he got mad when someone told him her son was going to bible college and mentioned the bible is full of contradictions. He also had complained to those who knew him that his parents made him go to church. So it seems it was just plain old insanity in this case.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
Should have stuck with your first instinct, Matt:
BTW, what's the "liberal movement" ?
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
George Orwell
According to CNN he was mad at liberals and unable to obtain a job...
KNOXVILLE, Tennessee (CNN) -- The suspect in a fatal shooting at a Knoxville church Sunday was motivated by frustration over being unable to obtain a job and hatred for the liberal movement, police said Monday.
Jim Adkisson, 58, was charged with first-degree murder after Sunday's shooting at the Knoxville church.
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Authorities recovered a four-page letter in which the suspect, Jim Adkisson, described his feelings and motives, police said.
Adkisson, 58, of Powell, Tennessee, has been charged with one count of first-degree murder in the shootings at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church.
The gunman killed two adults and wounded seven others before being overpowered by congregants, authorities said.
The case is being investigated as a hate crime, police said.
Watch police chief describe latest findings »
"It appears that what brought him to this horrible event was his lack of being able to obtain a job, his frustration over that, and his stated hatred for the liberal movement," Knoxville Police Chief Sterling Owen IV told reporters on Monday.
Full story Here: http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/07/28/church.shooting/index.html?iref=mpstoryview
Yep. He also hated gays.
A sad tale.
I saw the new Batman movie and the Joker had an interesting line: People show who they really are when they face death.
So the 'believers' ducked beneath pews in terror or ran screaming from the church. Even though they 'believe' they would be in paradise for all eternity should they be killed.
Wouldn't this be the same reaction if this had happened in any church? Isn't this just the instinct to survive that evolution have given humans overriding their so-called belief.
It's time to stop pretending there are 'believers'. Theists are not believers, they are self-delusional liars.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
This was a UU church - most of them don't believe in an afterlife.
Another update:
People who knew him said he also hates blacks and "anyone different from him" (sounds like a typical extreme fundie.) . A much older cousin (who he usually called "his aunt" ) said he hated being taken to church as a child. She also said "he needed the Lord." Ummm... ever think if he hadn't been forced to church maybe he'd have been less angry? And where do you think he most likely learned intolerance? That fucking pisses me off when someone does something horrible and people make it that if they would have gone to church/been religious they wouldn't have done that. You never hear in the news about the religious fucks that do this shit "He should have been an atheist." If he had been religious he'd have been just as hateful and maybe done the exact same thing - or targeted something besides a church.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
Adkisson targeted the church, Still wrote in the document obtained by WBIR-TV, Channel 10, "because of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country, and that he felt that the Democrats had tied his country's hands in the war on terror and they had ruined every institution in America with the aid of media outlets."
Adkisson told Still that "he could not get to the leaders of the liberal movement that he would then target those that had voted them in to office."
Adkisson told officers he left the house unlocked for them because "he expected to be killed during the assault."
Inside the house, officers found "Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder" by radio talk show host Michael Savage, "Let Freedom Ring" by talk show host Sean Hannity, and "The O'Reilly Factor," by television talk show host Bill O'Reilly.
The shotgun-wielding suspect in Sunday's mass shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church was motivated by a hatred of "the liberal movement," and he planned to shoot until police shot him, Knoxville Police Chief Sterling P. Owen IV said this morning.
Adkisson, 58, of Powell wrote a four-page letter in which he stated his "hatred of the liberal movement," Owen said. "Liberals in general, as well as gays."
Doesn't sound much different than the typical right wing extremist.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
doesn't sound different at all, well with the exception of him not bitching about abortion.
Vote for McCain... www.therealmccain.com ...and he'll bring Jesus back
Here is the article that stated Jim was against christianity: READ IT HERE
Somehow the neighbors' discussion has made it out of many news articles. The news article I read early yesterday morning stated that the Jim was against christianity and the bible was full of contradictions. He had his own views of what religion was.....
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I have a sister that lives in the general vicinity. If she weren't such a wimp, she'd be almost like this guy. Many people there are. They have their own little cliques(read churches) and anyone outside of those little cliques is 'strange' 'not a true christian' and just generally discredited as not having what it takes to be 'saved'
Vote for McCain... www.therealmccain.com ...and he'll bring Jesus back
I realize you were joking but this is in no way a joking matter. The best thing I can say about it is that we haven't seen immediate copycats like after Columbine. If that were the case, I would be arming myself. But it's not, so let's not be fearmongers here. There is such a thing as a measured response.
“It is true that in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. It is equally true that in the land of the blind, the two-eyed man is an enemy of the state, the people, and domestic tranquility… and necessarily so. Someone has to rearrange the furniture.”
Most fundies have problems with Christianity. That's why there are more protestant sects than any other branch of Christianity. Many of them identify as unaffiliated and like the shooter have their own ideas on religion... of course, so did Martin Luther. And I don't mean King. And if you've ever read the kinds of things he wrote about Jews... well, I won't spoil the fun. My point is, whether or not this person was acting in the name of Christianity, for Christianity, or for his own personal interpretations of religion, is irrelevant. Anyone familiar enough with the big names among our cultural competitors knows where this guy was getting his information from, and religion is hardly the source of this kind of behavior, it just gets in the way of reason and makes a bad thing- violence born out of despair- worse. The information this shooter was acting on, the information he was influenced by, has an implicit connection to elements within the Social Convserative movement with direct ties and allegiances with Dominionists and Reconstructionists who want nothing less than a "Christian Nation."
“It is true that in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. It is equally true that in the land of the blind, the two-eyed man is an enemy of the state, the people, and domestic tranquility… and necessarily so. Someone has to rearrange the furniture.”