Those actions entail attempting to terrorize and scare entire groups of people, an "action" that requires a punishment, hence hate crime legislation. Murder is one action, intent to terrorize is another action, both part of the same crime (just like possession and possession with intent to distribute are separate crimes).
The law explicitly disagrees with you. You are saying, "we don't punish for this thing, despite there being specific legislation saying we punish for it." The law actually says that we do, in fact, punish intent - the word "intent" appears in many crimes. In many (most?) cases, the reason we punish for intent is because the intention was either to commit a greater crime (e.g. possession with intent to distribute, attempted murder), or that intent was causing a greater impact than just the crime in a vacuum (e.g. terrorism, hate crimes). Am I not understanding what you're saying? You say "crime is defined by the terms I laid out" yet there are state and federal codes like the hate crimes act, which actually define the thought of the perpetrator as a contributing factor to the crime. I didn't think there was a question about whether we do this or not. We do punish certain types of thoughts when it results in a crime. I thought we were talking about whether that was reasonable or not, which is what my original response(s) were targeted towards
http://www.wltx.com/story/news/2015/06/18/dylann-storm-roof-charleston-sc-shooting/28917299/ Well, they caught him. His name is apparently Dylann STORM Roof. I have to see the parents. Odds are they weren't the cause of his crazy, but come the fuck on. He's named like a villain from a Jack Reacher novel. (Storm Roof? This has to be a joke. Was he conceived during a hurricane?) He looks Maucalay Culkin but even more white trashy. He has the eyes of someone who took care of the neighborhood cat problem.
If he isn't already associated with a white power gang, he'll be under their protection as soon as he gets to prison, and they'll certainly groom him for further violence. In this case I think shooting him would have been best for society.
Is there any research out of there regarding why these things are perpetrated by white guys in their late teens/early twenties? Is there some kind of neurological change that occurs in people around that age that sometimes misfires and creates a brooding psycho?
I think a combination of youthful naive and the fact you never feel more "invincible" then at around that age. White Supremicists prey on vulnerable outcasts as easy recruits: fat kids, picked-on nerds, of course they may have learned all of this retardation while sitting on their daddy's knee, because racism gets passed down like any heirloom.
You can be an autistic white kid with murder in his heart without being brainwashed by white supremacists. Is there any proof that he had ties to any white supremacist groups?
My hair (back when I had some) was very thin and had no body to it at all. I wore a bowl cut as any attempt at a part would just fall out. I just wanted to state that Toytoy's quote is absolutely accurate.
Shooter said: “I have to do it. You rape our women and you’re taking over our country. And you have to go.” Where do you think he got those ideas? Definitely sound like some white supremacist shit right there. Source
He is a racist, but I'm not talking about that aspect. Adam Lanza and James Holmes weren't racist and they still committed massacres. It's just a trend but I doubt it's been studied.
That's cool, but you live in the south. You know that there are a lot of rednecks with confederate flag bullshit on their trucks. A lot of them are kids who think that it is part of being southern, and part of their "heritage." Most of those kids also grow out of it and realize at some point that having a confederate flag on their bumper is actually very distasteful. He was probably a racist asshole kid, but I was asking about actual affiliation with groups that encourage racial violence.
Nothing like that I've heard of. The area he's from around here is somewhat known for having some Klansmen in it. I doubt he has a true affiliation with any group, but I would bet he's been exposed to more than the "heritage not hate" good ole boys.
It isn't just white kids, that go crazy. A lot of story's like this are about kids that age that get brainwashed into doing stupid shit.
Crown is pretty spot on. People that age have two factors working against them: their brain isn't fully developed and neither is their sense of consequences, and they are "adults" and treated as such, so they overestimate their intelligence and experience. It's the reason you hear about college students doing all kinds of dumb shit that you'd not see a 40 year old doing. A combination of "I'm smarter than everyone else" and "I'll never get in trouble or hurt." In most people this manifests in being a dumbass in high school and college, but nothing major or serious. Add in a factor of being likely psychotic, sociopathic, austistic, bipolar, or other major mental disorders, though, and you get what we are seeing.
Good point. The city I grew up in is a decent sized place with a decent variety of peoples and ideas, and a lot of those terrible ideas and behaviors tend to have a stronger foothold in smaller towns where people really have no experience with people other than their immediate family and neighbors. You get stuck in a place and think the whole world is just like that. Some of these people just need to travel a little and grow the fuck up.
Here's the best article I've found talking about the person. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...ston-church-shooting-suspect-dylann-roof.html
If those are actually pro-apartheid patches on his jacket in the picture gamecocks posted, it would lead me to believe he's getting at least part of his information from a hate group. Those flags are getting into the deep cuts of racism for your typical american southern kid. He sure as hell didn't hear about Rhodesia in high school.
That's kind of what I suspect as well. I am looking at the pictures and seeing symbols I've never seen in my life. I've never heard of pro-apartheid being a "thing" let alone something people wore on their clothes.