Are the hate-filled rabid right wing talk radio and TV hosts responsible for the Tennessee church shootings?

Question

Are the hate-filled rabid right wing talk radio and TV hosts responsible for the Tennessee church shootings?

Answer 1

Responsible?  No.  A contributing factor...?  It's possible.

The thing is....you can't confuse correlations (this happens first, then something else happens *close to* the first event), with causations (assuming the first thing *caused* the second).

Because...In the end it does depend on *what the people there* did next.  Really.  The people *there* had to pull the triggers and set off the bombs.  The shooter did NOT have to do what he did.  It's that simple....he could have killed himself, or just left the empty gun in a dumpster somewhere and *left town*.  Honest.  It takes intent and a complete *giving up* on one's own sense of responsibility for or control of one's own life to get to the point of pulling triggers and setting bombs.

The Media didn't pull the trigger....no more than the Bible did, no more than the video games did, no more than the pawn shop owner who sold him the gun (most likely) did.

But...It would be stupid of me to say that there's no such thing as bad influences.  The teenagers who hunted down and murdered Matt Shepard out in Montana a while back.....they did have to get the idea and *organization* somewhere.  People rarely come up with the whole complete idea on their own.

The same holds true with school shooters, "people" who fire-bomb churches, "people" who open fire at abortion clinics.  The idea comes from somewhere.

The catch is, it's a Chicken-and-Egg riddle.  The outside, bad influences end up *being outside bad influences* precisely for those folks who cannot (or will not) control their own impulses and darker thoughts.  These are among the same folks who blame Pac-Man and/or MickeyD's for getting fat, when their money bought the goods and their own hands *used* the goods.

And in these cases...as much as I hate to admit it myself, doing *away* with the bad influences really solves *less than* half the problem.  Censorship just doesn't *work on* those folks it's intended to work on.  If you get rid of Pac-Man and MickeyD's, folks will get fat on buttered popcorn at the movie theater--so do we ban movie theaters next?

Likewise.  Talk radio really *is* about as obnoxious and hateful and negative a thing as it gets....but if it gets banned and silenced, the *audience* for that sort of thing will get their ideas elsewhere anyway because the problem is *not* the Supply Side of Bad Ideas.

It's the demand side.  It's the result of people--parents, teachers, ministers, doctors, gun sellers--NOT paying any attention to folks who might seem "disturbed" or who might "have problems".  And by "paying attention" I don't just mean locking folks up--warehousing is useless whether it takes place in a prison, psychiatric ward, high school, homeless shelter, or public housing high-rise.

By "paying attention" to the kinds of "Problem Citizens" your Reaganoids would want us to ignore and treat like total garbage, I *MEAN* talking to people.  Trying to understand them, trying to at least *know* what they're saying, doing and *up to* before it all hits the damned fan.  We wouldn't *HAVE* half of these problems that we do, if only folks would actually *keep an eye* on their kids, neighbors....You know, if only folks would *CARE ABOUT* each other's well-being instead of adjourning to the iPod and Cell-phone and hiding away from "those other people" that the Media on *Both Sides* has conditioned us to ignore and treat as *Disposable* and less than *Human*.

Really folks.  NONE of these events are total surprises.  None of them.  At some point a stable, otherwise responsible person *willfully* dropped the ball, refused to pay attention and listen *On Purpose*, and as a result, folks were able to get *guns* when they had no business having them...

And were able to get *temptations* in their heads that clicked with their own worst, most barbaric natures....ones that they weren't *inclined* to resist by their own natures.

Sorry to go on so.  But honestly....it isn't the Media, or the Guns, or the Bibles.  It's US.  It's people refusing to pay attention to other people.  It's people *Trained* to withhold their own kindness and humanity, until Problem Citizens get mistreated, isolated, and further abused until they are ALLOWED TO SNAP.

Those last three words are important.  They didn't just snap, ok?  Other people LET THEM SNAP.  How did the shooter get his gun?  How did he get to the church *with* the gun?

Nobody paid him any attention.  Nobody asked any questions or said more than "get away from me, *you stink*".

It's a people problem, and not just the shooter's.  Not even.

You can hate me now.  ^_^

Answer 2

Was his a action any different from the 4 suicide bombers ?? No ! He was simply a mentally sick person. Unfortunately !!

Answer 3

No. The liberal left-wing nut jobs on TV and radio and in that church are responsible.

Answer 4

It is a combination of those and the rabid left wing idiots.  Extremists on both sides cause nothing but trouble, fomenting hatred and disunity.

Answer 5

absolutly NOT

the only person responsible for the tragedy is the a$$ whole that commited the murders

Answer 6

No, one man who made the choice to open fire in a church is responsible.

Answer 7

Of course not. Ask any liberal and they will explain that it's the guns fault. If we didn't have that pesky constitutional right to keep and bear arms, there would be no shootings like this.