Shooter Railed Against Liberals, Gays

(CBS/AP)  The man accused of a gun attack at a church that killed two people and seriously wounded five others apparently selected the congregation because of its liberal social stance, according to the Knoxville, Tenn., police chief.

Jim D. Adkisson, 58, is in custody and charged with first-degree murder in the shootings. He is being held on $1 million bond.

Officials said five people remain in the hospital - four in critical condition, one serious.

At a press conference Monday morning Police Chief Sterling Owen IV said a 4-page letter discovered in Adkisson's car following the attack at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church Sunday morning revealed his frustration over not being able to find work, with his anger targeting gays and what he called "the liberal movement."

"He seemed obsessed, saying he hated the 'liberal movement,'" Owen said. "He did express frustration that the 'liberal movement' was getting more jobs. He felt he was being kept out of the loop because of his age and because he was not liberal."

When asked if the letter contained vulgarities or profanities, Owen said, "It wasn't very complimentary."

The letter, which was not addressed to anyone specifically but was signed by Adkisson, did indicate that he specifically targeted the church. "It appears that church had received some publicity in the recent past regarding its liberal stance on things," said Owen.

The church is known for advocating women's and gay rights and founding an American Civil Liberties Union chapter.

He also said there was no indication that Adkisson was targeting the children.

"He intended to take a lot of casualties - he had at least 76 rounds on him," Owen said.

He said the letter indicated Adkisson did not expect to leave the church alive.

The 12-gauge number 4 semi-automatic shotgun was purchased a month ago. Adkisson had no other weapons on him when he was apprehended but police recovered a .38 handgun at his house.

It was revealed that Adkisson had been a member of the 101st Airborne and according to his resume had worked at a variety of places around the country. He holds an associate's degree in mechanical engineering but was last actively employed in the Knoxville area in 2006.

His frustration at not being able to find work was apparently exacerbated by a letter police say Adkisson recently received from the state saying he was losing some or all of his food stamp benefits. "That gave him even greater concern," Owen said.

He has no next of kin and no family, according to his statement to police.

Police said they did not know when the letter would be released as it is evidence. None of the several videos taken in the sanctuary will be released.

"It's important for us to ensure that the evidence is treated properly, legally, and that we don't run into any evidentiary problems."

Police have been joined by the FBI in investigating if this is a hate crime because of the church community's work on social issues.

One neighbor reported that Adkisson had problems with Christianity.

More than 200 people were in attendance of a children's play Sunday morning when Adkisson walked in with a 12-gauge shotgun and a bag full of ammunition and began firing.

"It was shock and you're trying to have it make sense in the context of where you're at - you're in church," said Jamie Parkey.

Church member Marty Murphy told The Knoxville News Sentinel that she was about 30 to 40 feet from the shooter when the rampage began.

She said church members dove under church pews and others ran out the sanctuary.

Murphy told the newspaper some of the children were close to the shooter when the attack began.

"One little girl had blood all over her," she said. "She was just hysterical. I don't know how that girl is going to sleep tonight."

"Right after the play had started, we were sitting there and heard a loud explosion," Terry Uselton told CBS' The Early Show. "Couldn't figure out what was going on; we thought maybe it was something with the lighting or something went wrong. Heard a second explosion. And then I turned around to look and saw a man standing in the doorway with a gun. And so I got up from my seat and started toward him."

Uselton helped tackle Adkisson to the ground.

He said, being a teacher, he has thought through scenarios of how to protect children in the event of a school shooting. "This is one of those cases," Uselton said. "That was my thought: 'Somebody's got to stop this guy.'"

Another witness told the newspaper that the man killed was a hero.

"Greg McKendry stood in the front of the gunman and took the blast to protect the rest of us," Barbara Kemper said.

McKendry's foster son Taylor Bessette watched it happen.

"He stood in front of the bullets between the child and the gunman and actually took the bullets to save the child," said Bessette.

When it was over, eight people were injured and 60-year-old McKendry lay dead. Sixty-one-year-old Linda Kraeger, another of the victims, died in the hospital last night. No children were physically injured.

Afterwards, Uselton said, his three grandchildren had many questions which he struggled to answer. "We talked a lot about it after it happened. We were very forthcoming. And these are just things you can't explain. But we talked about it. And I think that was very helpful to them."

Uselton, who has attended the church for 24 years, knew McKendry.

"Our hearts go out to Greg and Linda and their families and the tragic loss," he said. "Greg was a wonderful guy, wonderful person in the church. He was just a great person. And his loss will be felt for a long time. We really are going to miss him."

Police have no motive yet for the crime.

One witness said the shooter started by shouting "hateful words."

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[nodemotwit]

It is always amazing that liberals work so diligently to disarm the one segment of the society that represent the minimal threat of gun violence (ie: law abiding gun owners) while those that pose the majority threat of gun violence (ie: drug-dealing gangs, organized crime, career criminals of all ilk {murder, robbery, rape, etc}) have sworn a blood oath to ignore every law created by society.

Or how liberals single out one of the Bill of INDIVIDUAL Rights and try to morph - just that one - into a STATE right. And if the latter really was the intent of the founding fathers, how did they allow such a gross violation of the Constitution as ''self defense by firearm'' to propagate across America from day one ?

The following are two examples of people who would have died, in the liberal vision of America, w/o their 2nd Amendment right to self defense.

www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/wfaa/latestnews/stories/wfaa080214_lj_hawes.bfc57dff.html

www.kltv.com/Global/story.asp?S=7886169

Did anyone think a SC with common sense (ie: one NOT considering our Constitution as a ''living, breathing, interpret it on the whim-of-the-moment'' document) was going to deny the 2nd Amendment right of these law abiding citizens to defend their lives with a firearm when set upon by criminals ?

(cont)

[nodemotwit]

(cont)

But in validating the lower courts ruling I hope their opinions also clarify/re-affirm that the Federal government does have the right to regulate the types of firearms that may be possessed. And, as a law-abiding gun owner, I would like to see the access to both firearms and ammunition by criminals and the mentally unstable minimized.

Personally, I''d like to see the Firearm part of the ATF take on some responsibilities that are similar to the Center of Disease Control (CDC). In the latter case, when someone contracts a population threatening disease (eg: tuberculoses), the CDC is, by law, notified by medical practitioners then acts A.R. to prevent the spread to the rest of the population. So, for the ATF, this would mean that :

** Medical practitioners would be required, by law, to report mentally unstable patients to the ATF in every case that they are deemed a threat to themselves or their family or the general population.

** The Armed services would be required, by law, to report any discharge from the service for serious mental problems.

Similarly, given the youth of many of these perps, a special case needs to be made wrt juvenile criminal records, specifically:

** Juvenile violent offenses would, by law, be reported to the ATF, and considered by the ATF until the age of 25, after which those records would be purged, unless those individuals developed an adult rap sheet involving more violent offenses by age 25.

(cont)

[nodemotwit]

(cont)

THEN, the ATF, firearm dealers and gun show promoters would need to modernize their equipment such that both firearm and ammunition purchases are vetted by the ATF, online, w/128 bit encryption (ie: same security as CC purchases).

And for those conservatives worried about the ATF tracking ammunition purchases, every purchasers name/address could be submitted by the gun shops computer along with a pool of randomly picked local state residents, with the ATF computer on the other end quickly (less that 1 second) providing an electronic thumbs up/down for all of them, then the gun shops computer would filter out all but the intended buyer. If the ATF were to track in this scenario then it would appear, over time, that 100% of the states adult residents are purchasing ammunition.


Since we give medical data to the CDC to protect the general populace I do not think it is as big stretch to give similar data to the ATF to, again, protect the general populace.

=======================

(cont)

[nodemotwit]

(cont)

Additionally, the ATF needs to set national standards within which the state governments can restrict the parameters of firearm ownership AND interstate transportation for travel/vacation purposes.

** The former: To avoid DC-like scenarios, where self defense becomes a non-option. Truly self-defense threatening restrictions, like requiring a firearm to be disassembled and scattered into 4 corners of a house in individually locked containers, or requiring a special tool to change a clip, like in CA, would be illegal per Federal law.

** The latter: To avoid the imbecilic hodge-podge of different state firearm transportation rules across the US.


Finally, the ATF could be empowered to take steps to make it more costly for individuals w/a history of violent misdemeanor convictions (but no felonies) to LEGALLY (key word) acquire guns. For example, for a period of time (5yrs ?) after their most recent violent misdemeanor conviction they could be required to adhere to NFA-like requirements (mug shot, prints, gun tax, gun registration, interstate transportation restrictions, etc.). That would be a way to try and dissuade these individuals from proceeding onto violent felony infractions, and make it easier to ID the ones that do. But to thwart the inevitable vindictive spousal units associated w/US divorce you would need some stiff penalties for staged events leading to false convictions.

(cont)

[nodemotwit]

(cont)

But this only addresses part of the problem. Some other aspects are that :

** In certain states, liberals encourage illegal immigration and, by default, the illegal documentation industries that enable the former, and therefore the ''drivers license as ID'' for gun/ammunition purchases, as vetted in such an ATF system/responsibility upgrade as outlined above, would be much less robust. For this reason, National ID or similar protocols may be required.

** In certain states, human life has become too cheap. For example, the rap sheet of the perp Arthur Mann, who got life (2-28-08) in GA for shooting his ex-girlfriend, in public, shows that he was previously released after serving only FOUR years of a pathetic 10yr sentence for a prior murder in FL.

www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/06/shooter.suspect/index.html?iref=newssearch

I do not know if this is due to the liberal anthem of the ''perp is the victim'', or neocons who are too cheap to push for execution-or-life incarceration for murder, or maybe both, but FOUR years for murder ??
And even when these murderers are condemned to life in prison, what are they faced with ?

(cont)

[nodemotwit]

(cont)

A lifetime of :
__free medical care,
__free food
__bed with fresh linen
__air conditioning and heat
__exercise, and
__reading materials.

All at taxpayer expense.
Wow.
I bet Arthur Mann was in that GA courtroom, just begging for the death penalty.


(As a side note, why is it OK to use DNA evidence to free a death row inmate, but not OK to use DNA evidence to put someone on death row ? And if DNA evidence can accelerate someone off death row quickly (and rightly so), why couldnt it also accelerate their execution, especially when multiple witness to the crime are also involved ? ).

** In certain states, conservatives have implemented what are known as Project Exile laws (eg: VA). Specifically, felons are already prohibited by Federal law from possessing firearms (which, of course, does not prevent them from doing so when they leave prison, eg: Arthur Mann), but, with Project Exile, a felon even being caught jaywalking while in possession of a firearm will result in a 5yr incarceration w/o parole. This should be made into a Federal law applicable to all states, whether the sates want it or not, but it would have to be prosecuted in Federal courts to not financially burden states.

=======================

(cont)

[nodemotwit]

(cont)

This would still leave states to restrict citizen carry laws off their property, outside of their autos, as the state sees fit. Keep in mind though, that still would leave the looney left entities to make their childish gun laws, like requiring law abiding gun owners to transport their firearms outside their homes in a locked container with the word ''GUN'' in big white letters on the case (eg: Boulder, CO, Jan 17, 2001). Presumably this was so that their non-gun owning neighbors could be alerted to such a heinous threat so that they could start running around their home interiors, in circular desperation, hands flailing in the air, shrieking, until their law abiding but obviously evil gun-owning neighbor drove out of sight.

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Otherwise, I have seen prior posts mentioning 30,000 US citizens killed by guns every year. This is true, for 2004, but only to the extent that well over half of them are suicides. Liberals would have you believe that this group of suicide-by-gun individuals posses a unique genetic trait, such that if they do not have a gun then they will not commit suicide, EVER. Here is the actual CDC US mortality data for 2004:

By gun:
Suicide ........- 16,750
Homicide .......- 11,624
Accident .......- 649
Undetermined ...- 235

By other than gun:
Suicide ........- 15,689
Homicide .......- 5,733
Accidents ......- 111,363

(cont)

[nodemotwit]

(cont)

By Accident other than gun:
Auto/Truck/etc .- 48,053
Falls ..........- 18,807
Drowning .......- 3,308
Fire/Smoke .....- 3,229
Poisoning ......- 20,950
Unspecified ....- 17,016

www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr55/nvsr55_19.pdf

Since almost 15,700 other individuals managed to commit suicide W/O a gun, liberals will have to provide genetic proof that these 16,750 individuals are a genetically unique group, somehow predisposed to ''Suicide-by-gun-or-Live''. Since they cant, I submit that common sense dictates otherwise, which leaves the honest number of 12,500, not 30,000.

So if you are worried about gun homicide you are over 4X more likely to die in a car accident than by gun homicide.
And if you are worried about a gun accident you are 5X more likely to die in a fire accident, 32X more likely to die of a poisoning accident, and 74X more likely to die in a car accident than by a gun accident.

=======================

(cont)

[nodemotwit]

(cont)

But, that being said, I do not see why some common sense steps, possibly those outlined above, could not be taken to restrict access to both firearms and ammunition by criminals and the mentally unstable. The only problem is that all of this would require our liberal, conservative and independent representatives to come together and make it happen. Seeing all the other un-enforced laws they are already collectively responsible for, Im not holding my breath.

PS - Interesting that at:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/29/national/main4302517.shtml
where (unlike in this article) it is actually divulged that
this TN perp had once threatened to kill his former wife,
there is not a single post...

[yamuttya]

the publish button malfunctioned......again.
Ive had it with this site.
Like so many things about cbs this site is useless