Unfortunately, current South Carolina state law prohibits permitted individuals from carrying a weapon in a church (S.C. Code Ann § 21-31-215). If even one of those poor sons-of-bitches had something in which to defend their lives, perhaps this may have turned out a little differently.
Churches, temples, sanctuaries etc. are supposed to be safe places where someone can meditate, pray, reflect on whatever without fear of attack. But that's also what makes gun free zones attractive to the unhinged extremist assholes. They know nobody is gonna shoot back until they've accomplished some measure of carnage. I pack legally wherever I go and that will now also include church.
The asshat went in there, participated in their meeting and announced that he was tired of black people raping and taking over the country. Gun control wouldn't have mattered because the asshat had hate in his heart and he would have found a way to do what he did. Maybe his parents shouldn't have given this clearly irresponsible asshat a .45 as a birthday present. I don't know.
But I do know President Stompy Foot lied his ass off about being the only advanced country that has this problem. He seems to have forgotten that he dispatched FrankenKerry and James Taylor to Paris after the Charlie Hedbo shootings. Or the shootings in that Australian chocolate shop. Or the hundreds of others in Europe over the last hundred years.
Immediately politicizing a tragedy like this is par for the course with this guy, though.
