Dylan Roof sentenced to death

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Jan 12, 2017
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#21
Sorry Moko it is NOT school teachers job to raise children, that's the parents job. Sirk, you think this is a banana republic, feel free to leave. This entire situation is tragic from the murder of worshipers to a sentence that takes another life but does nothing to prevent or even lessen crime.
Nobody said it was teachers' jobs to raise kids. Yet, the argument can be made: the governments of our countries demand that children be put into educational institutions for most of the day, five days a week. While they are in school, they are under the guardianship of the teachers and staff. In many ways, teachers do help to raise children. Any teacher will tell you: teaching is more than just imparting facts on children. Teaching is also about looking after many children's wellbeing; recognizing when a student is having a hard time; helping children from disadvantaged backgrounds or from unstable home lives to make something better of themselves. It's not just a day job.

Some parents aren't fit to raise kids, just like some teachers aren't fit to teach. That doesn't mean we just roll over and say "oh well, nothing to say, nothing to do. It is what it is". People should be striving to make mental health services better, to train teachers in counselling, to enable schools to better identify students who are at risk for, or are currently experiencing, issues with their mental health.

That should be the logical step forward.

Here in Ireland, I would expect that if a kid shot up a school, questions would be asked. Questions like "why did everyone fail to notice these risks?"
 
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FlSnookman7

Senior Member
Jun 27, 2015
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#22
Nobody said it was teachers' jobs to raise kids. Yet, the argument can be made: the governments of our countries demand that children be put into educational institutions for most of the day, five days a week. While they are in school, they are under the guardianship of the teachers and staff. In many ways, teachers do help to raise children. Any teacher will tell you: teaching is more than just imparting facts on children. Teaching is also about looking after many children's wellbeing; recognizing when a student is having a hard time; helping children from disadvantaged backgrounds or from unstable home lives to make something better of themselves. It's not just a day job.

Some parents aren't fit to raise kids, just like some teachers aren't fit to teach. That doesn't mean we just roll over and say "oh well, nothing to say, nothing to do. It is what it is". People should be striving to make mental health services better, to train teachers in counselling, to enable schools to better identify students who are at risk for, or are currently experiencing, issues with their mental health.

That should be the logical step forward.

Here in Ireland, I would expect that if a kid shot up a school, questions would be asked. Questions like "why did everyone fail to notice these risks?"
Stop pretending you speak for Ireland. Being of Irish decent I know for a fact not all Irish are liberals like you. I guess had roof used a car bomb then you might be more qualified to answer.
 
Jan 12, 2017
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#23
Stop pretending you speak for Ireland. Being of Irish decent I know for a fact not all Irish are liberals like you. I guess had roof used a car bomb then you might be more qualified to answer.
Look, it's hardly liberal to have a bit of common sense. Being Irish born, I know for a fact that an American-born citizen is not Irish. Being not Irish, I'll go out on a whim and assume you have absoluetly no idea whether Ireland is predominantly "liberal" or not, not least because you seem to be totally unaware that Ireland is not a liberal/conservative bipartisanship like your beloved USA.

But more to the point: do logical, thought out arguments offend you? Is that why you feel the need to become aggressive and pig-headed? Shame, cause with a demeanour like that, I doubt you'd get the vote to run Animal Farm, nevermind make educational policy.
 
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kaylagrl

Guest
#24
Young man withdraws from his peers, skips school (from the 10th grade) starts acting very strangely, stops dressing well and grooming himself, gets rings around his eyes, starts posing with guns and posting all sorts of crazy things online. Then shoots up a school and is sentenced to death without a mandatory mental health examination.

IMO, the schoolteachers and counsellors who should have recognised that these are symptoms of severe mental illness, have failed miserably. And America, just like it always does, puts its hands up in the air, absolves itself of all social responsibility and hands down an execution.

And a couple of weeks later, it'll happen all over again somewhere else.

His mental capabilities were tested before he went to trail.If he wasn't fit to stand trail they would have said so and the situation would have been totally different. He was fit to stand trail and also to defend himself.
 
Jan 12, 2017
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#25
His mental capabilities were tested before he went to trail.If he wasn't fit to stand trail they would have said so and the situation would have been totally different. He was fit to stand trail and also to defend himself.
Clearly our countries have different definitions of mentally capability.
 
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kaylagrl

Guest
#26
Clearly our countries have different definitions of mentally capability.

Possibly,I wouldn't know enough about your country to judge that. I do know his mental capabilities would have been tested before trail. Not everyone who commits a horrific crime is mentally impaired.There are people who know exactly what they are doing and do it with purpose. It seems he was racist,and full of hatred. He determined to kill black people and he carried it out.He knew what he was doing therefore he was capable of knowing right from wrong.
 

p_rehbein

Senior Member
Sep 4, 2013
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#27
This person received TWO Court Ordered Psyc Evaluations to assure he was mentally competent to stand Trial.

I believe the Death Penalty is both Legal and Biblical, but I have admitted more than once here I, personally, could not deliver such a Sentence were I on the Jury.

In this case, I am not surprised that this was the decision of the Jury, and, given his crime, it was justified.
 
Jan 12, 2017
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#28

Possibly,I wouldn't know enough about your country to judge that. I do know his mental capabilities would have been tested before trail. Not everyone who commits a horrific crime is mentally impaired.There are people who know exactly what they are doing and do it with purpose. It seems he was racist,and full of hatred. He determined to kill black people and he carried it out.He knew what he was doing therefore he was capable of knowing right from wrong.
Knowing what you are doing and being mentally healthy aren't the same things. I'm pretty sure Albert Pike knew what he was doing when he hammered nails into his pelvis, it doesn't mean he was mentally healthy. Quite the contrary. No mentally healthy person drives nails into their own hips, just like no mentally healthy person goes out and shoots a lot of black people for no reason.

Whether or not the courts deemed the lad fit to stand trial is no assurance that he was; different countries obviously have different thresholds for determining legal sanity, but I suppose that's the crux of the disagreement: I personally think the way mental health is viewed in the US legal system is narrow and infantile. It is absolutely clear to me that he was mentally ill. The withdrawal from peers, the self isolation, the obsessive compulsions, the fixation of ideas, the persecutory beliefs, the drug use, sleeping in his car instead of his house, bizarre beliefs about an imminent race-war, the staunch belief that what he did was right and just. Those are all classic signs of mental illness. And he would be about the right age for the onset of psychosis.

So to have him executed without recognizing any of this, just seems like a narcissistic denial. A way of saying "well, it's not mental illness, so how could anyone have recognized it? Surely there's nothing to recognize. He's just BAD, and BAD PEOPLE just do BAD THINGS". Infantile. Superficial. Unhelpful. It's not going to prevent it from happening again. It just satiates the need for people to sweep the problem under the rug and carry on with their dandy lives. That's the same attitude that got those kids killed in the first place: Roof's housemate had listened to Roof talk about his planned race war for months. A black acquaintance of Roof's listened to Roof's detailed plans to shoot up the school, a week before it happened. Neither of them said anything to police. Why? Because they didn't want to believe it. They wanted to sweep the problem under the rug and carry on with their dandy lives.
 

Oncefallen

Idiot in Chief
Staff member
Jan 15, 2011
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#29
So to have him executed without recognizing any of this, just seems like a narcissistic denial. A way of saying "well, it's not mental illness, so how could anyone have recognized it? Surely there's nothing to recognize. He's just BAD, and BAD PEOPLE just do BAD THINGS". Infantile. Superficial. Unhelpful. It's not going to prevent it from happening again. It just satiates the need for people to sweep the problem under the rug and carry on with their dandy lives. That's the same attitude that got those kids killed in the first place: Roof's housemate had listened to Roof talk about his planned race war for months. A black acquaintance of Roof's listened to Roof's detailed plans to shoot up the school, a week before it happened. Neither of them said anything to police. Why? Because they didn't want to believe it. They wanted to sweep the problem under the rug and carry on with their dandy lives.
It might help to educate yourself about a subject prior to trying to debate it. Dylan Roof walked into a church bible study and shot 12 adults killing 9 of them, not a school murdering children.
 
Jan 12, 2017
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#30
It might help to educate yourself about a subject prior to trying to debate it. Dylan Roof walked into a church bible study and shot 12 adults killing 9 of them, not a school murdering children.
My mistake. I'm watching a documentary on school shootings at the moment and trying to type at the same time.

It doesn't take away from the point though. People knew what was going to happen. The kid was mentally ill and nobody did anything to prevent it.
 
H

Hellooo

Guest
#31
Hindsight is 20/20
 
Jan 12, 2017
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#32
Hindsight is 20/20
Well yea that's true. I guess the reason I'm focusing on hindsight so fiercely is because this kind of thing seems to be a recurring pattern over there. There's a fine line between looking back to learn and flogging a dead horse, but from the outside it looks like America hasn't gotten finished with the first and it's moving on to the second. This will happen again. You know, and I know it. And it's such a tragedy because it can be significantly limited, if not avoided altogether, with the right safeguards.
 

Smoke

Senior Member
Oct 27, 2016
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#33
This person received TWO Court Ordered Psyc Evaluations to assure he was mentally competent to stand Trial.

I believe the Death Penalty is both Legal and Biblical, but I have admitted more than once here I, personally, could not deliver such a Sentence were I on the Jury.

In this case, I am not surprised that this was the decision of the Jury, and, given his crime, it was justified.
I'm a bit conflicted on capital punishment myself.

The carnal side of me is 100% for killing wicked people. I can anecdotally recite Romans 13:4 to support that side... However, my spirit tells me God stopped the execution of the woman and commanded her to go and sin no more (John 8:11).

I suppose we could argue the woman was remorseful and so her execution was stopped... but that is adding meaning to the bible. It doesn't state or reasonably suggest that. I'm curious what others think on this topic.
 

Dude653

Senior Member
Mar 19, 2011
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#34
I would have voted for a death sentence with no hesitation. It's the right thing to do.
 
Dec 12, 2013
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#35
He also confessed so I'm thinking the trial should have taken about five minutes
I laughed out loud when I read this......HAH hilarious and I agree....and punishment should be swift and sure........the "smoking gun" and certain guilt should be met with immediate execution when it comes to capital crimes such as this instead of 20 years of appeals and millions of tax dollars spent....same for child rapists as well........!
 
Dec 12, 2013
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#36
This person received TWO Court Ordered Psyc Evaluations to assure he was mentally competent to stand Trial.

I believe the Death Penalty is both Legal and Biblical, but I have admitted more than once here I, personally, could not deliver such a Sentence were I on the Jury.

In this case, I am not surprised that this was the decision of the Jury, and, given his crime, it was justified.
I could in capital cases and child rape cases....no problem......there is a time to kill....this is one of those times.....appreciate your conviction though....!
 

p_rehbein

Senior Member
Sep 4, 2013
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#37
I believe it is a just punishment in different instances, it is just my personal hang up I guess........saw too many ugly things in the past........and just don't think I could vote to sentence someone to death....no problem with those who can........

I could in capital cases and child rape cases....no problem......there is a time to kill....this is one of those times.....appreciate your conviction though....!