What the hell is going on in Tennessee?

[ColbertWatcher]

Today, two people are shot at a mall in Knoxville (http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/oct/08/shooting-knoxville-center-mall/)

In July, people were shot at a church in Knoxville (http://www.knoxnews.com/news/news/local/church-shooting/)

Six people, including 4 children are shot in March in Memphis (http://www.wmctv.com/Global/story.asp?S=7960066)

Anyone know what's going on?

[SoCalDem]

1. 1)easy access to guns.. 2) pissed off, unhinged people with guns.. n/t

[BrklynLiberal]

2. Sounds like an explanation to me.

[ColbertWatcher]

3. Pfft. You just described St. Paul in early September, but ...

... there weren't a bunch of shootings.

[SharonAnn]

16. Right-wing, angry, Republicans. Just last week a student was suspended for wearing

a T-shirt to school the had the obama logo hand printed on it with a red circle around it and slash through it
("No Obama"). It was against the school policy to wear any clothing that was "disruptive".

When the boy's father was interviewed he said that the people at the school needed to understand the First Ammendment and that after this event, they needed "to be knocked around a little".

When Ihear that I commented that it was a typical response around here. Whatever it is, if you don't like it, respond violently to it. Hit somebody, stab somebody, shoot somebody, etc. Really sick.

But then, you learn that these people listen to hate radio all the time and get themselves all worked up, their adrenaline levels must be high and they're into the "fight or flight response" from adrenaline.

They haven't learned the Cherokee saying about the two wolves that live within each of us. One is the wolf of anger, hatred, and violence, while the other one is the wolf of understanding, compassion, and love. The one that wins is the one you feed.

[tnlefty]

4. There have been many shooting in Chattanooga

during the past couple of months. Some are reported as drug related, but I really don't know what the hell is going on.

[colonel odis]

5. you left out the shooting in the high school in knoxville a few weeks ago.

as a result, the city council empowered knoxville police to conduct random searches of students on school grounds. what a great environment for learning.

east tennessee is a strange, strange place. i went to school there and love it in many ways. but they sure are some peculiar folks.

[asjr]

10. I went to high school and college in E. TN also.

Of course that is so long ago I suppose we thought it natural.

[ColbertWatcher]

11. Do you have a link? n/t

[colonel odis]

21. here they are

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/news/local/central-high-shooting/

for the shooting


http://www.wbir.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=65393&catid=2

for the searches. my mistake, though. it hasn't passed the second reading. only the first.

[ColbertWatcher]

What a mess. I'm sorry. n/t

[zazen]

6. lots of heroin in "middle class families;" social services slashed; high unemployment?

I've had close family there for some time. I asked my sister this the other night, after I read about the court case where a teacher's assistant was sleeping with a high school junior and her husband shot the student (and was let off with a light sentence, I think.) My sister's a social worker so she sees it all. I do know that a great foster home was decimated by a bunch of idiots in central admin social services, who've reorganized everything (and really f-'d it up) so that a lot more foster kids are on the streets on their 18th b-day or o/w not getting serviced. My niece, now 20, has had four? friends in the teens and 20s die of heroin overdoses.

There's a progressive core in the town (the university, TVA, etc), with rabid right-wingers interspersed and lots of racial tension. When I think about it, I wonder how many other town are quite like that.

[TNDemo]

7. You forgot the kid shot at the high school (where I went).

Didn't know about the mall. Yikes. There was also a woman murdered there at a hotel and found in the river a few weeks ago.

[zazen]

23. she was kidnapped at her hotel by four? Mexicans who worked there--that ups the rage too

Now that I think about it, you do have three impoverished groups--poor white Appalachia, inner city African Americans, and Mexican immigrants--duking it out for decreasing services in an already weak economy (vis a vis the rest of the country). A substantial minority of kids from the "money" in Sequoia Hills are into heroin. There's a pharmacy with a "drs office inside" next to that neighborhood that's an obvious front for oxycontin and methadone scrips (apparently the users line up outside the door before it opens in the morning.) You've got a small progressive activist population, with a sizeable number of gays and lesbians. Makes for a potent mix.

I always thought my sister could write four years' worth of scripts for a TV show for that place.

[susanbanks44]

8. Hillbilly militias are on the rise. n/t

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

12. Serious question: What's a hillbilly militia?

Never heard the term before.

[SharonAnn]

17. WE have a couple of "militia" compaounds around here. High, barbed wire fences, lots of armed men

often Filipino wives, and law enforcement won't enter their compounds. They're outgunned and they knowit.

[NNN0LHI]

22. Got them in Michigan too. Upper Peninsula

Michigan is where the term "hillbilly" originated.

Don

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

24. So kind of like the 90s style anti-gubmint militias?

What's their purpose, I guess that's the question I'm getting at. Is it just a bunch of boys with their toys, or do they have an actual agena?

[NNN0LHI]

25. Not to jump out of line here but the ones I seen in Michigan just hated government

All government. They appeared to hate Repubs and Dems equally up there. I was too afraid to even snap photos of their compounds as we drove by.

Don

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

9. Everybody has guns, the economy is awful, and a huge number of the population are alcoholics. n/t

[SharonAnn]

20. Alcoholics or drug addicts. Methamphetamine, Oxycodone, etc.

[JuniperLea]

13. I have family in Tennessee...

Although my family is doing well, I hear things are getting rough, financially speaking. I expect to see more of this all over the place. There was a big murder/suicide in So Cal yesterday... it was about financial ruin.

Please resist the hillbilly banter... that is as condescending and rude as "boy" or "that one"...

[ColbertWatcher]

18. Who is pushing hillbilly banter? n/t

[JuniperLea]

19. Oh, not you...

Some people in your thread...

[ColbertWatcher]

27. I just saw that.

I was thinking of starting a thread about all the mortgage-related murder-suicide pacts, but there just seems to be so many of them!

[JuniperLea]

36. It's getting scary!

I guess the suicide pact is the new stock brokers jumping from buildings?

[ColbertWatcher]

37. I think it's different than that.

The stock brokers were more like gamblers; the people who are committing suicide weren't.

[zazen]

14. oh, and their outrageous zero tolerance policies, which only hurt the high-performing kids

Isn't there a class action lawsuit in TN about zero tolerance crap? My nephew really suffered from this (big time--he's still recovering), but not like a classmate who was the valedictorian and shot himself to death when he was suspended his senior year (and his V status stripped) after someone found some sort of non-weapony knife in his uncle's car, which the student had used to drive to a FOOTBALL GAME. At least, that's how I heard it.

I hate zero tolerance. But that's off topic.

[ColbertWatcher]

38. I'm sure that if you started your own thread about it ...

... it would be an interesting conversation.

[Blue_Tires]

15. people are looking more and more to violence to resolve even minor disputes

it is ingrained in our collective psyche...

[2Design]

26. right to work state - it is poor - they are stressed n/t

[GeorgeGist]

28. They're very religulous

[brentspeak]

33. So how do you explain all the massacres that Washington state has experienced?

[southernleftylady]

34. it happens everywhere I dont get the whole TN thing myself nt

[southernleftylady]

29. I am from Tn... couldnt you get these type of headlines in other states too?

not an excuss but really? Isnt this really how america is headed?

[ColbertWatcher]

30. "Isnt this really how america is headed?" I hope it isn't.

BTW, these particular stories are for multiple murders where guns are the weapon.

[southernleftylady]

32. Then lets pray that Obama does win because sadly.. in this economy its only going to get worse

[JuniperLea]

40. Guns, poison, bombs, whatever...

I don't think it makes a difference.

[JuniperLea]

39. You are so right

It's all over... and I think it's a symptom of the hard times that have fallen upon us all.

The hillbilly remarks got to me... I happen to celebrate such people... we could all learn from them.

The "hillbillies" of Appalachia could teach us all quite a bit... and it would be useful in these hard times.

[slackmaster]

41. Those kinds of incidents happen almost daily in Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, etc.

It's newsworthy when they happen in Knoxville because they are unusual for Knoxville.

Isnt this really how america is headed?

Not necessarily, but it will be a year or more before compiled statistics can be used to make a case for any kind of trend in crime rates in progress now.

[codjh9]

31. Well, did you hear about THIS one? I wonder how many we're going to see like this:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-porterranch7-2008oct07,0,7425239.story

[ColbertWatcher]

35. I was thinking of compiling all the victims of GOP-failed policies, like ...

... that one 90-year-old lady who shot herself as the federal marshals came to evict her.

Or the woman who committed suicide one week before the family was scheduled to be forcibly removed. In her suicide note she asked her family to use her life insurance to keep the house.

[slackmaster]

42. There have been several threads about that one

Here's one: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3530183&mesg_id=3530183

I wonder how many we're going to see like this

Not many.