Today's Eternal Sadness

9 dead church-goers in Charleston SC.

Nine people were shot to death by a white man at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, on Wednesday night, the Charleston Police Department confirmed at a news conference early Thursday.

Calling it "the worst night of my career," Charleston Police Chief Greg Mullen said the gunman entered the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church during a prayer meeting and opened fire. Eight people were found dead at the scene. Two others were transported to a hospital, where one later died.

None of the victims has been named by police. However, State House Minority leader Todd Rutherford said the church's pastor, state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, was among those killed, according to the Associated Press.

-and-
Can you say, "tone-deaf, Guv"?

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) also issued a statement, and urged people to pray for the victims and their families.

“While we do not yet know all of the details, we do know that we’ll never understand what motivates anyone to enter one of our places of worship and take the life of another,” she said. “Please join us in lifting up the victims and their families with our love and prayers.”

I'll now indulge myself in a little speculation while insisting on calling it an attempt to think a little more generally: We don't know what moved this one asshole to do this one incredibly shitty thing, but I'm thinking maybe part of that motivation has something to do with "conservatives" almost constantly setting Americans against one another by promoting policies that require Us-vs-Them choices (ie: "We don't have the money to take care of all those veterans because your Democrat neighbor is giving it all to The Welfare Moochers".  -or-  "Teachers are just a bunch of elitist union thugs with college diplomas, and they're teaching the children of hard-working patriotic Americans to hate Jesus."), and then shrugging it all off when something bad happens because of all that, saying, "Whoa - who coulda knowed?"

And then this:

A new study attempts to debunk the claim that gun owners rely on their firearms for self-defense.

The left-leaning Violence Policy Center released a study Wednesday that finds people are much more likely to use a gun to kill someone without cause than to protect themselves.

According to the study, gun owners committed 259 justifiable homicides compared to 8,342 criminal homicides in 2012, the most recent year data was available.

That means gun owners are 32 times more likely to kill someone without cause than to act in self-defense, the study reasoned.

First, I really don't know why this comes as any kinda news to anybody at this point.

But anyway, secondly, the American Civil War didn't end in 1865 - partly because it started a long time before 1861.  We just take breaks once in a while.  The shit is never very far below the surface, and it bubbles up in an amazing variety of ways.

And third - as kind of a recap - I just have to wonder about a certain brand of politics that  advocates violence (in a subtle plausibly deniable way of course) while refusing to limit the principle means of violence, and then pretends to be confused as to the connections that seem so obvious between the two.